Pintura Project 2010

Alright so it's been quite the lengthy amount of time since I have done a blog post. After spring break, school got pretty ridiculous with the schedule and the classes that i have taken. I recently just lost everything I had set up for my blog in iphoto recently, so as you can see I have been in no condition whatsoever to even think about doing a post without at least trying to recover my short video and picture files. I recently just bought a camera so some photography will be on the way for you folks to check out. But since my last post was about graffiti I would like to keep that topic in effect. Although my computer archive of my personal graffiti stash has been taken away from me (fucking iphoto) I would like to post some pictures that I have taken with my cell phone when I attended the Pintura Project 2010.

First I would like to give you a little bit of history of what exactly this particular event entails. Back in 2008 a group of graffiti/hip hop heads decided to put together a one day event that would bring graffiti writers from all over the states to display a piece of their work on a purely legal wall. As some of you may or nay not know, Graffiti is highly illegal and will get you in serious trouble with the Law if you're not watching your every move when partaking. Trust me when i say this, I know from personal experience. There are not many walls in the U.S. that let you paint on them in a purely legal manor but for one day a year, Orlando let's you paint the Blackbox collective lot outside. This year was the third year that they have done this event. Some artists that have been in attendance over the years are T-KID, CES, BREAK, JEE, SEX, CHICO, WORD, FX CREW, MSG CREW, FDC CREW and TUFF CITY STYLES CREW, are among some of the artists that attend this one day event and paint all day.

As the artists are painting through out the day, Local Hip Hop DJ's take the turntable and local kids who come to the event have a breakdance mat set up for everyone to watch as they have an old school break dance cypher. This year was the first year I was able to attend and I had a blast. I felt like Harlem, NY moved down to Orlando for the day and just took over. The styles that were being brought to the table that day were amazing. Not only was their the display of talent beyond superior, but they also had a BBQ with awesome music being played as you were free to walk around the place with your camera and watch the artists paint.

I'm a huge graffiti fan and have been for years and years, so to see some of my idols painting literally 5 feet away from was such a refreshing feeling. Getting to talk to these guys about how they started graffiti, what influenced them to write, and seeing their technique was such a treat. I recommend everyone going to check it out next year if they continue to put the event on. It was $10 to get in and cameras of all shapes and sizes are welcome. At this time I am going to post some pictures of the graffiti that I got to see being produced in front of me.

Here is the link to my photo set on Flickr. Go Check it out and I hope you enjoy!!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/50045442@N07/sets/72157623909724591/

New sketches/New Beginnings

So as I mentioned in my very first post and also the subtitle to this very blog, I will be posting sketches every now and again whenever I have the time and whenever I think the sketch is good enough to present to the public. But what is a good black book without seeing the cover? Blackbooks in general are known for having very eccentric designs or even collages of different throwups, stickers, and other graffiti oriented objects on top. Anyways, I think the cover of a black book not only represents the artist but it is a little prologue to what you are about to see and get into. It represents the culture and all the vibes associated with graffiti. That being said, I would like to give you guys a brief history of how I started doing graffiti in the first place.

Growing up just 30 minutes outside of New York City, graffiti has always been around no matter where I looked. Whether it was looking outside the NJ Transit train and seeing all the graffiti pass me by or when I would take trips up to NYC to visit my family I was always staring and was constantly intrigued by this renegade style art form. It had a certain style/funk to it that no other art obtained. I've been to museums and seen traditional fine arts in the city but let's face it, that shit is fucking boring and it's all the same. Portraits of old assholes constantly shrugging at you is definitely not cool and honestly it is quite creepy with all do respect. Graffiti moved me in a way because it was unlike anything I have ever seen in my life. Their was an entire underground culture attached to it and in reality, Graffiti is a way of life much like Hardcore is. In fact they both coincide hand in hand.

Every time I would come back home from looking at all this great graffiti, I would immediately start drawing and researching what this culture was about. It wasn't until about 7th grade that I embraced this culture with full force and started writing everyday. I started researching what "getting up" really meant, who were "kings" of the trade and that I would remain a "toy" until I proved myself worthy of at least intermediate styles. I would post drawings and paintings of mine as the years went on in forums all over the Internet. I would attend the writer's bench up in Newark every couple of weeks. I did whatever I had to do to be the best in my town. But being in a town where only 4 other people did graffiti, there wasn't that much competition for me as there was in the entire state of New Jersey and let's face it, New Jersey heads KNOW how to get up and that's a fact.

I spent around 6-7 years constantly writing/tagging day in and day out. I would get up extra early before my walk to school and tag everything in my path. I had a blast doing it because it was like illegal art but it was compelling and it moved me all at the same time. I joined the Navy when I was 18 years old which lead to my graffiti writing into a screeching halt. My friends down here in Orlando have inspired me enough to get back into it whenever I have free time and some of it has even been used for album covers/logos for Trustatement.com, which is going to be a HUGE Hip Hop movement in the very near future. Thank you guys for inspiring me to continue with my artwork. After this cover has been posted, I will post more sketches as they are done. Thank you all!

Another Adventure

Its been a while my friends. A lot of new and exciting things are brewing and will be posted in the near future. Sorry for the delay in posts as my schedule just keeps getting busier and busier. I may or may not start another blog to combine all aspects of my media I decide to put out under a new alias but we’ll deal with that accordingly when the time comes. I’ll be posting some audio next week of a track I’ve been working on as of late. But for now I present to you another drunken adventure with a good friend of mine in the great city of San Diego. Enjoy!

What Happened?

“Without Music, Life would be a mistake”—Friedrich Nietzsche

This is probably one of the best quotes I have ever heard and can honestly relate to. All my fellow musicians, artists, songwriters, or simply fans of music can attest to the statement above. I honestly think this is the truth. There is not one single person out there that does not love or at least like music. Whether it’s being a full-blown fan, or someone who just grooves to music while they’re mopping the kitchen floor.

With today’s current state of music (specifically what sells, and what’s being played on the radio), life just does not exist and if it does exist it sure as shit does not have any heart. It upsets me just as much as anyone else who believes what I am about to say in the following passage.

Let’s start by asking a few questions shall we?

Where is the heart?

What happened to the passion?

What happened to hard work?

Where is the message?

What happened to saying FUCK the system?

What happened to starting a movement?

And finally…

What happened to the talent?

These are all questions I am constantly asking myself every time I hear the bullshit that’s being played all over the world. What pisses me off is that children listen to this crap and actually think it is music. My main target is obviously fools like T-Pain, and people like that. Seriously, FUCK HIM. How does someone honestly get famous for sucking so bad that they use a voice correctional tool in all its capacity on his voice?? This boggles my mind. What boggles my mind even more is that there is no message or substance. Today’s music industry has drastically changed from the past and I can adapt to how albums are a thing of the past and singles are the way to go. The general public do not want albums anymore, I don’t blame them because most of them suck through and through these days anyway. However what I do want is some quality music that displays talent, a story, a message, or at least have some sort of substance and atmosphere to it. Now I know most of you might be thinking “why am I so disgruntled when I don’t even listen to music on the radio for the most part anyway?” Well I’ll tell you why…

I’m obviously a HUGE fan of Hardcore, Hip-Hop, and Jazz music. That being said, all true forms of these genres of music still hold true to their value, nature and still obtain substance. They are by far the most underground types of music and are the only genres that the media hasn’t completely torn to shreds.

I can remember back when I was kid listening to bands like Soundgarden, Alice in Chains, Pearl Jam, Cypress Hill, Gorilla Biscuits, Agnostic Front, Black Flag, and Slayer, Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, Smashing Pumpkins, Snoop Dogg, Dr. Dre, and Cream. You just don’t see bands breaking the rules or breaking boundaries anymore. No one is taking a risk. While there is talent out there and it is waiting to be found, why isn’t the general public or the people that make up the vast majority that buy music wanting more than what they are given? It’s simply because they are not presented with what we had access to back in the day. Imagine this scenario if you will, Eric Clapton is an up and coming artist playing gigs all over the nation but is not famous. You want to know why? Because Eric Clapton wouldn’t be given the time of day in this market. That to me is a fucking disgrace. You have such talented artists out there trying to break through and make an impact on music and change the current state of music and no one gives a shit what they have to say. There’s just simply no heart in popular music anymore and I don’t care what argument you present to me saying that there is.

I understand that even back in other eras of music there was bubble gum pop bullshit still peaking its ugly head out just waiting to shove its bullshit down our throats, but at least we had good rock n roll, at least we had the grunge movement, at least we can listen to B.I.G. talk about the struggle, at least we could listen to Henry Rollins scream RISE ABOVE! To conclude this lengthy rant, I urge everyone to take a stand and promote REAL music. Deny what the stupid music executives are trying to pound down your throat. I am a firm believer that it is Generation Y’s sole responsibility to fix this. Stop buying into the bullshit and support your local artists/bands with actual talent. Go to shows, rebel against your parents, stick it to the man, do whatever you have to do, just DON’T buy into bullshit artists like T-Pain, Ke$ha, or any other crap you find out there.

Graffiti Demo

Ok so there has been a little bit of a delay for this Graffiti Demo video to come out but alas here we have it. A few weeks ago a good friend of mine asked me to design a logo for his entertainment group called Tru Statement Entertainment. This group is holding down true Hip-Hop and everyone needs to go check them out. If you support true Hip Hop and good music, go do yourself a favor and head over to their website. They just released a FREE Valentines Day album that is pretty dope. Anywho, here is the video along with a link to their website. ENJOY! http://trustatemententertainment.bandcamp.com/

UPDATE!!! and new video post

I would first like to start off my apologizing due to the lack of posts this last week or so. I have been digging around my computers looking for videos to put up and seeing what else I can come with to post. In the next day or two I will be posting some graffiti that I have recently completed for my friends entertainment group. I documented the entire drawing process so everyone who is curious to see what goes on while creating a graffiti piece will get his or her fix.

Anyways, moving along, I know this might be a little late to be posting a video of this nature but most of you who are reading I’m sure wonder if I am man enough to roast a whole turkey. Well the answer to that is FUCK YES! As a matter fact Thanksgiving ’09 was the SECOND time I roasted a whole turkey, and roasted it to perfection I might add! So anyways, my roommate took a few videos on his phone of what went on that day. I thought it would be kind of cool to show it off and show a different side of me, which is of course the cooking side. ENJOY!

Old Pranks

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So here we are once again. The weekend has been done and gone for a few days and I just started new classes this month. I have taken some video of me doing a graffiti sketch that I will begin editing tonight and adding in some background music to basically give you an idea of what kind of art I am into and what it takes to complete a sketch. For now though I have edited yet another funny clip for you guys to enjoy.

Yet again to give you some history on what this clip is about….

When I had joined the Navy I had no idea what would be in store for me, who I would meet, and what I would do. I honestly didn’t think I was even going to have free time at all. But as you can see by these videos we did have a little time to ourselves. That being said, my good friend Mike and I would always pull pranks on each other late at night whenever we were drunk or just felt like being funny. Of course I was the first one to commit this heinous crime but whatever right? I thought it would be funny and the rest of his household thought it would be too. There wasn’t any planning it was a spur of the moment type of thing. The video was taken almost 3 years ago and I had no idea what to do with it, I just kept it around and watched it whenever I was having a shitty day to brighten up the mood. So of course what I do with the video? Post it on the Internet so everyone and their mother can see it mwahahahahaha (evil laugh). So I apologize in advance to my friend Mike because he absolutely has no idea I am posting this and probably doesn’t want me to. But I think everyone is entitled to have a good laugh every now and again so here ya go!