Meet Alex Sanchez | AKA Sincero / Muralist / Graffiti Art Prevention Coordinator

We had the good fortune of connecting with Alex Sanchez and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Alex, can you walk us through the thought-process of starting your business?
“I will figure this out”. Those are the words I used to reassure myself when starting my business.

I come from a family that is inexperienced with entrepreneurship. My family are all hard workers but have always had this fear of starting their own business. As a teenager I’ve had an ambition to change my families story.

My game plan was to ask for help at city hall. City Hall has definitely helped me because they have answered all my questions. As well as YouTube. I took one business class in college but quickly realized the best way to learn is to jump right into it.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
My art career began when I was 13 years old.

I come from a city where gang banging was prevalent amongst teens. A lot of my close friends and a few of my family members gang bang. At an early age I knew that lifestyle wasn’t for me.

I like to think that the type of music I listened to as a kid helped me make better decisions for myself. I was submerged into the Hip-Hop culture. Back when rap stood for Rhythm And Poetry. When music had positive messages. Specifically hustler music. Music about bettering ourselves mentally and financially.

Within the hip hop culture, there are sub genres. One of them is graffiti. I was exposed to the culture at a very early age and it quickly became an interest for me while everyone around me was interested in the gang life.

Some might say graffiti is a stepping stone to gang affiliation. Which I wont say is false, but in its pure form, graffiti was meant as self expression before it was corrupted and became a toxic culture.

I saw guys like Obey Giant and Mecro from Philly who made graffiti a career and I knew right away this was my calling.

Despite getting incarcerated for graffiti, this is where I learned the skills to paint the murals everyone loves. I’ve been arrested 4 times for vandalism. I never vandalized any small business or residence. My only target was billboards, freeways, abandoned buildings, and sewer tunnels.

I tried going to school for art but it felt like cookie cutter programming. Art is subjective and to me art classes were boring.

So my training came from spray painting the streets at night.

Regardless of the stereotypes of graffiti, this is where I found my peace. I would put on my headphones, throw on my hoodie, and spray paint away from reality. This was my life as a teenager. Instead of gang banging or doing drugs, graffiti was the place where I coped with my problems.

Once I started seeing the cold truth that graffiti was a toxic culture, from getting arrested to getting stabbed in the abdomen by a rival crew. I knew I had to transition my skills somewhere else.

That’s when I made the jump to murals.

Now I am proud to say I am part of a school district program where I teach teenagers about spray painting and entrepreneurship.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
I would take them all over the city, from the hood to South Coast Plaza.

There’s street vendors on 5th and Raitt in the city of Santa Ana where you will find some of the best home cooked foods by older Mexican women. They all line up outside of the neighborhood church on the weekends. A warm champurrado and a chicken stuffed hand made tamal to start the day.

In the downtown area we will find some spots that most locals would call gentrified food, but since I like trying out new things we’ll take a stroll and grab some organic appetizers and organic drinks at Alta Baja on 4th street, the spice michelada is a must.

For dinner we gotta hit South Coast Plaza. You have to understand I come from a poor family. My mother would take us to South Coast to ride the carousel and buy us ice cream but she was never able to afford one of those fancy restaurants. To celebrate life and our accomplishments, we like going to south coast as a reminder that things are obtainable, it all depends on your perspective and how you take action to turn ideas to reality.

Mix Mix by Terrace is one of my favorites. Great hospitality, flavorful dishes with good size portions, and the ambiance is very modern and elegant.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
There is this saying in the hood that young guys like to glamorize: “Self Made”.

But I like to say “Community Made”.

I definitely wouldn’t be where I am without my communities support.

I even have my high school teachers actively supporting me. A couple of them recommended me to the SAUSD (Santa Ana Unified School District) for a position as coordinator and mentor in a program called “G.A.P”, Graffiti Art Prevention.

Mrs. Peña and Dr. Apóstol are both my high school teachers who found me 10 years later through an article they read about me and my art.

Long story short, they both gave the district a good word about me and I truly believe I wouldn’t be in this position if it wasn’t for them.

My community definitely supports my art. You can tell because non of my murals get tagged on. Even the local neighborhood gangs respect my work.

Shout out to my community!

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/_siincero_/?hl=en

Image Credits
Julie Leopo. The image with the voices of oc cover page.