REBEL8

Hope everyone had an enjoyable Memorial Day weekend. I sure did.

Short week this week. Let’s make it count!

Luke Francis at Everlasting is tattooing a cobra coming out of a lotus flower on the inside of my upper right.

There’s nothing like the feeling of a tattoo machine right next to your balls…

I was making a tattoo today.

I’m getting a tattoo tomorrow!

Went to the Living Desert Reserve yesterday. Here are some photos.

Here’s another old one from 1990, a “GNT” piece painted illegally during the day at Monolithic in Albuquerque.

This is one of the first walls I did where I primed the wall with latex house paint, what we called “buffing” the wall. When the city painted over our work on the street, we used the same term, as in “Yo, they buffed my piece the next fuckin’ morning!” I had a spot where I could get good quality latex paint in 5 gallon buckets for $5, but it came in only one color – tan. Ironically, it was the same paint the city used to buff all graffiti my friends and I did. I must have used 100s of gallons of it over the years.

I used Krylon spraypaint for the rest, which was considered the best paint at the time. I painted all of it with stock tips too. This was just before a dude named WIZDOM showed me good caps. I kept using stock tips for a while though because I had really gotten used to them. I still like using them.

At the end of the wall is a scroll with a shout out to some girls I met in London earlier that year. Since the beginning I’ve always written the names of the girls in my life on my pieces. They always liked it until they dug through my photos and saw that they weren’t the only girl I had hit up like that.

I can’t remember where I got the reference for that bulldog or why I thought that would be a cool character to use. It seems so weird to me now.

Also, you’ll notice the water in the foreground. I had to put plastic shopping bags around my socks then put my shoes on so I could stand in the water all afternoon. But the water sure kept the toys from tagging my shit!

More blasts from the past to come…

I’m back in Palm Springs. Got in last night just in time to see the sun…

Set.

Starting my day off right this morning with one of my favorites, Eggs Benedict. Every restaurant has their own variation. At Cheeky’s they subbed out English muffins for freshly baked biscuits; fresh greens added to create a slight fusion with an Eggs Florentine; dropped the Canadian bacon and did their own in-house cured bacon; perfectly poached eggs dripped wet with a well-prepared Hollandaise. Pretty bomb if I do say so myself.

Now to get this day crackin’. Who knows where I’ll end up? But a graffiti Nike Swoosh gotta be a good sign. Hello, Palm Springs!

Have a wonderful and productive day.

I had a great Saturday night in LA! Artshows galore! Good times. My adventure began at Rivera & Rivera Gallery. They were showing art in various mediums about Tony Ward. It wasn’t very interesting so we didn’t stay long. Then we hit Thinkspace Gallery in Culver City where my friend Pakayla Biehn was showing some new paintings.

Her paintings are amazing. She made this rad installation made of eyeglass lenses too. Very cool.

Then we walked up the street to Corey Helford Gallery where we scored some free veggie dogs! From there we drove up to Known Gallery where I ran into my man Casey, owner of the gallery and The Seventh Letter.

To graffiti writers like myself, he’s known as Eklips, a founding member of AWR, the best crew in the history of the West Coast as far as I’m concerned. He’s a legend.

In the back of the gallery, Kevin Ancell was showing a huge bomb he made from scratch in a room full graffiti. I used to work with Kevin in the mid 90s when I was working for Think Skateboards. He’s an old friend and he’s been a super influential part of the California art scene for decades.

I can’t remember who Kevin collaborated with on these walls. I loved it.

After the show I went next door to Will Rise Tattoo to hang with my man Eric Dressen and I ran into my old friend Estevan Oriol. We run into each other all over the world but Estevan brought up the fact that we’d never been in a photo together, so his wife Angel hooked us up.

I finished my evening with a Matzo Brey at Canters, one of my favorite spots in LA. Highly recommended.

On Sunday I drove back to SF without delay. It’s nice to be home. I’ll be back in LA next month…

I’m going back to Tyler Florence’s new restaurant (El Paseo) tonight. I’m sure I’ll be sitting in Cavandre’s private booth. Can’t wait!

Big thanks to Ria and Jason for bringing me back this gem from the Philippines.

Truth in advertising.

Back to the grind. Later!

I painted this “GNT-AK” piece in 1990.

“GNT” is short for Giant and “AK”, Aerosol Kings, was a crew from NYC that I had just become part of. AK was started by Nic 1, a mentor to AGREE who then mentored me. It was painted in Albuquerque at a spot we called “Monolithic”. I learned how to piece there. This was one of the first pieces I did using NY thin caps or “Liquid-Tex” caps as we called them, or “phantoms” as our friends in San Diego called them. We had to steal them from cans of spray adhesive we’d find at art supply stores before our friends in San Diego hooked us up with big bags of them. I used cheap K-Mart silver for the fill-in and outlined it with Krylon True Blue, a favorite combination. I used up some scrap cans of florescent paint in the background. And I think that’s the only time I’ve ever done my outline fat-to-thin like that. It’s weird. I used a “spitter cap” for the electricity effect and the tiny flare lines in the sparkle effects. I’ll explain how to make a spitter at another time. And how about those shelltoe Adidas with fat laces and the Bones t-shirt I was wearing? I had such a weird sense of style.

Now fast forward 21 years and read this interview that FATCAP just posted. Stay up!

Did I ever tell you the fried pickles at Hooter’s are dope?

Been seeing personalized license plates everywhere.

Summer ‘11 is selling in our online store. This was lunch at the photoshoot. Allie is not afraid of food.

Such a beautiful building on 18th Street between Valencia and Guerrero.

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When a motherfucker is really paid, this will be mine. One of San Francisco’s finest.

Not sure what Mike’s pointing at, but clearly I didn’t photo it. Haha. Welcome home Mike!

Steady grindin’. Hope all is well with you.