(HOTTEA) A lot of times we pass by a lot of things, like graffiti.

But I think a lot of people just sort of see it as graffiti, and that's it.

And I noticed when I was doing work, people were confused, they were curious, and they saw something more to it.

They didn't just see a name, that they thought like, what does this mean, you know?

There's got to be some sort of meaning behind it.

I'm really glad that people picked up on that because there is a meaning behind the name, so there's more than just, you know, type on fences.

There's a concept behind it; there's a story, there's a reason why I'm doing this.

My name's Eric, and I do nondestructive street art using yarn and I go by the name HOTTEA.

I wanted to create a project that I could do on the street, nondestructively, because I wanted to do art in the street, uncommissioned, wherever I wanted.

I think we all navigate the city in our own way.

I think the more intimate we get with the city, we navigate it differently, and it also depends on our mind state.

As an artist, I think a lot of us navigate the city through surfaces that we can create work on.

When I was starting out the project, I didn't really see a fence as a potential way of creating artwork, but being a graphic designer by trade, I started seeing the grid in which I worked on in creating graphic design work, and so what I did, I just took the fence and sort of treated it as graphic design.

♪ ♪ Early on like, it was very much like learning the alphabet, and then after continuing on and on for like 3, 4 years, you begin to realize the potential behind the fence.

Like at first, I looked at it as just like blocks, but then it's like a magic eye.

You sort of see past the obvious, and you see like, so much more.

♪ ♪ As a family we would go to Bakers Square and I have this memory of my mother always ordering for dessert a slice of cornbread with hot tea and honey.

It was a really peaceful and nice memory that I have of growing up and sort of us all being happy as a family.

And you know, over time things changed and our family sort of grew apart and when we were creating the project, we went to go visit my dad, who was living alone and he had no one to spend Thanksgiving with, and so we went down there and took him to Bakers Square because that was sort of what he knew.

We were just sitting there, looking at the menu, and I saw the word hot tea.

It's like I was taken back in time; all these memories were just floating back to me, like all these really happy memories of our family being together.

And I just knew right there and then, this is the name of the project-- "HOTTEA"-- that was it.

♪ ♪ The reason I chose yarn, there's actually a couple reasons.

Yarn is nondestructive, it's easy to manipulate, it's cheap and it comes in a lot of colors, and also because it had a personal tie with my past.

My grandmother taught me how to knit at an early age and when I was coming up with a project and just thinking of materials to use, yarn came to me because I wanted the project to be close to me because I wanted to be like really passionate about it.

And I'm really passionate about my family.

And so yarn just kind of came naturally.

♪ ♪ I really enjoy painting and graffiti.

You know that's what I first fell in love with.

You know, I fell in love with the colors, the fact that I could just go out at night and just paint wherever I wanted.

The night I got caught painting graffiti, we were just, I think, on the freeway too long and we were spotted by security cameras.

We saw a car that was driving really, really slow with its lights off.

He made a U-turn [laughs] and he was headed in our direction really, really fast.

I'd been to jail once before, and I didn't want to go back.

And so I took off running as fast as I could.

I was running full speed, and I felt a shock, and I just froze and just fell completely to the ground.

And I was essentially being electrocuted, really, I was shaking, my feet were thrown to the side.

I think he knew that if he wouldn't have tasered me, I would have definitely gotten away.

I can still see like, the bright lights from the cop cars and I just thought in my mind, I'm going back to jail, and I just have to live with the consequences.

The first time my parents had come to visit me, they're like, okay, you know, you have to stop doing this.

We don't want to be here again visiting you.

But the second time around, was really hard because I told them, you know, I wouldn't do this again and you know, there I am... I'm back there.

[with much emotion] And it was just so painful, um... You know, it's like the, it's like the movies-- you're in the orange jumpsuit with the bullet, bulletproof glass and the handcuffs and... It really makes you think.

♪ ♪ I mean, I just thought of growing up and like, this wasn't who I was supposed to be.

Like, this is not, this is not me; like someone in jail is not me, and that's not the life I wanted to go down.

And so I knew right there and then, I couldn't put my family through that sort of pain again, and so I stopped, and I created HOTTEA, and I'm so happy!

♪ ♪