My fifteen minutes of fame came in the summer of 2023 when Island Spray appeared in an episode of Bravo TV’s Summer House: Martha’s Vineyard.
In late August, I got a call from Arlynn Katz, one of the show’s producers; she had gotten my info from a local gallery owner with whom I’d done a pop-up airbrush event. Arlynn was looking for a ‘spray guy,’ and on Martha’s Vineyard, that’s me.
The initial idea she pitched was for Island Spray to paint a ‘mural’ (actually just a big sign) for a Freaknik-themed house party that the show’s star, Jordan Emmanuel, was throwing as part of the storyline for an episode.
Arlynn explained to me that her role as a producer meant ‘enabling the cast to make their vision come alive,’ or something like that; basically she wanted me to connect directly with Jordan, rather than having the show’s producers set it all up. I even had to give consent for our phone and text exchanges to be recorded, in case they wanted to use that as content for the show.
DJ Jordy Jor and I chatted on the phone a few times, and we decided that in addition to the Freaknik sign, it would be cool to have Island Spray at the party doing live airbrushing. After all, it’s the perfect 90s hip hop fashion art form!
I prepared some shirts to pass out to the cast and crew beforehand (extra swag is always a good thing). It turned out to be a really cold night at the party; luckily I had painted up a white crewneck sweatshirt with a ‘Freaknik’ design, which Jordy sported throughout much of the evening. Good look!
Jordy also commissioned a sign for the night’s drank, ‘Hoochie Mama Punch.’ I tried some and it didn’t seem very strong.
I rolled up to the party in my very noisy 2001 Tacoma with my airbrush assistant, Mary Liz aka Mazzy. We got mic’d up and signed our consent forms. I was really hungry, so I wandered into the kitchen, where the cast offered to share some of that night’s takeout. There were three cameramen filming the whole time, and I had also been advised that all the rooms inside the house were ‘under surveillance,’ reality-TV style, so anything that happened there might get used on the show.
After eating I set up the sign and the airbrush rig outside by the pool where the Freaknik was to take place, and not long afterwards the madness commenced!
That night I wound up painting hats for pretty much the entire cast, and the behind-the-scenes crew was loving the airbrush too. One of my favorite ideas was the ‘film clapper’ – a couple of those are shown here:
Cast member Simon showed up fresh off the plane from Germany halfway through the party and paid for this hat in Euros:
Later on during the party, Arlynn came up to me and said, ‘If you see Simon roaming around, don’t let him in the pool, he’s banned from going in there’ 😂
When the party died down and everyone went inside, Mazzy and I broke down the setup, cleaned up the paints and got in the hot tub. We were quickly told to exit the tub by security, even though we had been given the green light by Jordy earlier.
After our jacuzzi ejection we wandered up to the house to say bye to Jordy and Arlynn; when we got inside, Jordy, Nick, Jasmine, A-Love and some other night owls were still hanging out (this was around 2am). They invited us to join them for some DiGiorno’s frozen pizza, and we chatted about movies and shows for a while.
As we were snacking on our za, we heard a commotion upstairs; suddenly Summer burst into the kitchen, shouting and acting wild. In hot pursuit was Noelle, trying to calm her down. We all froze, not really knowing what to do; Summer went into the pantry shouting ‘Do you see? Do you see?’ and then stormed noisily back upstairs. We all looked around at each other for a second, then Jordy said something like, ‘Well I have no idea what that’s about, and I don’t wanna know.’
Mazzy and I asked her if that outburst was real or staged, and she replied, ‘Oh it’s all real.’ Reality TV!
This is me and Arlynn the next day when I went back to pick up the Freaknik sign (it now lives at the bottom of my basement stairs). No idea what that cash is doing hanging from her collar.
Another great outcome of this project was that afterwards, the whole Summer House crew kept hitting me up for more airbrush gear. Here’s sound guy Zack, at the MV Sound Fest music festival the next weekend, picking up a few pieces for the squad:
I also painted a bunch more hats in the comfort of my studio for the gang before they left:
Being involved with Summer House MV was truly awesome. A cool, hilarious, exciting, eye-opening, unique experience, I couldn’t be happier with how it all went. Huge thanks to Arlynn, Jordy, Mazzy, and the whole cast + crew. Hey Bravo, bring back Summer House MV for Season 3 !!