Camer1

January 30, 2015 by Chelsea Roberts

Cameron Moberg, better known as, Camer1 is a self-taught artist from San Francisco who is in love with hip-hop culture. He became interested in art in fifth grade, when his brother Josh gave him a graffiti magazine. The pictures he saw captivated his imagination because he could see the movement of the letters and felt like the art was almost “alive.” Despite his color deficiency, the magazine’s graffiti awakened his eyes to the most vivid and bright colors.

At the age of 17, he met and immediately started having feelings for a girl named Crystal, a Christ-loving teen. To impress her, Cameron attended a church camp and despite his intentions, he actually found Christ and accepted him as his Savior. Crystal and Cameron started dating and he continued to pursue Christ, eventually becoming a Pastor, while still practicing graffiti.

He is now 33 years old, has been married to Crystal for 13 years and has two young sons. Art is now his fulltime career, as he paints murals on businesses and buildings throughout San Francisco for a government program. His work is breathtaking, but what is truly inspiring is his passion and love for Christ. Cameron is involved with City Crossroads Ministries, an organization in San Francisco that is open five nights a week, serving local youth by offering free nutritious meals, study sessions, bible studies, dance and sports. Additionally, he is a member of the Gospel Graffiti Crew, a ministry dedicated to spreading the Gospel of Jesus Christ through legal graffiti art.

On Friday January 16, 2015 Camer1 spoke in chapel, followed by live painting a large piece for campus. Students had the opportunity throughout the day to watch the development of his piece. The next day he visited Grace Community Fellowship in Eugene and painted the walls of a large middle school ministry’s room.

He has since returned to his home in San Francisco, California, and although he is not currently working on anymore projects for the Eugene area, students have the opportunity to continue to follow his work. Along with posting regular videos on his YouTube channel and maintaining his own website, he will also be competing on a new television series, Street Art Throwdown, premiering on February 3, 2015. The show will be on the Oxygen channel, tune in every Tuesday at 9:00 PM to watch Cameron compete in graffiti challenges against nine other contestants for a chance at $100,000 cash prize. His contract limited his comments about the show, but he said it was a blessing to be able to connect to people through graffiti and then create conversations about Christ. One of those people was Ivan Preciado, aka Gath, a 19 year old, modern style graffiti artist from San Bernardino, California.

In Cameron’s eyes, the art world, especially graffiti, prides itself on rebellion and for him painting murals to show God’s grace, beauty, love and hope is “rebellious.” The world will always judge your work, but sometimes integrating your faith into your art can create extra criticism. He says the best thing you can do is to “perfect your craft,” to such a point where regardless of other people’s religious views, they respect not only you, but your work.

He also had advice for people who are struggling to find or remain in their faith, by comparing one’s relationship with God to riding a motorcycle. As you ride you might want to go to the left, but if your head looks to the right, the bike will take you to the right. The same concept applies to faith; if your heart is so set on trying not to sin, instead of the grace and power of the cross, you will continue to sin. By focusing on God, you will be led to mercy. The chapel vision for the 2014-2015 school year is, “To recapture and rejoin the call to bear God’s image in the world. This image bearing begins and flourishes when we engage in the creative work of God. This includes the way we are formed in Christ, love people, and live compassionately in God’s creation.” Pastor Troy continues to deliver creative and encouraging speakers and topics as we drift into the second semester, Camer1 being truly one of the most inspiring of them all.