Pounding Pavement

I went out following up leads on new walls again today and was blessed with permission to paint two new walls in a different part of downtown london. One was a food place and the other a pornography store. I'm really excited about this opportunity to once again spread the good word and a mesage of hope to the streets of London. The walls also happen to be right outside the entrance to the couterpoint needle exchange. I love the opportunities I get.

The End-bassy

Well I found out that the Embassy Hotel will be closing it's doors. The Embassy is a bar that rents rooms by the week, it hosts minor bands who come by on tour and it they let the local graffiti artists come by and draw on whatever surface that they could. I've painted alot of stuff there over the years and they will be demoloshing it April 14th 2009. Because they are shutting thier doors I was granted a unique opportunity to paint the front which faces Dundas street a major road of the city. This is a highly visable piece that alot of people will see everyday, well... untill April 14th.

He who was seated on the throne said, "I am making everything new!" Rev 21:5

Piece #51

In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe. The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven. Hebrews 1:1-3

Tattoo 1

Somebody asked me to design them a tattoo. That's nothing new when people find out you can draw they want you to design them a tattoo 99% of people who you draw a tattoo for will never end up getting said tattoo. People are really picky when it comes to stuff that is going to be on thier bodies forever (for some reason?). Most of the time they want you to do something very specific and give you zero artistic licence. I don't design many tattoos for those reasons. Above is my artwork. Not my impression of somebody else's artwork, my own original letters that somebody like enough on thier own, that somebody now has them perminately on thier forearm. This concept is very humbling and flattering to me. I personally don't have any tattoo's and I'm not sure how I feel about them still even after this.

Leviticus 19:27-28 Do not cut the hair at the sides of your head or clip off the edges of your beard. Do not cut your bodies for the dead or put tattoo marks on yourselves. I am the LORD.

Acts 10:11-16 He saw heaven opened and something like a large sheet being let down to earth by its four corners. It contained all kinds of four-footed animals, as well as reptiles of the earth and birds of the air. Then a voice told him, "Get up, Peter. Kill and eat". "Surely not, Lord!" Peter replied. "I have never eaten anything impure or unclean." The voice spoke to him a second time, "Do not call anything impure that God has made clean." This happened three times, and immediately the sheet was taken back to heaven.

Quote

I met Shaine Claiborne the other day, I wouldn't usually mention it but he had an interesting quote.

Speaker-"wait, wait, so you actually let children draw on your walls?"

Shaine-"well of course! Thats what walls are for"

After which it was quiet with only a few people chuckling quietly to themselves and one young man in the audience shouting "Yes! Amen!" loud enough to be herd across the small stadium filled with about 5000 men. That was fun.

Forest City Community Church

The other day I received a phone call from a church that asked me to paint a couple of masonite boards for their youth group. One for their senior high (momentum) and junior high (vertical)respectively (below). Huge church, nice people and they support the arts which is nice within modern churches. A long time ago the church and people of faith were major benefactors of art and played a major role in the arts especially the visual arts of sculpture, architecture, and painting (especially murals). But now the modern church doesn't really invest in the visual arts and we've seen a big divide between the quality of secular art versus religious art with generally speaking religious art coming up way short. As a side note I should also say lack of visual arts is certainly not the most important thing the modern church is missing but, it's nice to see a church who recognizes the value of art, they have murals in a lot of the different rooms and it makes the church look like less of a warehouse it's really quite amazing. The murals were done by Mural FX, I met the woman (above) as she was painting and we had a good talk and was eager to answer some of my many questions.

Sketches #29

Welcome

Jesus

Abstract

Abstract