May 15th Blog update

Video Blog 63 drop. This is a short but punctual homage to 3 greats, Ed "Big Daddy" Roth for his Rat Fink as well as being just an incredible artist from his illustration work on paper to his off the wall creations on wheels, the next legend I tried to give my respects to was Kenny "Von Dutch" Howard, who it's sad to say that 99% of the American population would probably say "who's that? The trucker hat guy?" No that was the doings of his foundation in his name, unbeknownst to the world he was an incredible pin striper, sign painter, custom gun maker, knife maker etc etc etc... and lastly, I wanted to show my respect to the Beastie Boys' Adam Yauch, who played an incredible part in my youth, being white and being a minority in my jr. highschool listening to rap while the jocks listened to Green Day and whatever the hell else, and the metal heads listened to Metallica I was listening to Public Enemy, Beastie Boys, Run DMC, LL Cool J, Slick Rick, Special Ed, Whoodini... So for an all White "rap" group to come out back then, I always wanted to be as cool as these guys where. It was a sad day about 2 yrs back when I heard Adam had cancer, I posted a get well MCA on the blog... to then last week hearing of his passing sucked big time. My heart goes out to all his friends and family. He's gonna really be missed, NYC has lost a great with his passing so I wanted to use a not so common Beastie's track in my next Vid Blog.. I felt like "Time For Livin" was a good choice....
I had my brother RAPES DF/ATT in town for this and we rocked it with DET RIS. If you see my signature in the video, was done for me as a gift by the great Robert Pradke for the theme of this wall. I can't thank him enough for lending his insight and knowledge on a historic lettering style that is way too often mimicked terribly with no shame. Check Pradke's blog, the guy knows his craft and is a stand up guy.

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May 6 Update, Inspiration

So I get emails here and there and am always asked in interviews 'who are you inspired by?"   Today Im going to share a little bit of Simon Bisley, most of you Im sure know of or may have seen this artists work before.  For me Simon has always been there, since my early days of development and trying to understand painting when it was a completely unknown language.... I would analyze painters trying to understand why certain decisions where made with color or layout, etc etc... then I came up on Simon's work and I think for the first time I was kinda thrown off, I saw things being done in his work that for me I couldn't understand the decisions... why a color was used here or there, and somehow it still made complete sense visually.  I think I was shown examples first hand that as long as you are committed 100% to what you do, it can always be a slam dunk. Even in the face of all adversity( any current school of thought or normalcy). This shit might come off a little too philosophical for your average blog reader but  all these things I saw in my early development years are equations that add up to what Im able to do today.  Simon to my knowledge in 1991 was a very young painter still, with I believe only 3 or so years under his belt tops!  This piece above is from someone who was only painting for 2 or 3 years! That stil blows my mind today... Now, for "Biz" this would be considered a very simplified panitng with a lot of the definition left in the shadow areas which to some art school teachers might say is a cop out, but I think from all the interviews Ive heard from Simon, he never tries to act like he's the best at the stuff he does... People have said "Biz Im terrible at drawing feet! Help me, what should I do? Ive tried and tried and tried and I just can't draw feet."     Biz response -"put a boot on'm... If you suck at feet, don't do it, hide them in a shoe."   I think when I heard the directness in that response, among a slew of other responses through the years as to his approach I think in 2012 I finally get an understanding to that unknown language of painting he was doing for me in 1991.... 21 years later I can finally look at his work and understand the reasons (still cant execute it) he chooses certain things, he shoots from the hip, doesn't question his choices and just rocks it.... he's also said "I don't put my colors together like the sky is blue, where's my blue tube of paint.. I just grab any color and use it."   and "When you paint fast, you just reach for something and the less thought involved usually is the best choice. It's when you over think it when you make the wrong choice." I can relate to this now on many levels in my own work... When you are in the "zone" as some artists refer to it, your decision making is effortless and unplanned, only looking at the final results for your success or failure decision making... I find those who move at a snails pace, over thinking decisions and moving so fucking slow, these people's work be it a painting or someone's graffiti, or whatever puts me to fuckin' sleep....   The worst thing about these people is they will most likely spend the entirety of their lives working in this fashion, without even understanding the benefits of speed and gestural decision making... I take PRIDE in this lifestyle... I've even worked with people in the past in business where in their mind they believe that over thinking every damn decision or micro managing everything is some how the correct formula for doing things....   ZZZZZZZZ...  I look back at them now, and think "See, you over thought yourself into bankruptcy...  You shoulda' listened to me when I suggested whatever it was at those cross roads, when 99% of the time those things I suggested where an industry standard a year later, my ideas at that juncture where a year ahead of the curve, and we could've have reaped all that reward at being first! if we just acted instead of hesitating".    Im getting away from my original post, but I think I've touched on an inspirational painter, to his type of decision making and how its effected my own successes, from the ways I form my own decisions in life, be it a design choice,when to act on something, just being whimsical etc etc.... Im thankful to be able to say Im on the team of shooting from the hip, as apposed to those types who spend wayyy too much time trying to meticulously over think everything to finding the right choice at getting through life's tough decisions...

What am I talking about? Who the hell knows... Let's get back on my original point... Here's a few other awesome pieces by the BIZ' for you to have some visual idea of who Im praising so highly.

This is just a minor selection of the amount of work this guy has accumulated over the last 25 plus years.. I could literally do this allday long, but should wrap it up at some point I guess... One of the most important things I always felt about this guy was that even in his early career of like 3 years on the scene his work was already matured in the fact that the style was already locked in and looked like he'd been doing the damn thing for 20 yrs straight, even when I took notice around 91', in my naive eyes I'd just assumed he was already in the game for 20 yrs, little did I know.... I've spent the last 20 some years trying to hone a genuine identity as an artist, to really get comfortable with my work, getting out all my kinks and all the bullshit... This guy was off to the races at day one!  It's just crazy to me..   Im rambling again, but who reads this shit anyways right? I disabled comment responses years ago cuz' of spam, and took down the hit counter in like 2005, as far as Im concerned only a few die hards read my rants on here anyway, and it's turned into my place where I just vent about shit...

In closing I'l leave a few footsteps in the sand if anyone is interested in looking further into Simon Bisley's philosophies and of course his work. The info is out there if you dig for it. Lastly, if there is anyone who reads this and owns any of Simon;s work who is interested in selling or even trading for something of mine, drop me an email, let's work it out. Hit the contact button up top.

Here's another video, I think was cool because he actually also speaks on speed of working... I think my head exploded when I heard it come out of his mouth the things I had been thinking about when I do my lettering( graffiti) for about a decade now...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31oxfFvUr1c&feature=relmfu

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May 4 update

Adam Yauch.  RIP

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April 30 update.

So this morning I woke up with a crack in my heart.  The word has already spread around the Internet last night but today I felt like I needed to write a little to let out some of the pain I got inside,  Aidan Jack Seeger was the son of my good friends Bob and Elisa Seeger, so when I was informed last June that their 6 yr old son Aidan was seeing some doctors to see what was the reason behind him reading really close up in school, which was witnessed by his teacher at the time, to not long after to find there was "something going on in his brain" and we later found out it was something called ALD, ( Adrenoleukodystrophy ).   The last time I saw Aidan was 4th of July weekend when I spent time with the Seegers Bbq'ing and hanging out at the beach, knowing that the next day (Monday) they where literally packed up and driving down to North Carolina to immediately get set up in a hospital to undergo a blood core transfusion and a bone marrow transplant. I tried to hang out with Aidan and the family and enjoy the time knowing that Aidan was about to undergo a lot of strenuous things.... At that time I didnt want to think about it but In the back of my head I thought " I hope this isnt the last time I see the lil bugger.  I hoped for the best, hoping they would get to it early enough and he would make a full recovery and be back in Brooklyn hanging out again with his pops soon.....  Unfortunately this was not the case, last night Bobby and Elisa made probably the hardest decision they will ever have to make in their lives, to take Aidan off the Meds that where keeping him alive, I don't really know specifics, but from what I gathered, all of the experimental drugs and things that he had tried over the last months had done soo much internal damage that it was ruining the lining of his stomach amongst everything else his body was being shocked with on a daily basis from idiot nurses attempting to double dose him ( thankfully for the the mom being on top of things as much as should could, she was able to correct things when she saw the mistakes) and just everything the poor lil guys body had indergone through out this ordeal.  Last night at 8:30 Aidan passed away in the arms of his parents.

So I don't know if this is to help others understand what is going on, or if this was just a way for me to gather my thought and process it all better myself, but in leaving these words here I hope people can  understand a little bit about the pain the Seegers must be going through, something I can't even imagine.   My heart is with you guys and anything I can do I am here to help in any way I can.  If anyone is interested in helping in any way, I am hoping to paint a nice portrait and Aidan's name on a wall in Brooklyn,  some place that would get a lot of traffic and be permanent , where I could come back and clean if necessary.  This I hope to do as soon as I lock a place down.  Feel free to email me if anyone knows of anything like this.  STAFF@MR-EWOKONE.COM

If anyone wants to read up on the progress of Aidan and more depth of his story please visit AIDANHASAPOSSE.ORG a site we put up to keep a central home base for everyone down with the posse to be able to get news and info.

Here's a couple vids I put together for everyone this past year.

The Posse is forever.

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