A recent wall painted in Los Angeles by Rime, Dabs & MYLA, Persue, Nychos and Askew
SPRAY HOT MESS, SNAPPIN HOTNESS. NOT FAR TO GO THUGSPORT, GAME GAIN, TOUCH A DIRTY RAINBOW. LOATHING TOMORROW, ALL THAT MATTERS IS NOW. The phrase is read starting on the bottom left towards the right, then right to left in the center row, and left to right at the top.
Wall arranged by Branded Arts and Gabba Gallery. Some process photos via Birdman
Back in 2011, CR painted this wall in Hollywood.
Last week Persue and I came through to repaint the wall. Instead of covering over the previous work, we tried to maintain some of CR’s original strokes. Where the pieces overlap the black we tried changing the color way over to blue…
Original sketch by Persue…
PJ getting us started…
-by SIMONE WILSON of the LA Weekly
Back when L.A. graffiti artist Sight was a teenager, he began slipping out of his mom’s South Central home late at night, armed with a razor blade or a can of spray paint, to claim the city’s surfaces as his own.
“When you go out in the nighttime, there’s nobody out there,” he recalls. “There’s a full moon; the air’s crisp. I’m with just me and my thoughts. It’s a beautiful experience.”
Marilyn Avila, Sight’s high school sweetheart and, now, the mother of his two children — 6-month-old Sofia and 18-month-old Adam — says, “I saw how happy it made him. It almost freed his mind.”
Sight was so prolific in his early days that he was known by peers, and graffiti watchers at large, as the “King of South Central.”
Avila recalls: “We would get on the bus, and if there was other graf artists in there, he would know almost all of them. If not, he’ll be, like, ‘Oh, I’m Sight,’ and they’ll be, like, ‘What?! You’re Sight?!’ ”
By the time the young vandal began attending Los Angeles City College, though, he claims he didn’t have time for the all-night branding sprees of his adolescence. He was working two jobs on top of journalism classes, and drove a car instead of riding and cutting up windows on the bus.
When he did break out the spray paint, says Sight, now 30, he had evolved from bus scribing and tagging to throwing up (spray-painting his name in big bubbly letters) and piecing (collaborating with friends on complex, mural-type works). His code of ethics was: “We’re not going to write on anything that looks good. We’d look for abandoned buildings, and walls that were really tagged up. We’d want to put some color right there.”
Along with his dream of becoming a journalist, Sight hoped to publish poetry and learn to piece like Saber and Revok, his heroes in the legendary Mad Society Kings (MSK) crew.
“It was like springtime,” he says of the early 2000s. “Everything was blossoming — there was so much potential.
“Now, it’s wintertime.”
In 2006, Sight was handed the harshest sentence any artist or law enforcement official can recall for graffiti vandalism: Eight years and four months in state prison.
Released after four years for good behavior, he’s perhaps the most dramatic casualty to date in L.A.’s war on street art — a multipronged effort that views young graffiti artists as public enemy No. 1 and has destroyed even those graffiti-style murals painted with full consent of building owners. As galleries and museums increasingly recognize the movement’s artistic value, government officials only become more determined to wipe it from the streets.
Sight — a short, burly black man with a fuzzy beard and a gentle disposition — had and has no record of violence. “He gets mad at me if I kill a spider,” his girlfriend says.
From the couple’s one-bedroom apartment in South Central, Sight relives the morning the cops came for him: Ten to 15 deputies busted into his grandmother’s house with “laser guns and body armor,” he says, barking at him to hand over his drugs and weapons. Finding none, they took his paint and his poetry books, Sight says.
Because Sight’s most expensive — and thus felonious — damage was beyond the five-year statute of limitations, he says, police asked him to date evidence photos of his graffiti “for a more recent date,” in return for which, they told him, “ ’We’ll let you go and get you probation.’ ”
Sheriff’s deputy Devin Vanderlaan, who investigated Sight, calls his accusation “absolutely ridiculous.” UPN member Tahoe claims the same happened to him.
Sight would spend a one-year stint alongside rapists and murderers at Folsom State Prison, where he says fellow inmates almost killed him for hanging back during a race riot. But worse than hard-core Folsom was L.A. County Sheriff Lee Baca’s own Men’s Central Jail, where Sight says that, among other degradations, he saw prison guards break the fingers of inmates who misbehaved.
Today, two years after his release, with 10 unusual “felony” counts for nonviolent vandalism on his permanent record, Sight can’t even get a job as a dishwasher. He says he’s filled out hundreds of job applications, but potential employers won’t believe that spraying paint on walls or etching one’s name onto bus panels could lead to felony charges in America.
“They think I blew up cars or smashed out windows or something,” Sight says. “They think I’m a terrorist.”
To believe Metro’s version of the damage Sight did to L.A., he nearly was. They claimed he caused $70,000 in damage, on the basis that each Metro window or metal panel he etched was replaced. In fact, bus windows often are sanded down by graffiti-abatement crews — and tend to be marred by tagger upon tagger long before parts are actually replaced — but the exaggerated cost claims play well in court.
Below is an email from Russ Corvey, a 60 year old jazz musician from North Carolina. He bumped into THIS alley way in East Hollywood and let me know how he felt about it
one of the walls in the alley by Revok, Rime & Ewok
“So … I’m a 60-year old jazz musician/creative director who now lives in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, visiting my 27-year old son, a film editor, who lives in North Hollywood. When we visit him, the time is usually consumed with chores and family stuff. But this time, I promised myself I would do something for me, so Friday morning, around dawn, while everyone else is sleeping, I grab my camera and set out to find some street art – tags? graffiti? I don’t know much about that world, but I love that Banksy, Mr. Brainwash thing (whatever the hell that thing is) and kinda want to know more.
Now L.A. is a pretty sprawling place, agreed? And I don’t have a lot of time, and I don’t know where I’m going – but I set my iPhone map thing to “Korea Town” and 20 minutes later I’m wandering around the back streets looking for … whatever. Shit … just off Western Avenue, getting ready to make a left, I pass this alley. I practically pissed in my pants. What cosmic force brought me there?
I stood in that alley for an hour – I shot dozens of pictures, but a lot of time I just stood and looked – didn’t want to see it thru a viewfinder. I got a little lightheaded a couple of times – I listened to some music, which was a stunning experience (for me, Pat Metheney was a beautiful compliment to the sights).
I was giggling, grinning – and even got a little teary-eyed when I thought about the gift I was receiving that morning – while people were heading to their jobs. I realize now this alley is probably a very celebrated place, but in that moment, it felt like this was all mine – just for me. Earlier this year I was in London, and in a similar fashion, stood on the Waterloo Bridge at dawn, shooting the city – this was like that. The stuff that people do with their lives – buildings, bridges, art, music, dance – I just don’t have words.
So – thank you – thank you – thank you! I will never forget what I saw Friday morning.
Russ Corvey
PS: As if stumbling on your joyful art wasn’t enough of an incredible coincidence, a few years ago I wrote a song called … “Jersey Joe” – MP3 is attached here…”
SONY via location scout Melissa “Zippy” Downing illegally paints over a Few & Far mural for a commercial.
(above) The Few & Far crew
A few weeks back I got the news that someone painted over the recent all female, Few & Far production on Gower Street in Hollywood. This was a real surprise to me especially since I have been organizing the painting of those walls for so many years.
(above) The completed Few & Far wall that lasted only two months before being covered.
Stopping in to see the owner of the property, he tells me that permission was never given for anyone to paint over the Few & Far mural. In fact, he was driving to work on the day of the incident and saw location scout Melissa “Zippy” Downing and crew filming horrible graffiti over the partially covered mural.
(above) SONY and Zippy Downing covering the Few & Far mural for a commercial.
He asked her what the hell they were doing? and Zippy responded saying that she had permission by the laborers inside to paint this wall for a SONY commercial. The owner told her that she did NOT have permission because HE is the owner and that nothing was cleared.
Zippy’s dumb ass ended up persuading the owner to let them finish filming, and assured the owner that she will have the mess covered back with quality work. Despite her promise, SONY wrapped up their day of shooting without finishing the wall. They passed the task along to some local writers who happened to be there as they were leaving. SONY let them know they were not coming back and it was cool to cover the mess they made…
(above) An attempt by locals to paint over the SONY mess
So I say FUCK SONY and FUCK MELISSA “ZIPPY” DOWNING, for covering a really cool mural with shitty graffiti, all in a sad attempt to connect with so called urban youth. If you feel that this type of unprofessional cut cornering is wrong please reblog / retweet this. Or if you want to let the dumb bitch know personally. Here is her card…
Melissa “Zippy” Downing (Location Scout)
(510) – 847 – 1539
melissa.downing@mac.com
https://twitter.com/#!/steakdrapes
#FUCKSONY and #FUCKMELISSAZIPPYDOWNING
I was recently asked to create a memorial piece to honor MCA as part of the billboard project currently going on in LA.
The piece just went up yesterday at Santa Monica and Vine, and is the third in a trilogy behind Kaves and Shepard.
I was grateful to be given such a public forum to properly celebrate the life of my friend and collaborator Adam Yauch,
and hope that these memorials will reverberate among the community that continues to mourn his passing. – Eric Haze
MCA – RIP
AUGUSTINE KOFIE / WORKING AN ANGLE
Opens: May 26, 2012 | 8-11pm
Runs: May 26 – June 9, 2012
Known Gallery
441 North Fairfax Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90036
info@knowngallery.com
Check out the story HERE
Made to please intrigue and offend. Be sure to check us out…
RIME / KC / DABS MYLA
Opens: May 5, 2012 | 8-11pm
Runs: May 5 – 19, 2012
Known Gallery
441 North Fairfax Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90036
info@knowngallery.com
Sesame Street:
Presented by The Seventh Letter & Neff Headwear
Benefiting City of Hope’s Department of Pediatrics
Show runs April 28-April 29, 2012
Known Gallery
441 North Fairfax Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90036
knowngallery.com
See more from MadSteez at MadSteez.com
COMING UP SOON…
–
VICTOR REYES / THE JUNGLE
Opening: March 24, 2012 | 8 – 11 pm
Known Gallery
441 North Fairfax Avenue,
Los Angeles, CA 90036
info@knowngallery.com
Show runs March 24 – April 7, 2012
Find out more at KNOWN GALLERY
One of my former students sent over some cool stuff he’s been up to. He wouldn’t be able to tell you the name of the current US Vice President (blame the LAUSD) but at least he knows who Salvador Dali is…
jerseyjoeart.wordpress.com 