Patrick O’Dell for Living Proof Radio, full episode on the Living Proof Patreon. 
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Patrick O’Dell is a photographer, filmmaker and skateboarder whose work has had a lasting influence on skate culture. He began skating at an early age and soon merged that passion with photography, developing a documentary-style approach that captured the personalities, places, and people that defined the skateboarding of his era.

In 2004, O’Dell started Epicly Later’d, a skateboarding blog that turned into an interview-based documentary series. Through Epicly Later’d, he profiled the lives and careers of skateboarding's biggest icons.

O’Dell's retrospective book, also titled Epicly Later’d, marked two decades of documenting downtown New York’s skate and art scenes. 

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Alex 2Tone for Living Proof Radio, full episode on the Living Proof Patreon.
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This episode focuses on the brand origins of Born X Raised.

Alex 2Tone is the co-founder of Born x Raised, a clothing brand rooted in the culture of Los Angeles. Growing up amid the city’s graffiti and street scenes, 2Tone developed a visual language shaped by his upbringing that now defines his work across fashion and film. 

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Lee Quiñones is a pioneering graffiti artist and painter widely regarded as one of the most influential figures in the history of New York City’s graffiti movement. Raised on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, Quiñones began painting subway cars in the mid-1970s and became known for his large-scale work that elevated graffiti from tags to visual storytelling. A key member of the legendary graffiti crew The Fabulous Five, he was among the first writers to paint entire subway cars; his whole cars were celebrated for their technical mastery and scale during a foundational era of New York’s history. 

Quiñones’s work helped redefine graffiti as a legitimate art form rather than mere vandalism. By the late 1970s, he transitioned from painting subways to exhibiting in galleries, becoming one of the first graffiti artists to bridge the gap between the streets and the fine art world.

Lee Quiñones has appeared in seminal films chronicling New York’s graffiti and hip-hop culture, including the legendary Wild Style, where he played a leading role. His influence has extended across generations, inspiring artists in graffiti, street art, and contemporary painting alike.

Full episode on the Living Proof Patreon. 

Atiba Jefferson for Living Proof Radio. Full episode now on the Living Proof Patreon. http://patreon.com/livingproofnewyork

Atiba Jefferson is a photographer widely regarded as one of the most influential visual chroniclers of skateboarding culture of all time. Born in Colorado Springs, Jefferson developed an early passion for both skateboarding and photography that would merge into a prolific career documenting the evolution of skating from a subcultural movement into a global phenomenon. After moving to Southern California in the 1990s he quickly established himself as a leading figure behind the lens, becoming a staff photographer for Transworld Skateboarding and later a founding contributor to The Skateboard Mag. His work has appeared in nearly every major skate publication worldwide and today he works closely with Thrasher Magazine. 

Outside of skateboarding, Jefferson has built an expansive career across music, fashion, and commercial photography; having shot portraits of cultural icons such as LeBron James, Mos Def, and Tony Hawk. 

He has recently dropped the “United Through Skatebording” Collection with Vans. The collection includes a Skate Half Cab® with WaffleCup™ Outsole & a Skate Old Skool™ 36+ featuring custom imagery of skate legend John Cardiel alongside artwork by Haze. The collection celebrates Atiba’s journey throughout an extensive career, and the skate culture that deeply influenced his work. 

Brian Wenning for Living Proof Radio. Full episode on the Living Proof Patreon. http://patreon.com/livingproofnewyork

Brian Wenning is an iconic skateboarder who has recently been released from prison after serving five years for a weapons charge under the Graves Act, which carried a mandatory minimum of 42 months before parole eligibility. Released from Bayside State Prison in May 2025, Wenning has since expressed his determination to move forward and rebuild his life. While in prison, he became sober after many years of using various substances.

Rising to prominence through projects like Photosynthesis, The DC Video, and Plan B: Live After Death, Wenning built a reputation as one of the most stylish and technically skilled skaters of his generation, riding for brands such as Habitat, DC Shoes, and Plan B during a golden age of plaza-skating. 

No longer under parole, he has returned to skateboarding, sharing clips of himself back on a board and speaking openly about taking things “one day at a time.” For both his fans and the wider skateboarding community, Wenning’s release marks not just the return of a legend within skateboarding, but also the beginning of a new chapter in his turbulent yet iconic career.

Harry Jumonji for Living Proof Radio. Full episode on the Living Proof Patreon. http://patreon.com/livingproofnewyork

Harry Jumonji is a Brazilian-born skateboarder regarded as one of the defining icons of New York City’s skateboarding history. 

After moving from Brazil to New York as a child, Jumonji was introduced to the New York skate scene through Andy Kessler, one of New York’s most influential skaters and the first person he met when arriving in the city. Deeply shaped by Kessler’s mentorship, Jumonji grew into a legend in the downtown street skateboarding scene of the 1980s. His skating was known for power & aggression, and his larger-than-life personality made him a standout character amongst all who came in contact with him. 

Throughout his time in New York, Jumonji became entangled with hard drugs and spent multiple stretches incarcerated, most notably after selling drugs to an undercover officer. These struggles interrupted his career, changed his life, his outlook and symbolize both the allure and dangers of New York street life. Over the years, he has been candid about these experiences in documentaries and interviews, offering a stark account of survival in and around skateboarding’s fringes.

In later life, Jumonji turned away from these destructive patterns, achieving sobriety from the hard drugs and choosing a more stable path. He eventually relocated back to Brazil, where he continues to live today. He is remembered not only for his skating but for embodying the unfiltered character of New York skateboarding during its formative years. Jumonji’s story ensures his place as one of the most legendary figures in New York skateboarding history.

Brian Anderson for Living Proof Radio, full episode on the Living Proof Patreon.
http://patreon.com/livingproofnewyork

Brian Anderson is an iconic professional skateboarder celebrated for his lasting influence on street skating. He rose to prominence in the mid-1990s with Toy Machine, gaining early notoriety around the era of Welcome to Hell, turned pro in 1998, and was named Thrasher’s Skater of the Year in 1999 after joining Girl Skateboards. That same year he won the World Cup of Skateboarding in Germany. 

Beyond video parts and contest results, Anderson has left a mark as a designer and brand builder. He launched his own board brand, 3D Skateboards, in 2013, released his Nike SB signature “Project BA” shoe, and later joined Anti-Hero Skateboards after winding down 3D. His current sponsor roster includes Anti-Hero, Nike SB, Spitfire, Ace, Bones Swiss, and Jessup. 

In 2016, Anderson publicly came out as gay in a widely viewed Vice Sports documentary—an important moment for LGBTQ visibility in skateboarding—and subsequently explored personal themes through art and zines such as Cave Homo.

Henry Chalfant for Living Proof Radio, full episode on the Living Proof Patreon.
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Henry Chalfant is an American photographer, videographer, and sculptor best known for his pioneering work chronicling New York City’s graffiti and hip-hop culture.

Beginning in 1977, Chalfant started photographing graffiti on the subway cars of New York City, capturing hundreds of ephemeral artworks by legendary writers such as Lee, Dondi, Skeme, Blade, Cap and Seen. His technique, shooting from one position while the train moved, allowed him to create single, highly detailed images constructed from multiple exposures, setting a standard for graffiti documentation worldwide. Over his career, he amassed an archive of more than 1,500 photographs that preserve a visual record of a fleeting urban art movement.  

Chalfant co-authored Subway Art with Martha Cooper, a seminal book often referred to as the “Bible” of graffiti, and later co-authored Spraycan Art, which documented the global spread of the phenomenon.

In 1983, Chalfant co-produced Style Wars with director Tony Silver, a groundbreaking PBS documentary that explored the battle over public space between the city’s authorities and its graffiti writers, while also highlighting the parallel rise of breakdancing, MCing, and DJing. Style Wars became the first major film to capture hip-hop culture in its infancy, giving a global audience a look at the voices, rivalries, and creativity of New York youth. It went on to win the Grand Prize for Documentaries at the Sundance Film Festival, cementing Chalfant’s role as both participant and historian in the culture’s early years.

Today, his photographs are housed in major exhibitions and collections worldwide, including retrospectives like Art vs. Transit, 1977–1987 at the Bronx Museum, ensuring his legacy as the preeminent visual chronicler of New York’s graffiti and hip-hop era.

AVE for Living Proof Radio, full episode on the Living Proof Patreon. 
http://patreon.com/livingproofnewyork

Anthony Van Engelen is a legendary professional skateboarder who emerged in the mid-1990s as part of a new generation pushing street skating. With parts in some of the most influential skate videos of all time, including Photosynthesis, Mind Field, and Vans’ Propeller; where his performance earned him Thrasher Magazine’s Skater of the Year award in 2015.

He co-founded FA alongside Jason Dill, building it into one of the most pivotal skate brands of the last decade. As a long-time Vans team rider, he has also collaborated on multiple pro shoe models.

Leo Fitzpatrick for Living Proof Radio, full episode on the Living Proof Patreon. 

Leo Fitzpatrick is an artist and actor who first caught public attention as Telly in Larry Clark’s controversial 1995 film Kids; a performance that earned him both acclaim and harassment, as some viewers confused him with his character and even blamed him for the film’s fictional misdeeds.

Aside from acting, Fitzpatrick co‐founded the experimental New York gallery Home Alone Gallery in 2012, later becoming a co-director at the Marlborough Chelsea gallery in Manhattan. His gallery Public Access provided an accessible approach to art to both the viewers and artists that was less common within the New York gallery space.

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