Remember working for a restaurant owner who loved putting on cabaret acts. He only had the crowd at the restaurant and he put on a special performance. It is such a far cry from the big hitting internet sensation stuff we have become accustomed to these days. I remind myself of him and that small crowd and the intimate connection, especially when I see my own small crowd of people who see my art and graffiti. I really feel nurtured by art and I admit my own mistakes and shortcomings but still produce even though it is hard to do. I feel grateful for the feedback I get and the support especially from graffiti artists and others who like graffiti art. The other day I went through some old photos and found a lot of the grimy street graffiti I started out in. It wasn’t pretty it was pretty much vandalism but that is the history of my practice.
Tags, quick pieces to get up, throw ups in various non descriptor places I put a few photos on Instagram and for some of the guys still vandalising and in that game they thought it was great but I noticed a few people abandoned ship. Its not like I am showing it to say look what a bad boy I am but just saying that was a big part of my life and if you can’t take the truth you need to bail. Graffiti can be a way of life but as I have matured I don’t need to pretend that I am still in that game or envy it, on the contrary I am glad I have gotten older and moved on. I respect what Zap is doing because he is getting up but in an artistic way with his posters. It looks fun and when you think about it they look better than adverting posters for bands and the like. His work is a better advert for art than anything else and what he an Kewl are doing is actually breaking boundaries for what art can be and how it can operate. So primarily it is very political, I admit my old tagging work wasn’t so good. My own motivations were a little less high and I was very much a classic vandal who happened to have a little bit of untapped talent and managed to earn a degree in fine art while tagging and so on. Well I suppose now I am a part time cabaret act, let the show go on.