This was an exceptional day of my life that I want to share with the world.
On this day I painted with two of my favorite artists, David Ellis and Steve "Espo" Powers.
Dave was a new friend, and Espo I had not met before. On this day I had a terrible morning with my girlfriend who had a substance abuse problem (I was probably not too far behind her). I think I may have banged my head on a plaster wall extremely frustrated the night previous almost giving me neck damage. I was pretty much on the verge of a mental breakdown but not showing it. Anyway this was a show called "No Condition is Permanent" held at Smack Mellon Gallery in Brooklyn in "2001. All I knew was that David had invited me to come down and paint whenever I had time. He had the gallery for his experimental art show all month. Each day a new artist would paint on the floor. Each artist had the floor all to themselves for one day which was recorded to create a stop motion video. Each day the next artist painted over the last. The walls were there as well to paint over every day. My painting didn't last 24 hours.
A few days later I had the floor with my other favorite artist and best friend UFO 907. David new me as Wello 907, because that is what I wrote all over Williamsburg and Lower East Side. My biggest graffiti pieces weren't even done by me but by UFO. Most of what I tagged was on street level.
UFO more often than not put me up as I did he. Its just that he got up big and on really hard to get places like on the top of buildings right in front of subway spots. He made me look really good and hardcore.
Anyway, this day I went down to the gallery just to see what was up with Dave, and he invited me to paint. He said grab a brush and go. The red lightning bolts were remnants form the last painting. Espo was on the floor and in the 8 hours or so that I was there, I don't think I said a word to him. We all didn't do much talking. Just painted from about noon to 8pm? Something like that. To this day, it was the largest painting I ever did in the shortest amount of time.
The whole time there, I felt honored to just let loose and do whatever I wanted with artists I respected and admired.
Since this image was only up for a day, I thought I'd post it.
The photos were taken by great photographer friend Tony Hamboussi.
Right on Manny!
ReplyDeleteIt was an intense time for everyone. It happen right around September 11th, 2001. Hell, you were the one who knocked on my door that morning when the planes hit. I’ll never forget those days. But I remember doing some big ass roller pieces with you off the sides of a few buildings. Good times brother.
T. 907