Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Homely...



















Being a lover of Graf, Art, Photography, Porn, Bondage & Drugs...lol :) No i'm just playing but being an admirer of these things it's only evident that I would bring that world into my home so I wanted to share the works I have around my house. Theres a little bit of randomness but here they are. The Bedroom, Closet doors and Tiger/cobra canvas was done by Doves Tck (bigdoves.blogspot.com) . The paint marker on acrylic & Canvas was done by (http://www.mr-ewokone.com). And the rest or things I liked and either put up in a frame or just put around the home.

Eldert St. Garden Mural Project


Please come out and support and join the Eldert Community in the painting of a mural for their community Garden. Everyone is welcome so please come out and have fun with us and bring your kids so they can participate and enjoy in the activities.

4/24/10 So the days festival was a good turnout and we began the beginning of the gardens mural. Its not completed yet but were along the way so I will keep you all updated thanks to Rodrigo for the dope sketch and SansOne 2dx for coming out with me and helping paint..
......

Friday, April 16, 2010

Birds Of a Feather..






Sometimes inspiration and the thought process behind a great piece of work can be baffling and while playing on the web I came across an extraordinary artist who has baffled me in her uniqueness and creativity. Kate Mccgwire has taken and made beauty and art out of the least likely of things"FEATHERS". I decided to post a few of her pieces let me know what you think.

Thursday, April 15, 2010

The Begining...

I remember being fascinated with the colors on the walls, the way the colors would blend. Never realizing the heart put behind each letter the soul in being different from the next writer. I remember the first time I found a marker laying around my moms home a black chisel tip permanent marker to be exact and walking out with the intentions of writing my name somewhere. And then realizing I had no name and there my challenge began what would I name myself....hmmmmmmm!! What would I call myself who would I be, looking for something original but when you start out the best name tends to be the name you see the most scrawled on those hallway walls so thats what I looked for and who I became.... I was an impostor!! I wasn't ORIGINAL..But then I learned the true difference between a neighborhood tagger and a graffiti artist. And thats what I yearned to be..and in the mist of it all in class one day in H.S.to be exact. I looked over and found out that my classmate was just that, He became my mentor..and over time I gave myself a "NAME" a name that fit..and I started the walking the steps of being a Graffiti artist. I learned the lingo, I learned the difference between fat caps and stock caps. Which paint stuck best to metal gates and brick which dried the quickest..and I loved every minute of it. It became my first true love and over time I formed my own crew "2DX" To the Xtreme we were small but we put our names up. I can always recall the first time I wrote on a noticeable spot downtown bklyn and hearing everyone say they saw it. It was like a battery my ego jumped and I realized I loved the recognition and wanted more. And thats when I learned to be recognized you had to go all city because you want to be known in all 5 boroughs and I climbed my ladder. And got with a crew my second family T.C.K. a multi-racial group of youth from all parts of the city which gave 2dx reach and every part...Seyer, Bzar,Dek,Phame,Ecko.....and many more brothers.
And I became what I strived for a "Graffiti Artist" I learned how my heart became one with the art and my soul helped form me into something different. But I also learned something else I was a "VANDAL" and I was proud of it while you were reading on the train I was standing on the tracks waiting for it to pass so I can put the highlights on my name. While you were dazing off into space I'm watching the walls as I walk reliving memories. You don't worry about the law, you don't care that your girl just broke up with you, YOU don't care cause you're free..Standing on the prospect express way while cars are zooming by and your scrawling your name with brothers who have become family. You're free....Stand on the highways painting billboards, breaking into abandoned buildings to hangout and paint...I WAS FREE.
I loved that life and still do its who you are you become your name and your name becomes you..And I only have love and respect for my brothers who've run the streets with me, whom we ate in each others houses until 1 a.m. so we can get our paint together and plan the next train or bus line we want to paint..2DX.TO WHICH I AM PREZ..TCK.URN.5MH.NVS
I am a Graf. Artist, Vandal and Explorer..I know parts of the city you'll never see in your dreams...
I will end this post with a poem written by fellow artist and brother..Bonafide

the Creed Of A Graffiti writer

Friday, January 22, 2010 at 10:21am
for TCK, FSH, 5MH, 2DX, & URN


we strike at night
the streets of new york is our canvas
we hide in the shadows
when the pig patrol strolls by
the moon gives us ouronly source of light

we are the addicts of aerosol
the krylon can clan
the rusto patrol

we are the german tip spraying
backpack wearing
black book carrying
magnum pilot tagging
the wack toy buffers

we are the brigade of bombers
mounting on our midnight mission
of colorized madness
the color blending
spray paint andmind melding maniacs

we are the ghetto picassos
the modern day matisses
the artistic shakespeares
that tear white walls in half

we are the street canvas killers
with one quick splatof an ultra flat black
with silver outlines andyellow highlights
perfected during 3 a.m. night skylines

we are the crews
that redecorate building walls
with wildstyles burning people's imagination
with motions of the can
the walls wailed words of life
through sight of krylon colors
on the streets of new york

we bomb city blocks
rocking throw-ups on topof window sills
while standing on top ofgarbage cans

we are the ones
who set bronx-brooklyn expeditions
in traditions of nomads
we go where no man's can
has sprayed on walls before
our names are found onhigh rises,
bridges and building roofs
we are the bandits of burners
our plans are waterproof, shockproof and foolproof

we are the tye dye tone tint marauders
that wrote graffiti manifestos on black walls
with silver unis, sg-7 and white pentel markers

we mark the many lands and train stations
our tags rag black books and cardboard
scratched on windows and train doors
stickers slapped over any motherfucker
you had beef withonly in self-defense

we are the graffiti gurus that spray silver spots
on blackness that become stars on the walls of galaxies
we gaze at our glossy words
and lose ourselves in arrows and 3-d shadows

we are the 12oz prophets
that wrote prophecies with our hieroglyphics
that help humans understand us

it is simply the loveof seeing our name on the wall
it is the symbolic valueof feeling important
in a world we are lost in
it is the outlet that introduced art into our way of thinking
we wore baggy jeans, hat to the back and army fatigues
when we ventured on our trip of blending bombing wonderland

the street is our canvas
when art brushes and stencils
dont matter only liquitechs and spraypaint
the toxic aroma that entered our bloodstream
on nights when we froze our fingertips
writing upside down with the can trying to get all the paint out

feel the wrath of graff
when society calls us vandals and delinquents
thats why your child wants to be just like us

we bomb your door to tell you our name
its a shame you erased our high rise artistic motion trains:
the far rockaway - lefferts A
the outside D, B, and Q in brooklyn
the coney island F
the canarsie L
the J, M, and the Z over the williamsburg bridge
the N and the R in astoria, queens
the 1 and the 9 in washington heights
the 2 and the 5 in the bronx
the new lots 3
the jerome 4
the westchester 6
and the flushing purple 7 train

now we reign on your law
the ink scribe scribbles on your forehead
then pronounces you hip hoply dead

the 4th son of hip hopovershadowed
by technic table microphones
and puma gray suede complexion tone

there is no hip hop without graffiti
only rap so we wrap our hands
around cans becoming one

our motions are studied by anthropologists
making money off our art
the sprits on clean canvas can be hazardous to minds
when eyes cant understand
the buck wildstyle alphabet

sunrises call for travelshomeward bound
we are the ones that make
the clickclakclikclakclikclakclikclaksound
with the can on new land
when a tag could get our asses shot

we are the artistic poets
that perform magic with spraypaint
and just call ourselves writers
graffiti writers.



© 2009

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

REVOK PT.2




Revok Acclaim Magazine Interview..





Revok A Convo With Ruedione

"I’m in the fortunate, sometimes direct & sometimes indirect position, where I make a living off of the identity I’ve created for myself in graffiti." RevokPhotography By Ruedione

Interview By Ruedione


By now, LA graffiti legend Revok’s ill-fated trip to Australia is infamous. Originally flown out here to coordinate an event that was supposed to be any graffiti writer’s wet dream, the overly ambitious, and seemingly under-funded venture was never to see the light of day and Revok, who had put his own reputation on the line to organise the participants from around the world was left with the unfortunate job of informing the all-star graffiti line-up that their trip to Aus would not be going ahead once the pin was pulled at the last minute.

Ruedione (a renowned German photographer in town for the would-be event) and Revok had a lengthy discussion on the way to the Melbourne airport (where Revok was arrested shortly after arriving), on graffiti today and the creative process. Here is the discussion.


Who are you and where do you come from?

I’m Revok from Los Angeles; I’m an overgrown child who’s turning 33 years old and still spray painting my name up on walls.

What are your reasons for coming out here to Melbourne?

I came out here to Melbourne, Australia because we were trying to do a pretty ambitious project, Clash of the Titans, it was kind of… I described it the other day in a statement on my blog, as kind of being one of those things your sitting around with your buddies, having a “what if” conversation “Wouldn’t it be cool if…”, “Imagine if such and such would happen…”.

It was of those ideas based on one of those conversations, you know sitting around watching the X-Games and see something like that, where something like skateboarding, where its come from and where its come into and the type of recognition and reward these guys are enjoying from the fruits of there labour and doing what it is they love to do. Sitting around with my friends talking about what if one day for graffiti there was that kind of pot of gold at the end of the rainbow or an event or circumstance that what we do kind of got celebrated with the recognition or respect that we believe its entitled to, but at the same time you never expect something like that is actually going to happen.

It seems so farfetched and unrealistic and this is definitely one of those situations, anyway long story short I’m here in Melbourne because I was presented with a real unique opportunity to make that happen and had it happened and gone forward it would have monumental and epic it’s something that’s really long over due for graffiti. I had ten of the guys that at least in my opinion are the most important and relevant, best graffiti artists in the global graffiti movement.

Definitely not the be all and end all list, but quite a few guys that deserve to be on that list as well as any body, but you know due to my budget I had to trim it down to ten. I had ten of the guys who are kind of the movers of the movement, they were all going to compete on an epic level, you know battling and painting burners in a one on one, every man for himself, there was going to be a $20,000 cash prize for the winner. Nothing that ambitious has ever happened before.

There have obviously been graffiti battles and events in the past but none of that calibre where guys are getting really treated well, like they deserve and being paid. Paid to come and be treated like real legit professionals and that’s what I really wanted to make happen and I’m still going to make it happen, you know its kind of suffered a minor set back, obviously it didn’t wake out the way I would have liked, but I’m definitely going to make it happen back in L.A, ideally bigger and better the next time around.

There’s been a big discussion over the last couple of years about the graffiti movement getting more and more commercial and I think specifically and I think the event here in Melbourne would have been another step in that direction. So how do you feel about the writers coming to compete and the main reason why they compete is the money… There’s been some big discussions for that battle actually, a few people were saying that getting money for writing, because originally people didn’t write [graffiti] for the money aspect. What do you think about that aspect?
I got a lot of thoughts and opinions about that topic; obviously it’s a very personal topic for me as well because I’m a graffiti writer for twenty years now. Now I’m in the fortunate where sometimes directly and sometimes indirectly position where I make a living off of the identity I’ve created for myself off of graffiti. So this is something I think of on a daily basis and talk about it with my friends and I have a lot of thoughts on it.

First of all, well, graffiti by definition in its very nature is crime, its illegal. Graffiti is never going to be legal, there is always going to be that threat of imprisonment for doing graffiti so based on that simple fact alone graffiti can never go mainstream or commercial per se'. You know as long as you’re doing graffiti, it just doesn’t make sense. But at the same time if you do something for long enough and you put enough work into it, you really pay your dues, put your blood sweat and tears, really believe in something you love it, you live it, you believe it, you eat it, you sleep with it, you fuck it, you shit it and its your end all be all, it’s your existence, it’s your entire purpose, it’s your everything.

As like myself I’m well into my thirties and I’ve been doing this for two thirds of my life, for almost twenty years, you know it’s a little bit late in the game to do much else, its either do something I’m not proud of or try to make something out of my passion and what I love. To be honest with you I think I’ve earned that, I’ve deserved that right for a couple of dollars to be made off of my art I love I think I’m entitled to that, if I’m not going to eat off of that table some undeserving fucking dickhead is going to be eating off that table.

That was part of my motivation for taking a step away from how I used to make my living and going into what you would call, for lack of a better word, the commercial art world, because I continuously saw people that were biting our culture, ripping off our lifestyle, fresh out of art school who never did graffiti in their lives, getting commissioned by whatever company to do artwork or to do graphic design or to do something done in a graffiti manner, fashion or aesthetic but these are people that haven’t earned the right to make a living off of our culture and our art form, that was a huge motivational factor for me so if graffiti artists aren’t going to step up and make a living off graffiti, well then somebody else is and I can guarantee you that it’s going to be someone that doesn’t represent our lifestyle and art form correctly, so you decide who deserves that cheque.

As far as this event is concerned the people that are pissing and moaning and complaining about it…"Oh that’s wack, graffiti going commercial” they’re completely full of shit. Anybody given the opportunity make a living doing what it is they love would take this opportunity. You know that’s your personal choice…all the guys I invited to be involved in this event are movers of the movement for a long time and plenty of dudes put in plenty of work on the street, whether it be doing streets or painting trains or what have you, they’re all real graffiti writers. Guys that are bombers and “piecers” alike, respect, because they do it on all levels and their proficient on all levels. Those are the guys I want to fuck with, those are the guys that I really want to represent.

I think what’s important is the definition of the term graffiti, because when you say the word, by definition it is illegal, you’re actually talking about vandalism, in the States its defined by the law , that graffiti IS vandalism, but from what I see graffiti changed a lot in the last years, but having this event here is not vandalism, people painting on walls that are being built for them
.

I think that’s much more of a European experience, in America there are no “legal places” to paint graffiti, I guess there are some tolerated places but they are very few and far between. The practice of doing graffiti, painting on a surface, unless that surface is your home, chances are you don’t own that surface therefore its illegal. A kid in L.A just got eight years [sentence] for graffiti, another kid in Texas got five years for graffiti, graffiti is a crime and that’s what it is. Graffiti is spray painting and writing your name on a wall.

Guys that do graffiti but only paint legal’s, they call themselves graffiti writers or whatever, but their only painting legal walls or halls of fame, for me those guys are not graffiti writers, those guys are like spray can artists or whatever, aerosol artists or some shit, that’s not doing graffiti to me, to me doing graffiti is going out and doing your name somewhere where its not supposed to be, breaking the law and getting up, that’s what graffiti is. Those are the guys that I respect and those are the guys that I pay attention to.

Going back to what I was saying before about graffiti going mainstream and all that, the whole idea of graffiti is to be known, to be recognised, the reason that you come up with a nom de plume an alias or whatever, a graffiti name. You go out and you put up work in the street, you paint trains and do all that shit, is to get recognition, whether it be from your peers or general public as a whole, you go out and do graffiti because you want people to know who you are or at least who this identity is your creating for yourself, that’s the whole point.

This event for instance is just an addition to that, it’s just getting more recognition, it’s the exact same intention, exact same motivation, its just now the stakes are higher and the rewards are larger and it’s a natural progression and evolution of graffiti, so how could you call that selling out? If you think doing graffiti to get noticed is wack and selling out then don’t do graffiti, paint canvases at home in your basement, keep them to yourself, throw a sheet over them when someone walks into your house if you don’t want someone to see it. That is contradictory to the whole nature of graffiti.

So you put the thrill aspect over the creative aspect of graffiti? So your saying that as a graffiti writer you’re doing this illegally, is that like a basis? Calling somebody a graffiti writer, is it the thrill? So the illegal activity actually over the creative aspects of creating the dynamic of letterings?

I think for me personally it’s a combination of the two, I mean, the only reason I think graffiti is relevant in cotemporary art terms or pop culture terms or whatever kind of realm that your putting it in, what makes graffiti relevant is the fact that it's illegal, that’s what separates it from any other passion or past time or hobby or cultural phenomenon.

Graffiti is important because, it’s a huge global movement, the biggest kind of art movement ever, in our history. You have hundreds of thousands of people all over the world in every continent, every major city in the world going out and doing this, risking their lives, risking going to jail, risking you know, all kind of shit just for the sake of painting something, that’s what makes graffiti relevant. An artist paints at home in his studio they're not risking anything, a kid skateboards, maybe security will run him off, but he’s not really risking anything except for maybe a sprained ankle, you play basketball your not risking anything.

People who get obsessive about something and indulge in something and try to pursue it to the point of excellence usually aren’t generally risking anything, unless there’s a real reward involved, if you go out hold up businesses and rob stores or rob banks yeah you're risking a lot, but you're doing so for the promise of a reward, for making money, for graffiti that’s pretty well non-existent. Now it’s becoming a little bit more of an experience that a small select few in the general movement are experiencing, but on a whole there’s no reward for that. There’s no other art form or culture I can really think of where people go out and risk imprisonment and massive fines, their lives, destroying relationships and put all kind of shit in jeopardy, lay it all out on the line to create a piece of artwork and that’s what graffiti is and to me that’s what I view, the single factor that makes graffiti relevant.

If I were just an artist into painting something cool or interesting – why would I do graffiti? I would just paint canvases and do graphics on the computer, the whole reason why I paint graffiti is being your doing something in absolutely ridiculous situation, risking something just to paint your name and to make something aesthetically that a group of people might appreciate, and I think that’s what makes it kind of cool and interesting.

So is each writer an artist to you? If this is the case, is the artwork he creates a piece of artwork to you?

I think everybody is an artist in their own way, I mean obviously some people are lot better artists than others! Bringing it back to this event, Clash of the Titans and all of the people that would have been involved in this event, they're fuckin’ artists and extremely skilled, talented, influential and relevant artists in their own right. Not just limited to the scope of graffiti, I think just art as a whole their all just amazing incredible artists.

In the last couple of years it seems to be more common for graffiti artists to copy others, being inspired is a very common thing. It’s kind of important to develop your own stuff, but because of commercial development in the last couple of years, it seems more and more common that they copy others and even stand in the spot light in the moment where they do something that was originally being created by somebody else in the original form, really too close to the original.

I’ve always taken a lot of pride in pursuing originality and uniqueness, something I’ve always valued in other writers and creative anything. That’s one of the fundamental categories that I judge and base my judgement on whether whatever someone is doing is important or relevant or not and something I hold in very high regard.

I think no matter what you do creatively it should be pursued by all means but on the flip side of that, and I remember making the same remark with you the other night, no idea is absolutely original or unique. Nobody comes up with an original idea or concept, everything everybody does is based on some finding or explanation of another person before them. Human kind evolves forward and progresses by making advancements and taking it one step further. Bringing that back to graffiti its no different, while I try be original, to absolutely honest I have been personally influenced and inspired by and at some points in my life would go as far as to say I’ve bitten those that I respect a lot and hold in high regard. You know? Risky WCA, Charlie DTK, Krush & Tyke AWR, Saber (MSK), Ayer (LTS/KOG).

A lot of people around me and lot of my friends we all vibe off each other, we all see each other do something or come up with something or do a cool little twist, we take it and adopt it, but most importantly do it in our own little way or do our own little interpretation of it. I think that’s what helps things progress and move forward and keeps things interesting is a constant evolution, constant building on ideas and taking them further and trying to advance with them further. Everything everybody is doing today in graffiti is based upon something somebody else has done at some point or another, maybe they're doing it in their own way which is great, its admirable or there’s the latter, they're straight up copying somebody and that’s the differentiating factor.

Sometimes it’s a little grey and hard to define, but generally people know what’s up, you have a trained eye you can see, somebody is biting somebody or not. There’s a tasteful way of doing things and being inspired and building upon other peoples ideas and then there is straight up biting and that obviously gets no respect and is something that’s heavily frowned upon in graffiti, as it should be.

But don’t you think that the moral view on copying, within the movement, have changed in the last years?

Well its mass information, ten years ago you had regional styles and aesthetics, you go to L.A and there’s a very distinct aesthetic of a blood that flows through the veins of everybody there because it was a contained scene and everybody was influenced by the same kind of movers of that scene. They took those aesthetics and adopted them and used them as their own. You had a cultural aesthetic that was limited to that area. You go up further north to San Francisco which had a very distinct aesthetic, you go to New York has its own distinct aesthetic, Chicago, London, Paris, Berlin…all these places that have huge scenes and all had a very unique style and look or their own. Because in each of those regions they were contained in a bubble, magazines kind of broke that a little bit, but they had merely the effect that the internet has had on right now. Now someone in Taiwan is looking at stuff that’s happening in L.A the moment it happens, somebody in Budapest, Hungary is seeing what’s happening in Sao Paulo, Brazil the moment it happens.

Everybody has access to this formation at the same time (immediately). As a result of that more kids are doing graffiti than ever and the schooling of graffiti, the hand to hand-mouth to the mouth, passing of the torch, this tradition of it, the way that things were generally learned and taught in the world of graffiti have dissipated and fallen apart and now the internet is a teacher and with that comes no morals and ethics, you have all of these young kids who are jumping on board and wanting to do graffiti, watching so and so in Germany, so and so in Basil, Switzerland and biting the shit out of it instantly and going out on the street painting it and putting it straight on the web.

Now there is this cross pollination of styles and aesthetics from all over the globe that are melting and blending together and I will say as a result diluting and weakening graffiti more than its ever been now, because there is not those strong, bold, original styles that once were. But then again, like all things, on the flip side of that, mass cross pollination, it makes the people who are truly original and really doing full, dope, powerful shit stand out amongst all the shit that looks the same. That’s just the new evolutionary phase of graffiti, because so many people are biting that same people, everybody’s shit is starting to look the same all over the world, that just makes the people who are fresh and who are innovative and progressive stand out and be that much more valuable and look that much better because there’s so much bullshit out there.

Everything has to progress and move forward because you can never hold on to the old ways for too long otherwise you will end up being extinct. Its undeniable things are going to change, graffiti it has to stay in a state of evolution, it has to stay continually progressing and moving forward. Because when it stops, it gets stagnant, it’s going to get boring and die. That’s just the nature of all things.

Things constantly go in cycles, fads come and go, they disappear then ten years later they come back in style and graffiti needs to keep changing to stay interesting. If graffiti just stuck to a very rigid format, with a rigid mentality of doing things eventually it would get really dull and boring, then something else would could come along that would be more interesting and graffiti would just fade away. It's really easy to sit here and grip both fists and hold on to old ideas and old philosophies and not let go of them but in doing so personally I think its self defeating and detrimental to graffiti. You got to keep an open mind, you’ve got to stay progressive, you have to keep an awareness of all things that are going and be open to all things and keep them eternally and use them as motivation and inspiration to keep evolving and stay relevant otherwise it’s just pointless.

I don’t see the point in doing anything unless you’re doing it in order to move forward and doing better than what’s done before you. I don’t see the point in doing graffiti and making it look like its New York in the seventies or the eighties, I don’t see the point of doing anything whether its music or art or fashion or whatever if your not trying to do so in a way that’s fresh, new, innovative and progressive, for me that’s the bottom line.

[Revok to Rudi] With you and your photography would you say the same thing?

I always compare coming through graffiti going to photography it’s actually the same thing for me. In photography your highest aim is to create your own style, you’ll always get an influence and you have to make the element that you can claim to be your own. I mean it is the same these days with photography because of the internet and the digital technique it’s really easy to copy somebody. It’s become more and more common to copy people, I think it’s a bit different, though I totally agree about the fact that it has to grow and evolve to push the limits. But I guess it’s important to create a certain style and constantly keep doing it, always be on it and make it better all the time.

It’s good to have an opinion about that because that’s something that happened to me around the early 2000s, maybe this is a bit of an arrogant thing to say but, fuck it, I started noticing a lot of people were copying my shit. Not just in the States but all over the place, Europe everywhere; I felt a lot of people were really biting my shit and at first I was really fucking irritated by that. Then I looked at it from a different perspective, I thought to myself if I can look at all these peoples' stuff and be like damn they’re copying my shit, people are saying to me “…damn that looks like a Revok style”. I kind of sat back and looked at it in a different light and thought to myself, if theirs has a Revok style and a Revok look and somebody can paint something in a certain way and people are like "that looks Revok-ish," then Revok is being too predictable and Revok is being too redundant and monotonous, Revok needs to be more versatile and change and progress more.

As a result I’ve tried to every so often to switch it up and try a new thing or base it on a certain kind of exploration that happens like accidental or something, I’ll try to build on that and change my aesthetic, the look of my thing is based on that and constantly trying to progress and try new ideas and looks and keep it moving forward that way. I think that if it gets to a point where what you're doing is so predictable that somebody could just label it that easily, then it's kind of time to change and move on.

Definitely, it’s the same with everything. I think you’ll find that there are so many talented people out there that are very much able to copy even the style no matter what you do. Everything is able to be copied, of course in graffiti it's way more easy, I mean if you look at photography of course you sometimes have productions where you need twenty people on the set and a budget of a couple of hundred thousand [dollars] and of course that’s not that easy to copy. But in graffiti it’s just you and your paint...

(Revok interupts) But ten years from now…like Kaws for instance, I loves Kaws’s art, it's beautiful; I will say I’m a fan of Kaws’ art. If I go to a Kaws' show and see paintings that look just like what he’s doing right now in seven years I’m gonna be bummed out and I’m going to lose interest in him. I mean it's cool for a certain period of time, you know the shit he’s doing right now, everybody is going to be copying him, biting for the next few years and eventually it’s all going to look the same. If the dude doesn’t change which I know he will, I’ve already seen him do new things, it’s going to be boring.

You have to stay ahead of the game, no matter what you’re doing, it’s a race, its competition and competition is what makes anything thrive and flourish. Competition is what keeps human species the dominant species on the planet, if we’d gotten lazy eventually somebody else would evolve, that would be hungry enough to take over and we’d lose our dominance on the planet. You can’t ever get too comfortable about what you’re doing, once you get too comfortable other people are going to come up and surpass you.

I’m not going to say any names but there are certain writers from the early eighties era let’s just say and what they did then was absolutely incredible it was mind boggling, it blew everybody away and it created what’s happening today. But now you look at it in the context of what happening today and it's laughable, so the fact that some of these people are still doing now what they did back then, they threw in the towel so to speak and they quit trying and trying to do better and move forward now makes them look completely irrelevant.

I totally agree that development is kind of super important to what you do and you should never stand still, but I kind of look at these things from a bigger perspective, because when I do things I don’t just do it for today I always want to integrate something in there for longer so maybe people in twenty, thirty, fifty years time will look at it and say, well that’s his stuff. Of course it's meant to be a strong development within my work, but I think if you develop too fast, lets say over a period of time you have a style today and then within a year you look totally different, you’ve developed something totally new. You’ve rushed all these years and in a way you don’t have a certain type of aesthetic people connect you with, you’ll be forgotten. A certain strong body of work, look at Picasso, he has certain periods of his work where it looks different, where he was moving from one style to the next one but still it was a couple of years, it was enough to layer and refine it. I mean people copy so fast, if you think you always have to get ahead of the rest and develop that fast you'll end up with a weird, crazy mix that will usually find you forgotten and maybe someone will copy the one style you did last year and he sticks to it for the next 15 years, then you’ll be forgotten and he’ll be the one remembered for it. I think that would be a pity.

No, I agree with you, it’s a delicate balance, once you develop something you got to polish it and refine it and do it enough to the point where it makes a big impact and leaves a bold lasting impression that’s undeniable and once that’s created, do that a bit longer 'til it gets to be redundant, then flip it and reinvent yourself. It’s a constant evolution and delicate balance making it work, that’s the struggle and experience of all things no matter what it is. Making clothes, art, graffiti or whatever it is, that’s the constant pursuit of excellence, finding the right balance, doing it the right way, not doing it too much, without making it too leftfield, enough to make it connect and communicate with people and make that impact, but not over do it and play yourself out that’s the constant kind of challenge.

My World.

I'm new to the bloggosphere arena, so i'm catching on and learning slowly but surely. So please bare with me for the time being until I get a handle on things. But I want to welcome all who visit and show their face into my world of Art,graffiti, quotes, love, photos and any other madness I bring to you.

Thank you, and I look forward to having you along for the journey.