Anyway, one day two or three years ago I was at an event and someone said, “Larry Elder’s over there, let’s go say hi.” And he was like, “Wow, you’re Sabo — you’re a fixture in L.A.” Then I saw him again, in a similar situation. Just hello and a picture. And I generally don’t like politicians, but I might have said let’s grab lunch.
So you had a business lunch?
I just wanted to see what made him tick. It was a couple months before the election in 2020. I was operating on a couple hours of sleep, but he was firing off questions, personal questions about my father, my upbringing, what I do and why I do it. I grew up in Louisiana and Texas. He told me a touching story about his father and I told him a story about my father, who is Mexican, that was very rough.
So how did you end up doing his campaign posters?
I give him art to put on his Instagram sometimes. About a week before he announced, he emailed, like, “Hey, man, I’m thinking about running for governor.” I said, “You’re a good man, you’ve got to run.” So right after he announced, I did a poster, but just for myself, not for his campaign. And then some people were doing a fund-raiser and they asked me to donate something.
Where can people find your work?
I’ve done like three posters of Larry — a green one with poppies that I put up in Brentwood and the Pacific Palisades, one of Larry and Gavin Newsom boxing that I put up around Hollywood and Inglewood, maybe one more. But I’m the fastest censored artist in America when I put up posters in L.A. By the time we went to take pictures in the morning, some of those posters were already down.
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Shawn Hubler is a correspondent for The New York Times, currently based in Sacramento.
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