CLAW Money

The old adage says “it’s a man’s world,” but graffiti goddess CLAW Money has revolutionized the scene for women when she started tagging her CLAW around New York City streets. The Queens-born artist and fashion designer became infatuated with graffiti as a child, while looking a car window and watching the highway art and throw ups go by.

By the late- ’80s, she came up with her CLAW throw-up since it was the “W” in her name and just added nails to form the CLAW. Besides, graffiti, fashion was her other obsession, which she also dabbled in when she became a fashion consultant, styling for such names as Nike, Footlocker and Guiness. But, it was her highly sought after clothing line, CLAW Money, that made her a household name. This modern-day Renaissance woman is also the fashion director for Swindle and just published a visual-laden coffee book called “Bombshell.”

Can you describe being a female graffiti writer in the late-’80s/early-’90s?
When I first moved to Manhattan in 1986, I quickly became infatuated with NYC nightlife. At one of these parties, I met one of the most influential people to my art, my career and my life in general. The man was Zephyr RTW, illustrious subway king, nightlife fixture and all-around-man about town. We became fast friends, and he would constantly expound about the graffiti glory days in the late-’70s, and I became fascinated. Through this friendship, I was now inducted into the secret social network of some of the city’s most illusive outlaw artists. As a kid, I was given the nickname CLAW, short for Claudia—due to my spunky and steadfast personality. So, naturally after hanging about with all these guys, I got to thinking that I already had the perfect tag name and that I was naturally a writer, too, just because I was the CLAW already. So, after a night of partying, someone would whip out a spray can, and I would wait for my turn and then try to be like the boys by scrawling a horribly executed tag on the wall beside theirs. Needless to say, I got a lot of flack—as all novices or toy writers do—that I wasn’t a writer, that I shouldn’t try to be one and, basically, “give it up FIT girl and go make yourself an outfit.”

This, basically, was the spark that turned into a burning and yearning to paint—and to become respected by the boys. I could keep up with snarky conversations, the drinking and drug taking, so why couldn’t I compete on the vast canvas of New York City? School was now a bothersome task, and I was now out to be the biggest, baddest bitch that ever touched Rust-Oleum.