Eric Miranda a.k.a. Booyah Patrol joins us for his second collaboration with TAIKAN with the featured graphic pieces in Collection 009. As a skateboarder and graphic designer from Los Angeles, his art pulls in different inspirations that blend into the perfect combination of gritty and unique. Learn more about the artist from an exclusive interview below, and also check out the Booyah Patrol custom curated Spotify playlist at the end. Shop here.
Vancouver, Los Angeles, or Mexico? What are your highlights from each city?
Mexico for sure. All are great, but Mexico is the best.
Mexico - My wife ‘Fer’ and ‘Zion’ our dog, the jungle, the surf, shore diy, endless beautiful sights, and beautiful culture.Vancouver - The friends, the forest, Leeside, Hastings, plaza, golden mile, anti-social, Duffins. And so many more.
LA - Family and friends, garvanza, backyard pools
Where is home for the next while? Any plans on coming back to Vancouver soon?
For now Sayulita, but my wife and I are on the lookout for somewhere else in Mexico. Considering Baja. No plans of coming back as of now.
Tattoos, graphics or apparel? Which are your favourite to work on and why, rank them!
Tattoo’s first, I like the pace that a tattoo has, start to finish, I find it pushes me to be more decisive with design choices given the nature of the job. I really just enjoy using my hands to make things, and it is a much more tactile process than working on a computer.
Graphics are super fun, but sometimes I find it is too easy for me to get caught up obsessing over little things, then over thinking the entire graphic, and then it just lives on my computer for a while or forever. As far as apparel I would kind of wrap that into the graphics umbrella of my work.
We saw you are now making rugs. Tell us about that venture and the process.
Last year I bought myself a tufting machine for my birthday, because my phone was continuously sending me ads for them and it looked like a really fun process, somewhat similar to tattooing. The machine eventually showed up, and I just started messing around with it. I made a few really bad ones at first, but by the third rug I was starting to figure it out. Then orders started coming in and I’ve been going from there. I really enjoy the process, and am excited to see where this goes.
Skate or Surf? Are you surfing or skating more these days?
Probably skating more, just depends on the waves, If there are waves and its good, I'm surfing a lot, if it's not then more skating.
We just saw Booyah Patrol dropped some pieces after a little hiatus. Where did this capsule come from and what are the plans for the future?
A few months back my wife and our friend who both have brands ‘REF’ / ‘Mondo swimwear’ and myself opened a little pop up in Sayulita, I was tattooing in the back, and they were selling their product up front. It seemed like a good time to print some shirts. I decided on rerunning the dolphin shirt, reworking a graphic I designed a few years ago, then making Zion a pro model shirt, because he’s a good boy and deserves it.
Tell us more about the inspiration for your TAIKAN collaboration with Collection 009.
Snakes on a plane.
What other projects do you have in the works right now?
Other little side things, I’m currently illustrating a children’s book, working on a body of NFT’s to drop on OpenSea, and I made a shaping bay at my house so I've been back to making surfboards and experimenting with some skimboards. Other than that, on the hunt for the right space to open a store up with Fer where she can sell her clothes, and I can sell boards, rugs, tattoos, Booyah Patrol, some art, maybe some magic.