From the year 2011, when I spent alot of time visiting high schools to talk about, and do presentations on Graffiti. Young people need to have Art Classes, be exposed to various art forms, and Graffiti is a part of that exposure. Many times after a school visit, I’d paint something, and here I was allowed to paint on some double doors, you guessed it to Room 1103, the Art Room. This was about 12 years ago, time flies, don’t take it for granted.
Flashback Friday #331
In an effort to promote one of my book projects, I found myself in Brighton, England for their Fringe Festival. With the random conversations I had with folks, they definitely have a different view of spraycan art, and art in general than we do here in the states. It was an all around interesting experience, very valuable to say the least.
Don't Sweat the Technique
Here’s how it’s done. A trick of the trade to get those big splashes of color, or even to squeeze the last bit of paint out of your cans. Back in the day, I would do this just to make sure my cans were “dead”, so if they were left behind noone else could use what little paint that would settle at the bottom.
Nowadays it’s more about pure expression and keeping it abstract.
A Little Experiment in Sight and Sound
I recently discovered this video that was created a few years ago. Based off of my last book project, “GRAFF: COLORMASTER”, it was a snippet from a documentary that was being worked on at the time.
Tuesday Takeaway
Back in the day, we’d carry “Blackbooks”, it’s what you’d call a sketchbook in regular circles. Yes, it was a hardback black sketchbook, black on the outside, clean white pages inside. You’d carry it around with you religiously, it was almost like your ID. If you saw someone else, anywhere with one, it was always “wassup, you write?” and if so, you’d share you sketches. All this before the internet, and if you ever came across another “writer” and he had stature, maybe he’d hit up your book, meaning he’d tag it, or do a quick throwie in it.
The top letters spell out the word “BUSY”, the bottom “SCAPE”. Even back then, I’d try to push the edge, I started to explore this concept that I called “Color Squares”. Later in life those color squares became canvas works, but that’s a tangent for a different day. Here, if you look at the bottom sketch, it was about how letters can interact with the color squares. Going through them, as in this case, or adding them to the backgrounds, stacked. Here it’s just a pencil sketch, but when it’s done on a wall, full color, it tells a different story. It was the dawn of my Urban Abstractions.
Anyways, this is a page that I ripped out of one of my blackbooks. A quick trip down memory lane.
Monday Moment #2001
I remember watching the late night news. Whatever year it was, I remember the “news flash”, that the artist Jean-Michel Basquiat had died from a heroin overdose. I was a kid, but I was all in with the graffiti at the time, and the news mentioned that this guy did that. At that moment, I didn’t know how his legend would grown and the impact he would have. But I began to read about him, what I could, since there was no internet back then, it was all about the art magazines. Years later as books and biographies became available, I’d scoop them up and read, and learn all about his life, these days he’s almost a household name.
On that level, I made this drawing in pen and ink, in 2001. The image is floating on a sheet of watercolor paper about 18 x 24 inches.
Wayback Wednesday - #1989
A little bit of graffiti art history.
We had various methods back in the day to get our message across. A sketch like this, would be drawn out on a Friday, and painted/bombed up on Saturday. It might stay in my back pocket for a day or two, notice the folds? Usually my sketches were done with a standard, regular pencil, one I had laying around, nothing fancy, and a piece of paper. 8.5x11, back then I’d draw on anything. One other thing, see the little notes, the writings? All color ideas, the three basic areas. Your “outline”, here it’s Jungle Green, your “fill-ins”, here it’s Purple, Yellow, Hot Pink, Light Blue, Almond, your “background”, here it’s Black. Everything in your back pocket.
"AWESOME",
Welcome to Monday, 2021…
Sharing something to motivate. I did this piece a while back, it is actually featured in my 2nd book. “GRAFF2: Next Level Graffiti Techniques”, if you want to know how I got here, check it out!
Graff-Next-Level-Graffiti-Techniques
This is just a small section of the entire wall. There’s a character connected to this and a few quotes. Why “ AWESOME”?,… because I got tired of doing “SCAPE” over and over, and I wanted to play around with the viewers sensibilities. So if passerby saw the work, they just might say “awesome” as a visceral response. It happens that way.
I was also exploring the nature of letterforms, and how free I can be with bending and folding them, but not armoring them the way I used to.
And I wanted to get down with white and green, sometimes it’s just that simple.
Welcome to Monday, 2021…
The Snippets of Soul #4089
I sometimes wonder, what looks better, the artwork, or photos of the process?
Can the documenting be more powerful than the artwork?
Can the journey be more than the goal?
You prepare, get your tools together, some physical tool, some invisible tools.
You absorb, you process, you think less, feel more.
You stew on it all, letting connections happen, then you recognize a spark and you might judge it.
Is it worth it? That idea, spark, interrogate it.
Is it worth it?
Create, pour, tear, be unconscious, and flow. Don’t think.
Just something to meditate on.
Wayback Wednesday - #1988
Thumbing through an old sketchbook, or as what we would say “black book”, I came across this drawing.
When I say “old”, I’m talking around 1988 or so. During this time, I was very influenced by comic books and fantasy art. Copying what I saw in the latest issue of X-men, or whatever graphic novel I could get my hands on. Here, this is a simple pencil drawing that for me, was a great excuse to explore “cross-hatching”. This kind of detail, I think found itself into my graffiti letters during this time and later. I wanted to incorporate more futuristic elements to my graffiti art at the time.
Although in my abstract-work, I pretty much let go of all things figurative. But here, it was all about those drawing skills.
Lessons from Covid, #4080
June 22, 2020 is when Covid really hit home for me. It was “real” for months before, since the tail end of 2019 actually, but it really settled in and took root in my life, and in my head. Everything clearly changed from that day onward, but that is stating the obvious. I’m here to look at more subtle changes, at least two of which that I’m aware of. I’m sure there are others that will bubble up as we move on out of this Covid era, and into whatever the future has.
Fear, Loss, Reality, Misinformation, Disinformation, the list is long, but in some ways it is short.
Three things:
What did I receive coming into my mind?
How did I decipher it?
How did I respond to it?
Inspiration changed, and some things moved on the inside, that I just didn’t even know or recognize, then or even now. But where am I going with all this?
My personal arts practice changed, mind you it was always in flux, but during this time, as I couldn’t go to the art store like before, and I had order supplies online, which is weird in and of itself for me because I’m pretty tactile with my process. I found myself grasping at straws, straws made of smoke.
And one day it all changed.
I learned to work with what I had, work with what was in front of me. I cut, I tore, I poured, I got ugly, but in the end I learned, I created, I stayed creating, but in altogether different way. I didn’t worry about what I needed, I made art with what I had. I didn’t set aside time for art, I did it throughout the day. As I made coffee in the morning, I’d rip up some sheets of paper, as I went back and forth through the day, a mark here, a scratch there, I had no end, only the journey was important, and maybe that is part of the lesson?
I know that I am giving words to a creative process that is entirely visual, and many ways invisible, so words can’t do this justice. But there will be more to come.
WHERE THE MAGIC LIVES
( originally posted May 21st, 2017 )
Creativity?.. what does it look like?...
It is less, of the question "what does it look like?", but more of recognizing where it isn't...
I often get asked questions about "art", "art education", the place where Graffiti fits in, etc... I usually make a stinky face, shrug my shoulders and talk about something else, because essentially, I don't really like talking about "Art". I like talking about Creativity, and how it manifests itself, through us, as people, through the universe, as nature, bringing light to dark, letting the unknown be revealed....
I know that this is a stickling point for some, I am one of those guys that believes that life is meant to be discovered, and not created... for some, that is heretical, words, coming from an "artist"... by the way, I use are quotations when I talk and write because I also feel that words get in the way, when I am trying to truly express my thoughts.
So what does this have to do with the picture above?... arguably nothing, and yet everything. In this picture, I am painting on a large canvas, about 8 feet high, and about 20 feet wide, give or take. It has layers upon layers of an acrylic wash, in blue, which is symbolic in and of itself. And I am listening to Jazz, "Kind of Blue", and "Blue Train",... I am only working with blue spraypaint, and I am painting at night. I take my time, no rush, deliberate motions, stepping away to reflect and allow feelings and gestures to bubble up. What I am working towards, is a magic that happens,... those spaces of "discovery", where you can break away from what is known and begin to have a conversation with the unknown. In the end, I hope that I have created something beautiful, I hope, and in the end I hope that I have something that I can share, that is also beautiful. Maybe it's the visual "Art", maybe it's these words... maybe it's the shared experience?
I often think that my artwork is a visual representation of a deeper spiritual principle,... and that is something that I discover, as oppose to create. One can "see" the creation, but you you must walk in the discovery... if that makes any sense.
From the Blackbook
I used to call my Blackbook, “The Book of Wonder”. All the problems of the universe would be solved in it’s pages. Or at least I thought so, through all the sketches, drawings, doodles… through the folds and wrinkles of the paper, the smudges of ink, the nonsensical thoughts written, universal truths were revealed, even if I didn’t know it in the moment. I would look at these sketches today and say to myself something along the lines of; “I was way ahead of my time”, or “I don’t know what type of sh#t I was on, when I wrote this”. It still provided curiosity and wonder to this day. Looking at this piece of paper here, I remember parts of it, the thinking process behind it. How I was going to do it on a wall in the next few days. The intricacies of it all, the obsession of it all. Those were the days. (this drawing was done somewhere in the early 1990’s)
Wayback In Time
I recently found this picture, an actual photograph of an artwork I made about 20 plus years ago. Back then, I would draw a pen and ink rendering, and cut and paste it onto a canvas. Then I would give it away.
You might wonder about the quote:
“Behold, I, even I, will bring a sword upon you, and I will destroy your high places.”
“For the land is full of bloodshed, and the city is full of violence.”
Ezekiel 6:3 and Ezekiel 7:23
You can read into it as you see fit, at this time in life, I was fascinated with the Old Testament, and found language to work into my drawings. Looking at this photo today, I wonder if it was a self portrait? I didn’t create it then as such, but looking at it today, I wonder did I do so unconscously?
CREATIVITY
When size and scale matters.
Inside the offices of the client.
LETTERS
An easy escape to a simpler time. Every once in a while, I need to exhale on a wall. I get lost ( in a good way ) when freestyling on a letter form. An escape from the Covid times outside, so I just get contemplative and remind myself that I am alive. A release to shake myself up, to stay focused and centered, that this too shall pass, and something good will come out from all of this. This is the letter “N”, it was going to be part of a pice, but I was being random at the time.
"Banksy and the Rise of Outlaw Art"
“Banksy, the world's most infamous street artist, whose political art, criminal stunts, and daring invasions outraged the establishment and created a revolutionary new movement while his identity remained shrouded in mystery.”
You can watch the trailer here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XL5D-ky46pE
The story behind this, is one for the record books, but I’d have to share it, which I won’t, but needless to say, it’s pretty incredible.
This documentary is available on Amazon Video, YouTube Movies, and various other Video On Demand platforms around the world. I think you should give it a look, it will shed some light, and not to mention I’m in it. You won’t be disappointed.