It was early skateboard and snowboard graphics, along with graffiti culture, that turned Denver-based muralist Mike Graves on to illustration and design. Since the ’90s, he has been fine-tuning his character-based artwork and laying paint on buildings globally, and he is now at a place where he can be selective about where that output lands. This season, you’ll find it on the Breckenridge Brewery Never Summer board.
Graves hails from a time when snowboarding wasn’t welcome at many of his local Colorado resorts. That led him up to Loveland Pass, where he and his crew would catch a hitch to hike the backcountry. He’s a true product of the era’s skate and snow culture, and that primary design influence shines through his work. Reminiscing about his teen years, Graves says, “I would say in the ’90s, when a lot of the Lib Tech stuff came out and Jamie Lynn’s art was around, and all the skaters and snowboarders [were] doing the board graphics, that was a huge influence.”
He has stayed true to his illustrative style since the beginning, and he’s now able to take any concept and turn out a scene full of whimsy that is easily identifiable as his own. “It’s just one of those things that, after drawing that similar style for 25 years, I’m able to draw different animals, people, clouds and flowers,” he says, “and it all has the same feel and weight to it.” According to Graves, his work marries art with the expression of board culture, highlighting the counterculture where he found his roots. “There weren’t many skaters in my school. If you skated, you were kind of an outcast and got bullied,” he says. In reference to the progress he’s made in his career, he compares every step of the way to landing a new trick. “It’s that feeling when you’re never satisfied,” he explains. “Every new trick leads towards the next.”
It took only one semester for Graves’ college art teacher to recognize that her/his student’s momentum didn’t need help from a degree, and s/he gave him the nod to leave the program. Since then, Graves has found his own ways to learn from the art world and to connect to its up-and-comers. While reflecting on the growth of the culture, he says, “Continuing to paint connects me to the younger generation. It’s nice being the older spokesman and helping people along to see where the art grows.”
“My name is out there enough where I can choose the projects I would like to work on,” he continues, “which I’m super lucky and humbled by. I get to work on really fun projects, and it’s just [due to] the experience and time, you know, being [in] painting for so long. It’s given me the opportunities I have now.”
It wasn’t always as selective for Graves. Early on in his career, he spent eight years primarily painting for gallery shows, producing up to 400 pieces a year. “It was a steady hustle,” he says. “I just didn’t turn down anything.” It’s every artist’s dream to get to the point where they can be particular with their projects, and now that Graves is there, he’s able to focus on bigger and more-public work. With his roots in graffiti and skate culture, the sense of creating accessibility through public-facing art is central to his ethos. “It’s definitely something I gravitate toward,” he says, referring to large-format murals. “Everyone gets to see it. It doesn’t matter who you are. You can drive down the street, be rich or poor—doesn’t matter. You get to see the mural for free and enjoy it, be inspired by it and take it in. It’s art for everyone.”
Transposing his style onto a snowboard graphic for Never Summer’s collab with Breckenridge Brewery was easy for Graves, as he compares the shape of a snowboard to the compressed space of a building. It was a natural trajectory to design a board graphic, and after 25 years as an artist, he’s taking his childhood inspirations to the grave.
