Reef The Chief

Posted by: Ian – Jul 28, 2010

Editor's note: this piece appeared in RVA #1 this year. Reef, and his lovely wife Mel, have left Richmond, and we thought we'd re-run this as an homage to their creative spirit. We miss y'all.

A mad scientist fire sculptor at the helm of a covered wagon, an endless engineer of bizarre and twisting copper wire, conductor of propane orchestras and conspirator of depraved dance parties, The Chief is a schemer of insidious genius.

Part General, part champagne, there are tattoos on his skin and sequins on his leopard print fedora, his wagon converts at will into a t-shirt press and DJ booth (yeah, he silk-screens T- shirts too), he carries himself like an American flag; he doesn’t need to wave one. Compulsively clad in contact sport body armor, he leaps around behind the experiential curtain of some of Richmond’s most fabled parties in recent history, pulling atmospheric elements together to create a sensory immersion that transforms the landscape of the events he collaborates upon. Fuelled by Steaz and an indomitable drive to act on his every inventive inclination, his strange creations are produced with prolific zeal, militarily precise design, and an unabashed ambition to manifest his visions for the sake of seeing them brought to fruition. His interest in fire sculptures began in wanders around regional burns (events based around the principles of radical self-expression, radical self-reliance, a moneyless gift economy, and leave no trace), discovering the various installations on display at different camps. "They were really simple, just copper wire. I was drawn to that because it was a machine and it was fire, something somebody built, and I’ve always done construction trade. I was into plumbing so I was already comfortable with the tubing, and going to the burns and seeing that stuff, I realized I could do this. There’s really no precedent for this stuff though, you just imagine it and say 'Hey, this is what I want to do. Let’s make it happen.' And with what I already knew about gas work and the laws of plumbing, you just take that and apply it with an artistic touch. You just bring it into being in the real world with standard technology."

A fire spinner as well as a sculptor, The Chief has not only welded fire toys into existence, but engineered a way to combine his two pyro-maniacal inclinations, creating a backpack for the gas that feeds into burning fans made of Kevlar and metal, and shoots flames like some post- apocalyptic Ghostbuster prop. In his own words; “A toy you can spin but also breathes fire.” The Chief is an integral aspect of the Party Liberation Front, a Richmond based collective that throws events borne of collaborative creativity, fire performance and art, and damn good dance music. An amalgamation of artists, DJs, fire hoopers and poi spinners, dancers and conversationalists, outcasts and utopian existentialists, PLF is like a gypsy troupe that collided with Richmond’s underground, creating a more accepting, radically expressive, spirited vision of human potential and harmony. His fire sculptures are the emblematic idols of PLF, a phenomenon begun with the genesis of Lord Acidonius (All Hail our Fishy Headed God). His toys are spun by local fire troupes, his T-shirts worn by DJs, and if you go out to any event involving fire and art in Richmond, it’s more than likely his ideas will be burning all around.

Words by S. Preston Duncan