Chuck Taylors

Converse All Stars is arguably one of America's most iconic shoes.  Ever since the first pair became available in 1923, Chuck's have continued to shape pop culture and fashion more than sports.  The Converse brand not only played a role in the athletic arena, but the sociocultural impact continues to live through film, television, music, and art.

In 2015, at age 10, Sterling Molldrem aka SilverStreetz took out a Copic marker and created a piece that would unwittingly become his first shoe design.  Dubbed, Joker Kicks, a snippet of Sterling's creative was isolated, digitized, and printed direct to a pair of Chuck Taylor's.

Cop yours here www.slvrstrtz.com

Adobe Photoshop and Digital Art.

These pieces are some of Sterling Molldrem's first digital illustrations when he became serious (at age 13) about exploring Photoshop CC and how light reflection effects an object.  He wanted to try and incorporate how light and the various angles of light reflect and create various shades and textures.  Sterling really started playing around with the Wacom Intuos tablet around age 11 and 12.  He didn't really dive deep into the Adobe Photoshop YouTube tutorial rabbit hole until age 12 - 13.  Among some of the treasures he retrieved from that rabbit hole was the artist Chiworld1234.

The image above is a boy in a beanie holding a candle.  As the boy lights the candle and looks forward, he is unaware of the monster lurking directly behind him.  A monster that only becomes visible with the flickering illumination of a candle.

The image below obviously takes place deep in a swampy forest of Feffernoos.  This particular forest monster, also known as a Heelyadoor, is snacking on some poor soul as the green sun sets directly behind.  The over arching theme of this particular illustration is very apparent - don't go wondering into forests on Heelyadoor.

Sterling Molldrem has a fantastically, bizarre brain as evident by the multitude of drawings, paintings, and sketches found on his Instagram page.

An Interview With A Young, Gifted, Up And Coming Visual Artist.

Sterling Molldrem is cleaning up after spending about 3.5 hours straight spray painting his grand parents’ workout room.  While cleansing himself with turpentine, he answers some questions asked by his father.

Dad:  So, how are you feeling today?

SM:  Goody.

Dad:  What was your first memory of creating something?  Anything?

SM:  It was a drawing done with pencil and I munched a bunch of creatures together into one character.  One freaky character.  I also did 3 more of them.

Dad:  You used to ask your mom and I to keep every stupid paper roll towel core, cardboard box, and empty tissue box that we came across so you could make “arts and crafts”.  You used to love making crazy sculptures – some bigger than you.  Why did you stop creating large sculptures and go full on draw mode?

SM:  I don’t know.  I just; I don’t know.  Seriously.  I don’t know.

Dad:  One of your very first mediums was spray paint.  You begged me to buy you spray cans.  Then you proceeded to teach yourself spray paint technique.  First you got super discouraged and then Ibu kind of cheered you on.  How do you manage to encourage yourself when a piece isn’t going the way you want it?

SM:  Touch your chalala and hope for the best.  Just kidding.  If you keep going and going, sometime you’ll get it right -- and you just keep pushing off from there.

Dad:  So much of your work is saturated with color -- just full of vivid coloration.  Using color seems to come natural to you.  Where does that natural flow come from?  Are you really, really thinking and plotting where you’re going to put which color and how many shades, or is more of it just coming from some weird kind of creative stream you just tap into?

SM:  I’m going to tell you like this.  All you have to do is think about it, think about it twice and then put it down.  Don’t over think about it.  And there you go.

Dad:  For some, art is a form of escapism.  Do you feel you’re trying to escape anything at the tender age of 12?

SM:  No.  That was always a stupid quote for me.  I never believed in that.  I always do it for fun.  I mean I don’t really have a drastic life so there’s no reason for me to escape.

Dad:  What inspires you?

SM:  I don’t really have a great inspiration.  I just see people, watch people on Youtube and I guess they inspire me.  But I don’t have one certain inspiration in mind.

Dad:  You’re constantly improving, and so far you have firm command over Copic markers, Microns, charcoal, acrylics, spray paint, oils, and Photoshop.  Which has been the most challenging and do you tend to focus on a particular medium more, if it is difficult or shy away from it?

SM:  If it’s difficult most definitely I focus on it more.  It’s always fun when you know it real good.  There’s no reason to shy away from it, you just have to practice it.  For me, the most difficult is spray paint.

Dad:  How important is commercial success to you?

SM:  What kind of question is that for a kid?

Dad:  What do you like to draw the most?

SM:  Imagination based drawings.  Still life has always been pretty boring for me.

Dad:  What’s your favorite ice cream flavor?

SM:  All of them are good.

Dad:  This was fun dude.  How about we revisit these same questions 5 years from now once you graduate high school?

SM:  Yeh…that’d be cool.

WIP.  First Ever Bedroom Wall Mural.

His Moniker

SilverStreetz is Sterling Molldrem and Sterling Molldrem is SilverStreetz.

Sterling can mean, excellent, first-rate, first-class, exceptional, or outstanding.  It's also British currency.  Some think of jewelry.  As his moniker, Sterling decided to replace his name with "Silver" and follows it with his style of art -- Street(z).  Hence the moniker, SilverStreetz was coined.

Sterling transforms celebrity, friend, family member, or stranger into a humorous, hip hop, urban street illustration.  The young artist puts his own unique flare on Kim Jong Un, 6ix9ine, Dr. Phil, Kurt Cobain, or Donald Trump -- the list goes on.

Multiple Mediums

At the age of 12, Sterling Molldrem is a young artist already able to communicate his art through multiple mediums.  He has firmly grounded himself with the use of inks, markers, acrylics, spray paints, oils, and digital mediums.

Previously a competitive gymnast for 4 years and training 22 hours a week while also going to elementary school -- he had enough.  Gymnastics was out and ART was in.  Now dedicating an enormous amount of time to shaping his artistic creativity, Sterling exhibits an amazing rate of production.  Whether it's a daily doodle, poster piece, computer production, or wall mural Sterling is constantly creating.

Art prodigy?  12 year old art genius?  You be the judge.  Labeling Sterling's creative style is challenging.  One day he will be manually producing a still life oil painting and the next he'll be digitally creating a computer mash up of celebrity, politics, and monsters.  His creativity is bright, humorous, edgy, gritty, and saturated with color.  One thing is for sure -- Sterling Molldrem is well on the way to making his name known in the creative world, and at such an early age he's already charging hard.