AF89

Here is a T shirt I did back in 1989. My older sister had this stored in a box and recently gave it back. The only other person that I know of that has one, is My cousin Margot. She was actually wearing it when I went back to Saratoga Springs 2 years ago, it was in really good condition still.


The Shirt was designed for an event we were doing called Aerosol Fest. It was supposed to be at the Oceanside amphitheater during the Kumba-fest. But for some reason I can't quite remember why I didn't happen.I remember cutting the ruby lift and Doze Green's Apt in Encinitas. We also printed them at my bosses garage in Lakeside.

Front

Back

22 years ago plus 1 day....

In 1987, San Diego county got it's first LOCAL graffiti art show* and quit possibly the very first in California....this could be up to debate.

*Seen (UA) did have a solo show in La jolla in 1985.

Zard and Quasar of Graffiti Artist Unlimited (GAU) Were tha main draw of the show.

They were kind enough to invite other graffiti artist to be apart of this show. I will do a digging around to see who the other artist are that was in the show. I will post up the list of names when I find this info out. Unfortunatly I have no photos of the night.

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Today the old Standard brands is a Goodwill.

This is one of the piece's I put in the show. You can also see part of another canvass that I did for the show to the far right. It looks like a profile of a B-Boy type character. I have no idea what happened to the piece I put in the show except for one I think E-Swift (Rock So Fresh) still has one of them.

Part of another canvass I had for the show. It was a Manga girl holding a can.

That was a good friend of mine named Charles and I hanging out at my pad.

Cold Busted!

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I was trying to get out of serving time by saying I painted the "Cap Color Train" two years ago. But in fact during the interview with the news paper: I said "Over a Year ago" the media has a habit of always screwing up your story somehow. So a "year" turned into "two years." The reason why I was saying this*: Since I already admitted to the crime during questioning. I swore they had everything that I owned and they did! It took them three vehicle's including a van to get ALL my graffiti paraphernalia out of the house. But for some reason I forgot that I had still in my possession the "Cap Color" outline along with a few 80's graffiti photos and drawings stashed in a box in the rafters.

* I was trying to get out of it by admitting I did indeed paint the train but it was more than a year ago on the day of my arrest. At the time if you committed a certain crime and you avoided arrest for a year the charges were dropped. I was short by a month or two.

This was my 7th graffiti related arrest and my last.

15 years ago today.

Basically I got involved with this sting operation. To make a long story short....well that can't be done it's a long story regardless.  I will post up more articles about this event in the following weeks. I highlighted the article in pink were I'm personally involved.

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30/60

This is the 30/60 wall, located near Jamacha and Grand Ave in Spring Valley, CA. Originaly it was called the "Grand Ave wall." Until one day, Quasar was curious how tall and wide the building was. We didn't have any measuring tape. "Q" counted the bricks which is 30 bricks high and 60 bricks long. It had a good run from 1987-1989. This was around the time they built another business next door and was laying down the parking lot, which evantualy killed the yard months later.

"Raw" by Sake, "Sone" by Zero, "Sake" by Sake,  "Quasar" by Quasar, "Sniper" by Quasar. 1988 

The 30/60 wall today.

GAU and SOTA 86

This vimeo clip that I recently found on Persue's Blog, shows an 18 year old San Diegan graffiti writer, "System" (Robert Smith style hair do)  and a 19 year old Quasar (geri curl) . Who are both members of Graffiti Artist Unlimited and Phyz (flat top fade w/bright ass yellow socks) Painting at the Euclid trolley station. All three were working on a project that M.T.D.B. was putting together for a mural campaign that would have graffiti artist paint the walls that run near or next to the new expansion of the trolley line here in San Diego. My crew at the time U.G.A was apart of this project but failed in the professional side of things due to our age (I just turned 15) and lack of inexperience with business and Ideas outside of your typical "name and character based graffiti" we were not giving a wall.
*** around this tim Jim prigoff also took photos of this project for a book called "Spraycan Art" but for some reason, San Diego was left out of the book.

Quasar, System and Phyz (sota) from Mr Goose on Vimeo.

***Short side story..with the money that Quasar made from the project. He bought himself a brand new Mazda 626 4 door. While taken the turn on the 8 east, Texas st exit. He flip the car and totaled it along with a trunk full of spray paint. The spooky thing was Crayone was supposed to been in the back seat and the section he was going to be sitting in was crushed.



A random clipping I had from the San Diego Tribune / March 1986.

New Years 1984

Tazz and Kaze at the 2 yard. Spring Valley,CA. 1984/1985

We painted this on New Years night in 1984 and finished it after midnight in 1985. I was 14 at the time and I wonder what excuse I gave my mom??? It was really dark and erie. We had to duck down and hide every time a car drove by us. It had to been at least a dozen times and every time this happened my heart would stop, because I thought it was the sheriffs putting the spots on us. We dedicated the piece to our Moms. We used growco paint and the nozzles that came with the paint... stock tips. We purchased or racked the paint from the Spring Valley Swap Meet, which is a stones throw away from the 2 yard. 

Over all it's sorta "toy" but its not to bad for the times, especially from a couple of non subway writers. The "T" is terrible! I still dig the "Beetle Baily" and the "cloud" is cool. Believe it or not this piece made us famous, this is all due because of the location of the piece it was facing the only road into the Swap Meet which would get over 10,000 visitors in a weekend. This gave a lot of people its first glimpse of NYC style graffiti and inspired other kids to start writing.  This picture was probably taken by me with a 110. I really like the art deco house next to it. 

the original outline form 84 one of my oldest surviving outlines.

The 2 yard today.

The Biz

This was mine and Izzy  1st cards from 1986.

This Month in 87

While I was digging through boxes of my graff memorabilia, I found this application for a battle called "Rock- a-Thon." This was the 4th application I sent in for the contest, some how this one never made it to NYC..... Luckily for me, now I have this cool flyer/App for a keepsake! 

(You can click on the images to expand to read)

I'm hoping to locate the actual picture of this piece that I painted for this app. I remember it clearly it said "Def" and had two manga characters next to it and was painted at the 30th and Imperial yard aka the Aqueducts.