The muralist, vehicle painter and graffiti maestro Javier Cordova has a core specialty: lettering. Cordova, who grew up in South Phoenix and goes by “Spawk,” sprays and brushes scripts around Phoenix, often tagging his curvaceous letters on murals and vehicles with gold leaf. His work appears in skate parks, bars, barbershop windows and even Phoenix Suns murals. But you’d never know it. Spawk doesn’t sign his work.
“I’m doing it for me,” he says. “If people find it, it feels good to me, too. If people follow my work, they can tell if stuff is mine or not.”
Spawk’s interest in lettering began around age 8. “My uncle would send us letters from prison, and he would always draw on them,” Spawk recalls. “I would copy and trace the envelopes and show them to my friends.” Today, the bold fonts of Spawk’s signs and T-shirt graphics echo his uncle’s “cholo” and English scripts. Spawk calls his style “a mixture of 1920s advertising and gangster graffiti.”
Spawk also has a talent for pinstriping – painting designs of tightly controlled lines – which he learned from local legend Eddie “ET” Torres. He uses a point-tipped dagger brush for fine lines on Cadillacs and lowriders, and a scrolling brush for filigrees. The cars Spawk has pinstriped are “floating around everywhere.”
Spawk does much of his work in a studio on 15th and Grand avenues, where he runs a merchandise brand. His recent work includes a mural for the new Artopia exhibit, a window for Curious Nature and a wall for Scottsdale restaurant Don Cafe. For Barcoa, a new agave-focused bar near Roosevelt Row, Spawk painted a map of Mexico depicting where mezcal comes from, vintage lettering onto a Volkswagen bus that serves as a bar and antique lettering all around the spot.
“I have a technique called aging that makes letters look 100 years old,” Spawk says. The method, like the identity of its creator, remains a secret. Learn more at spawk.co.
Lettering Quills
For his blunt but elegant scripts, Spawk uses flat, liner and stencil brushes. His are designed for the swooping and fine lines of lettering. The secret? He doesn’t use brushes with synthetic bristles. His “are made of Australian squirrel hair.”
Pandora
Spawk listens to music played through his phone when painting in his studio. He gravitates to rock bands like Rebelution and Fortunate Youth, and to traditional Mexican genres like corridos and banda, which remind him of his dad.
Adobe Illustrator
When designing new pieces for the clothing line he launched in 2019, Spawk works digitally, using graphics program Adobe Illustrator.
Vans
Though Spawk is game to pinstripe vehicles of all kinds, he has a clear favorite. “I just love pinstriping on vans,” he says. “There’s a bigger surface and I can go pretty crazy.”
