New York City Trip 2010

Los Angeles Trip 2010: Day 3

Los Angeles Trip 2010: Day 1-2

AuGGust 2009 walls

with Amp, Cowboy, Sonz, Pyksy and Camer

with pyksy

with cowboy

at the oasis:

with Cowboy, Camer, Pyksy and Amp

Blazefest 2009

I'm not going to break it down day by day but immediately following the trip to Saskatchewan my lovely wife Tara and I drove to Schenectady NewYork where I taught graffiti lessons all week as part of an outreach with youth for christ called blazefest. This is the 3rd or 4th year that I've been out and it was a great week of ministry and painting. Back from previous years were Rayski, Bam Bam, Ms. Natalie and the YFC crew along with some new instructors Verbs, DJ promote, Craig Nice the incredible MC, B-Girl Stella, B-boy kiddoh, Minus1 fdc, and Joel Stigale. It was a lot of fun Minus helped me teach graffiti and it was great to meet up with DJ promote who is also a graffiti writer and was one of the guys I looked up to when I started writing graffiti. durring the days I taught high school and middle school kids the art of graffiti and respect for property and at night we went around to different neighbourhoods in Schenectady and had kind of like a concert and preaching time it was really cool. Joel thought I was gonna get myself shot when I painted over some gang graffiti, Tara danced up a storm, kids got saved, and they gave me free paint at the end. What else can you ask for? Oh yeah, no bad press... Check!

Saskatchewan Trip: Day 9

The rain had come down last night and ruined alot of what we had been working on but the guys had to leave so I agreed to do my best to fix what was ruined, we ran out to a paint store got some grey paint and I started working right up until it was time to catch my flight out. We left straight from the wall to the airport and took a non stop flight back to toronto which arrived at midnight where my buddy Jamie picked us up and I drove from Toronto back to London that night.

Saskatchewan Trip: Day 8

Today was the last day of sheduled painting so I got a real early start (5am) on the day and walked from the billets house to the church. The church is in a bad part of saskatoon and along my 5 minute walk I was propositioned by a prostitute. I was so shocked that all I could do is say "no thank you" and keep walking. I've met alot of prostitutes before especially when I worked with the homeless youth but I had never been propositioned before. I've counselled former male prostitues but walking away like that - not saying anything, not at least trying to make it better... I just felt helpless and so saddened for this girl and so powerless to help her. I tried to ignore it as I got to the wall and started to paint - to think of the goodness of God or something but I couldn't, it was nagging at me I felt at the edge of tears crying for this girl and the life shes living mixed with regret and a strange uneasyness. I started painting the portrait of the alcoholic when cowboy came over and started to show me some tips (cowboy is a fantastic artist) he started working with it and he told me a little bit about his life and eventually asked if he could finish the portrait and asked if I wouldn't mind working on painting the face of the prostitute. It was so cleansing such a release to identify with the pain and to paint out of that fear and despiration. The feeling of appathy disipated as I painted, spreading the message that there is hope for this situation. I changed the source picture to look more like the girl who I met earlier and after I was finished I felt more at peace and whole maybe.

We kept working late into the night, amp camer and I. Sonz and Cowboy had gone back home and pyksy was with her children. I was the last day and we had alot of work left we stayed up till 1 or 2am. I got back to the billets home and heard rain as I fell asleep.

Saskatchewan Trip: Day 7

Painting, painting and more painting sun up to sun down, this walll is huge there are six of us working on it but it's still very large. I finished up my section and camer and cowboy let me loose on doing some other major parts to the wall which was surprising and fun, Tara helped with the filling in of some of it and it was a great day.

Saskatchewan Trip: Day 6

We drove from regina and went to Saskatoon. As we were driving we noticed that we needed to stop for gas so we eventually pulled off to a gas station... that was closed for renovations and they said the next gas station was 120km away. There was no way we were going to make it 200 km on the gas we had, so we prayed. As it turns out the guy at the hardware store was wrong and there was an open gas station 10-15 minutes down the way (phew). So we filled it up and got back on the road... going the wrong way. Camer had pulled off and started going the wrong way down the highway I was the first to notice and started screaming, Cam pulled off and in a tone fitting a californian asked why I was so tence. Amp had also noticed but just quietyly asked barely audibly "yo, dude are we going the right way?" We arrived in Saskatoon alive and roughly on time met up with the people from the church and Sonz. We started laying things out but we had a few little hiccupps from the church pastor who wanted some things changed at the last minute. Camer patiently went through it with the pastor and agreed to some changes he suggested the crew wasn't peticularily happy but we started sketching out the changes and eventually started painting. I took my time and didn't really start doing too much I was taking it easy and just letting Cowboy and Camer and the pastor make the decisions. At one point cowboy looked over at me and asked my why I hadn't started and I told him I was just taking my time. I figured that honestly camer and cowboy would be painting most of the wall and that I would run out of things to paint and eventually just stand around waiting kinda like I had earlier on in the trip. So to make sure I was painting for the next 3 days I was gonna take those three days to do the one section entrusted to me. However, both cowboy and camer suggested I really move fast and then start on such and such. We met our host family but to be honest I was exausted by the end of the day and I felt really bad about not making small talk but I just crashed on the bed they provided they seemed really nice though.

Saskatchewan Trip: Day 5

Today was a really relaxing day I spent the day with my wife shopping and going to the jazz festival (not that we like jazz peticularily) Camer and Amp got tattoo's from the sister of the guy who runs the Oasis she offered to give us all free tattoo's but I opted out because tattoos are really permanant and thats just not something I'm gonna do at a moments notice.

Saskatchewan Trip: Day 4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PlJidypS6XQ

The oasis is super cool. It's this really old anglican church in the bad part of Regina that is in the midst of an overhaul. Check out the video and you'll get a better idea of the day.

Saskatchewan Trip: Day 3

We started off in the morning by loosing the keys to the school whichis a big deal because when that happends the entire school has to get re-keyed and all the locks changed. We all searched the house for an hour but in the end my wife saved the day and found the keys. We started painting the school today and we had two more changes scince the 3 from yesterday. Its a public school so we are not allowed to paint anything christian. Ironic because we're painting a room based on diversity and its ironic because there is alot of native american spirituality and they wanted quotes from religious people like gaundi but nothing christian, wheres the dirersity? I think christianity isn't trendy enough or maybe you can be influenced by any religion but can't acctually follow any religion. Anyways five of us painted 3 different rooms, one at a time. To me it felt kind of constricted doing somebody elses design with people staring over my sholder making sure I didn't mess up thier idea or do something too original that a school principal, teacher or parent wouldn't like. It took a long time and at the end I was tired but the five of us had to paint 20 personalized canvases. I'm not a big fan of canvases and again it felt like work. Tomorrow is supposed to be better were painting a place called the Oasis which sounds like a really cool place more up our alley with more individual and religious fredom. And I refuse do anymore canvases this trip or paint anything just to earn money for a job!

Saskatchewan Trip: Day 2

Too much confusion today we were supposed to paint a school today butthe principal kept changing her mind about what was going to happen,it was very frustrating to be told what we can and can't paint, andthen having that change at the last minute, and then have that allchange again. Cam and Cowboy took over and designed outlines for threewalls (which was originally supposed to be one). I got frustrated withCam cuz he was only asking for cowboys input and I really felt leftout of the loop, Cowboy is probably the best writer of us all which isunderstandable why he's taking a lead role but it didnt feel like acrew it felt worse than a job and I felt like I was second string onthis project. I could tell my wife wasn't having a great timeeighther. There was also some questions and concerns about money andus splitting up to do seperate jobs and things at that point were justhectic. So we all stopped and prayed we all calmed down refocusedstopped thinking about jobs and the product and we started to get aglimpse of why were all coming together in the first place. I thinkmost of realized that we had eighther a bad attitude or messed uppriorities. I can testify that I had both especially the bad attitude.The lady who we are staying with right now is super sweet and hasarranged all these sponcers for us. Our meals have been sponcered byQuiznos, Tony Romas, Sparkys Pizza, Great Canadian Bagel it's crazythe amount of high quality food we have been recieving for free. Andour paint has been sponcered by Rona, two different canadian tires andCloverdale paint. I must mention that Cloverdale gave us approximently$5000 in spraypaint, 750 cans on two skids, I've never herd ofanything like this happening before, it was a total blessing.

Saskatchewan Trip: Day 1

We (me and my wife Tara) got up early and drove to toronto wherefriends of ours were going to drive us to the airport. We had a good lunch with Jamie and Cam and then spent most of the day in theairport. In winipeg we accidently went down the wrong escalator andwhen we tried to back alarms went off and security came over to usinstructing us that we'd have to go through customs again. We travelto the gate and my wife accidently goes back down the same escalatorand I had to go get her at customs. We got picked up after our planewas delayed slightly. We met up with cowboy, camer1, amp and pyksy.

Gospel Hip Hop Fest: Day 3

We talked with the event coordinator some more, checked out some of the local building that were covered with hot graffiti murals, drove around town taking pictures, hit the highway, stopped for lunch, joked around alot, wstopped in buffalo and went to the museum there ($2) and then headed back home. On the way Me and Suposes freestyled uplifting each other and then we started freestyling about God and then we started praying while freestyling it was real spiritual and we went on for hours it was fun. I also stopped at a legal wall and did a couple of quick throw ups.

Gospel Hip Hop Fest: Day 2

We got to the place and met up with everybody, I also got a chance to meet Weese who, I've been talking with on the Gospel Graffiti Forum, he was there with his band and he also got to paint that day. There was a ton of other writers: Game, Oz, Sno, Cruk, Akon and a bunch of other guys. The event said they would supply paint but I was glad I brought my own, there was a major shortage of black and I had to mix flat black and glossy black to finish my piece. Everyone was asking to borrow my cans and I lent them out freely. One guy (who will remain nameless) was supposed to get the honored center spot, came to paint, started painting his piece. I lent him like 4-10 cans and he didn't finish! He took off because he didn't like that he didn't have the right cans, he complained to the event co-coordinator that it wasn't fair that "Battle got all the cans". The event guy was like "he brought all his own paint we didn't give him anything". Awesome break dancers, dope MC's, an awesome freestyle battle contest where the competitors had to compliment their opponent and then the police showed up and shut us down. The best part was talking to Weese and teaching him about letter structure and painting techniques super nice guy, really teachable and a heart for the lord, I hope to see him again. We stayed at the event coordinators house and we talked about spiritual things and next years event till late into the night. It was cool 'cuz he was a real fan of graffiti and a good brother.

Gospel Hip Hop Fest: Day 1

Well I got this invitation to the Gospel hip hop fest to be a featured artist (my face was on the posters and everything). I asked my wife because all good husbands should check with thier wives first before taking off to a different country when they had agreed to spend time together on weekends. My wife had a vocal coaching seminar someplace that she wanted to attend the same day so we agreed to go separate ways for the weekend. I find out that my old friend Just Isaac is going to be at this show!!! At 12:30 am I called up my man and aspiring rapper, MC Suposes and he agreed to come with. We took off driving, rapping, free styling, and joking around until my eyes got real heavy and we pulled off to the side of the road and slept for 5 hours.

Blazefest 2008: Day 9

Blazefest was over, but before we hit the road we invited Ray and his family out for breakfast. My wife locked the keys in the car and I had to bend a coat hanger to get them out. Ray came up looking for us just as I got the car open. We went to breakfast and Ray and I talked about next year, plans and an up coming hip hop event in Rochester. We drove back home without any problems.

Blazefest 2008: Day 8

Saturday, we didn't have camp in the morning and we got to sleep in instead. In the afternoon we went to the park and had a big show. I met with a local writer, drew a piece in his book and prayed for him. There was something different about him after prayer and he said that he felt uplifted. We handed out the awards, had a demonstration of the elements, I finished the backdrop, my wife gave her testimony which was... deep and amazing and I've herd it before I was still on the edge of my seat. Jaz performed, and Ray gave an alter call. About 13 people came forward for the alter call, Jaz finished up with a song and there was this feeling like everybody there was part of one big happy family it was weird lots of hugs and smiles ad there was a real sense of community and unity.

Blazefest 2008: Day 7

I woke up with these two ideas of what I can do with my art that God had blessed me with in my sleep. It was the last day of day camp I had Fall write the test and he passed. We handed out tshirts. The theme this week was "he got love for you" everyday Ray and others had been sharing about how much God loves you, that he loves you so much that even when we were far away from God, sinning doing our own thing that God came down to earth lowered himself to our level and gave up his up in heaven for a life of pain, so he could be with us humans for his time on earth instead of living like the king he was he served and didn't ask for stuff for himself but tried to help us out. So much so that he took the rap for us, the punishment for all the bad stuff we've ever done and died for us in our place. He did all that and all he asks is that we accept that. All he asks is for us to accept that we screwed up and to accept his sacrifice. Love the poet and Ray spoke and asked if anyone wanted to accept Jesus as thier saviour. 23 kids accepted his love and asked God into thier lives. The evening went well and we continued painting the back drop.