Blog Entry Sept. 17th. 2013
WRITE OF PASSAGE x EWOKONE x MASS APPEAL
-So last Friday unannounced I took a ride up to Kingston with CHINO BYI, Todd James/REAS AOK, CRO RISMOBB, and Greg Lamarche/SP.ONE. Meeting us there was KR.ONE who would all be painting the subway train a day before the promoted event to capture some important footage of these guys painting for a project called "WRITE OF PASSAGE". I just sat back and absorbed the fact that these guys where hanging out, cracking jokes and just having a good time in a town where from 90-95 had no real NY Graff presence what so ever. So here I was somehow watching these guys get busy in my hometown on a Subway Car at the train museum, it was the first taste of a very surreal weekend for me. But on this day I would just sit and gather my thoughts for what was to come tomorrow(Sat.). A whirlwind of old friends, media , good music, food and in the blink of an eye( for me anyway) it was done... We (WANE COD and myself) started around 2pm. With an hour cut from our time limit I was under the gun to finish a "end 2 end" train, I knew all I had to do was knock out the letters and background would be done in a snap... The problem I knew would side track me would be people stopping to talk and take pics that I hadn't seen in some 16 or 17 years. This for sure was a time warp, sometimes feeling it had been yeeeaars since we had last spoke, and others seemed like it was just yesterday. I can't say it enough, it was very surreal...
Sacha Jenkins is a power house when it comes to getting shit done, and months back when he had this idea to "bring you back to Kingston to show the town how a vandal outcast had went on to become a world renowned artist despite all your early adversities", I knew it was on.... he makes shit happen. Sacha is pivotal in all of this because he knows my history over the years and he also has some personal interest vested in the City of Kingston. That and his passing through my town with a can of Rusto White and a stock cap one lonely night back in 1990 while attending New Paltz College left a big impact on me that we both still laugh about today. So it was fitting that he was there this weekend. CHINO BYI who was also there was one of the first Graffiti Writers I met on a personal level back in '96 while I was working in a small clothing shop called The High Life Lounge, run by our mutual friend Kelly. A lot of time has passed but Chino still holds a coveted presence in the NYC Graff community and ironically when I had close to no exposure to graffiti in my early years, Chino was solely responsible for the one page of Graff that was published monthly in the SOURCE Magazine. Those monthly pages also played a large part in my early years. It's hard to think like that now, where the internet makes anything you want available at your finger tips, this was a time where I had very minimal sources to find what graffiti really was or what was going on just 2 hours south in the city... So this was just another facet of how bazaar this whole thing was for me coming back "home".
Back to painting the train Saturday... throughout the day I kept at a good pressed pace knowing at any time I would be interrupted by interviews or just an old friend or an old High School sweet heart stopping by to say hello 
then mid day my homey and super rock star extraordinaire Travie McCoy made it out, so that was pretty cool I thought... Trav's been a super supporter of my work as of recent, but has been into my work for a long time now as I would come to find out after we linked a few times, being from upstate himself we share a special love for the hometown mentality and giving back... so it was very dope that he made the 2 hour car ride up just to basically hang out on the low, support, sign some black books, take pics with fans, even met my folks and was just a nice addition to the this experience for everyone who came out.
If you missed it all Saturday, I dont know what to tell ya, but enjoy some pics.. lol Thanks Redbull Studios NYC, Mass Appeal, the NY Trolly Museum and everyone that helped to make this truly historic event go down in such top notch fashion. #WRITEOFPASSAGE is a forthcoming project that I'm sure you will be hearing about and I look forward to lending my services. Stay tuned as more media and video recaps unfold over the next few weeks....
P.S. a special special thanks to all my old friends who came out, and the new ones I got to meet, what a day! thanks for sharing it with me.
THIS WAS THE FLIP SIDE OF THE TRAIN THAT GOT PAINTED SIMULTANEOUSLY AS OUR FRONT. KOLT BY SYE, ARIELLE BY KEO, SP.ONE AND AN OLD SCHOOL CHARACTER BY REAS AOK.
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