Thanks to the organizational skills of Serval, I had the pleasure of joining him along with Bates and Poet on a trip to Geneva promoting The Exchange book. We were special guests at a book fair in Morges, hired to paint and conduct some workshops with local Swiss kids.
In usual fashion we wasted no time in getting up on a city wall. Fresh from the airport Bates and I decided to swap names in a freestyle exchange.
Going in it’s a Fon”do”, going out it’s a Fon”don’t”…
The following day we drove out to a small town along Lake Geveva called Morges. Here we spent the next few days talking to locals about the always exciting task of being a graffiti writer…
In the photo below you can see the French Alps on the opposite side of the lake…
Italian fishermen…
The perfectionist…
We set out to do another name swap on a prepared wall along the waterfront…
Young locals taking notes…
Kids really like getting painted on these days. When i was their age this act would of been the ultimate form of disrespect…
For this freestyle of Serval’s name I wanted to paint something reminiscent of the graffiti I was inspired by and motivated to paint as a teen. Classic shapes with a twist and large box 3-d’s going straight down. I purposely chose a color scheme similar to what may have been done with old Krylon. Instead of True Blue, Rose, Pastel Yellow etc., I’m rolling with top notch 94…
Bates taking on Poet’s name…
Serval paints a Bates…
And Poet rocks a Rime…
Full wall…
Towards the end of the fair, the wall we painted was dismantled and sections of the wall were sold to the locals. Half the profits made went to a local charity, the other half went to an even greater charity (supporting artists).
After a few days of rest at an upscale hotel beside a cow pasture…
We spent a night in a building that was the former servant quarters of a medieval Swiss castle! It was nice to see a bit of the country outside of the city…
The photo below is not over spray on a black car hood, those are actually stars! You don’t see shit that clear in LA…
Foosball match beside a castle…
Another day another quick wall with Jazi & Serval…
Serval’s version 1 piece (see below). He didn’t like what he painted and made it a point to return, redoing the whole piece. I liked the first version. What do you think?
Whole wall with Serval’s version 2…
Serval writes:
Funny, several people told me they liked the first piece better. In a lot of ways i did too, what I didn’t like is that I felt it didn’t match either Jazi’s character or Rime’s piece at all. It was an ok piece, kind of a throwback to earlier stuff I did, and a little sloppy as well, but ok, it just didn’t make any sense to me next to the others. The fact I thought the two pinks I used in the back would be more different meant that the huge pink cloud really set it off. It was too big and too important and in my view overshadowed the nice subtleties the others had done.
When I came back to put a lighter second outline I felt that the piece in itself made sense, so I didn’t want to change it, but i rather wanted to complete the wall that Rime and Jazi had started. Hence the fact I just did a quick one over it that matches, in my sense the other’s work better and makes for a more coherent total. The final piece is not amazing, again a throwback to late 90’s stuff, but it makes for a balanced composition and allowas each elemnt ( Rime’s piece and Jazi’s character) to be appreciated in turn…
Word-
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