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Now magazine gave Temper a double page spread, interviewing him after the success of the Sprite campaign. WITH HALF A DOZEN AEROSOL PAINTS AND A LOT TO PROVE, ARRON TURNED WOLVERHAMPTON INTO A TECHNIICOLOUR TOWN THE GRAFFITI KING MAKES GOOD When Arron Bird came home from work the other day, he found his two year old son Kaine had scribbled all over the living room wall. Most dads would have been cross, but Arron could only smile. After all as Kaine said: ‘Daddy draws on walls.’ And it’s true. In fact, 29 year old Arron’s reckoned to be one of Britain’s leading graffiti artists and his talent has won him a lucrative contract with soft drinks giant Coca-Cola - designing it's new sprite cans. This month, Arron’s street style designs, in aquamarine and silver, are on sale nationwide and his solo exhibition called Minuteman has just opened in Birmingham. ‘It’s like winning the lottery,’ admits Arron, whose love of spray-painting derelict walls began when he was 11 years old and totally frustrated by his failure at school. ‘I never felt comfortable in class’ he remembers, No one realised I was dyslexic. I hated reading out loud, so I fooled around to detract attention from me. Of course, I got labelled as being disruptive'. ‘The only thing I was good at was drawing, Art lessons should have been good, but they were boring. Everything the teacher was teaching us I could already do. At break, when we’d go outside, I used to lose my rag a bit and sound off to my mate. That’s how I got my nickname of Temper’. Looking for stimulation, Arron read all about hip hop culture and graffiti art in a magazine and was ‘blown away’. ‘My friends dad worked in a car shop, so I asked him to get me a few spray cans,’ says Arron. ‘He came back with half a dozen. I’d already seen the perfect place, a dark creepy wall covered in fungi in an underpass nearby. People hardly went there because it was so horrible. We got some torches, waited ‘til dark and crept in. I suppose I knew it was illegal, but it didn’t seem to register. ‘I scraped off the fungi with an old can and then started spraying bright yellow and red everywhere. It was brilliant. I covered and area about 12ft by 9ft in beautiful colours with a character in ski-goggles in the foreground. I wanted to add my signature, so I wrote Temper, the name I still use today.’ Expressing himself through graffiti made Arron feel confident and proud. ‘Afterwards, I felt so big and important that my feet didn’t touch the ground. You never again get a buzz like the buzz of your first street painting. But I didn’t dare tell anyone. The next day at school, people were talking about the underpass painting and saying how good it was. So I wanted to tell them that it was mine, but the fewer people who knew the better.’ 'I painted over racist slogans on ugly, unwanted sites and made them beautiful' Soon Temper creations were appearing overnight on crumbling walls all over his home town of Wolverhampton. ‘I never thought of myself as a vandal,’ says Arron. ‘I always chose ugly, unwanted sites and made them beautiful. Often I painted over nasty slogans such as “National Front” and “Wogs Out” and replaced them with bright pictures. Designing with spray cans is difficult because aerosols, aren’t designed to draw with, but I learnt my craft as I went.' The closest I got to being caught was when a guard dog started sniffing around me. I dropped my can and ran but, as I climbed a wall to escape, the dog grabbed my leg and ripped my trousers.’ Despite his attempt at secrecy, news of Arron’s talent spread and soon friends were asking him to daub his distinctive designs on denim jackets, school bags and pencil cases. ‘People kept telling me to go to art school,’ says Arron, ‘But I’d lost faith in the education system. To earn money, I tried bricklaying and grave digging, then ended up driving a forklift truck. In my spare time, I was always painting and learning about technique.' ‘Then, about three years ago, my grandad died. We’d been very close and it knocked me for six. It made me look at my life. My partner Kerry and I already had our daughter Taylor and I realised I wanted her to be proud of me. I was going brain dead at work and spent more time drawing on boxes in the yard than working. I knew that if I was ever going to be a full-time artist, I’d have to take a risk. Kerry agreed, a friend offered me a workshop rent free for six months and I just went for it.’ Commissions began trickling in and Arron who’d long given up illegal wall spraying found himself creating street murals and album covers. He helped create the longest ever piece of graffiti art in the world and also started demonstrating his art at festivals. At the 2000 Sprite Urban Games exhibition in London Arron’s image of a breakdancer caught the attention of Coca-Cola bosses, who asked him to submit designs for the new Sprite can. ‘I sent them a handful of different sketches.’ says Arron. ‘But heard nothing for eight weeks. Then suddenly, they phoned to say I’d been chosen to design the can. It was a great break and now things are going so well, I know this is just the beginning.’ Linda Hawkins Minuteman, an exhibition of Arron’s canvases and a special graffiti wall, will be on display at the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery from 25 May until 22nd June. Call 0121-303 2834 for details Please click to the 'Related files' button to veiw the full article.