Creativity in the Capital: Sacramento artists Peter Petty and Mike Rodriguez talk about identity, representation and the peaks and valleys of the creative process

Mike Rodriguez is a local underground mural and wall artist, owner of comic distributor DefBird Comics and comic artist whose art has been seen throughout Sacramento and at the Maidu Museum in Roseville. Rodriguez has also shown his work at Crocker Art Museum. He’s collaborated with the Black Panther Party, ACLU and several other organizations who use his art as a means to convey their message.

Before the heat hit Sacramento, these two strangers faced each other at Philz Coffee on R Street to wax on about each other’s art, creative process, struggles, triumphs and trauma.

Petty: So my first question to you is: What did you do for your murals that the city only left them to stay up for a limited time?

Rodriguez: Oh! Joe Serna was still the mayor and I did this pretty big [mural]. It basically was about him.

Petty: It was a little critical.

Rodriguez: Yeah. He was trying to set up a misdemeanor boot camp for juveniles. He was trying to make Hughes Stadium —

Petty: I do remember that.

Rodriguez: Yeah, he was trying to make it a bootcamp for tough love. He closed [cruising] down, which just recently got put back up again. It was funny because [Serna] came on like a Chicano kind of ticket. So to do that shit is just contrary.