Flash Back Friday: Ahhh When I Used to be Gangsta

Because it is Friday and because I took so long between posts last, here are two for ya today.

When my family was here for Andie's blessing we started talking about the silly things we did in college and some of my dirty secrets were exposed. So take a trip back in the past to live with me in another time and another place.

Growing up my parents fostered creativity, I was always artistic but had a hard time finding my niche. I had multiple encounters with art teachers wanting to re-direct my artistic views. Seriously had one teacher who would take my drawings, paintings and sculptures and add to them at night while school was out. My mom set that straight right quick. I enjoyed all the art forms I dabbled in but had never found the one thing I had passion for.

Rexburg ID 2005
My parents were living in Los Angeles CA at the time and during a routine weekly call my dad told me about a tag artist he met. Dad was so excited about this guy, and excited for me, he wanted me to learn how to tag. At first I thought, "Well dad has finally gone off the deep end. Not only has he come to terms with the fact this his baby will never be the doctor or lawyer he wanted, he now feels that he needs to push me far in the other direction towards the homies and hoes." 
But as I thought about it more my whole life began making sense. I really dig urban. In Jr High School I wore JNCO jeans bought in the boy section. In high school I remember wandering the streets of Salt Lake one Christmas time and watching for nearly an hour as a man created unique paintings using pie tins and spray paint. Many traffic laws had been put aside over the years as I slowed down, sped up, ran lights, swerved lanes, ect. to concentrate on the trains and buildings decorated in vivid color by other law put asiders such as myself.

With this new realization I set out on a learning journey.  The boy I was dating introduced me to his friend Pierre, an amazingly talented graffiti artist, well with pencil anyway. I learned a lot from him about using colors and lines. Even though I enjoyed sketching graffiti fonts on 8x11 paper I wanted to take it bigger. I wanted to do the real thing spray cans and all.

With the help of a friend, maybe it was Kyle my timeline is a little off on all that transpired, I built myself a frame to attach butcher paper to and started practicing. Well word got out, as often happens in small towns and small campuses, about this white chick graffiti wanna be. Boys in my ward were soliciting my skills for posters for their apartments, ten bucks a pop! Easy money. One day I even got a call from the school asking if I would make posters for an upcoming event. Wow I just realized this was something I was getting paid to do and yet it never hit my resume I have been cheating myself all these years. Anyway that project earned me a pretty $80, that is pretty much like one grand in college language.

 

(My first attempt that me and my roomies hung in our apartment. And my adorable cousin Lee Boy. I was hoping to put up some other photos but they were all taken pre-digital and I don't feel like scanning them in right now.)

While the posters were great I was really itching to get my paint on a real wall. Being the good Christian mostly law-abiding person I was, I applied a great amount of self-control and never defiled others' property. Luckily my friend Jon knew about this new passion and took me to this awesome cave in Idaho Falls called Three Mile Cave. We loaded up my paints and a ladder and journeyed into the deepest corner of this cave, right next to the scariest pond I ever saw, and got to work. As my paint hit the wall a huge sense of relief over came me, getting out this deep longing I had to put paint to wall. A huge mural of a melting world with gangsta flames engulfing it started emerging through our motions. It was one of the neatest things I have ever done. Yeah I understand that no one except the local townies looking for a secluded place to play a prank or make out will ever see it, but for me that was gratification enough.

Not entirely related; after we did our tag job we went to a local dairy to get ice cream and had a truly Napoleon Dynamite moment. It was a hot day and we meandered over towards the milking cows, I stood there licking my cookies and cream cone staring fully engrossed at the throbbing utters of a huge heifer laying in her own manure swatting flies with her tail. I ate the entire cone standing there.

So yeah I became a tag artist for a year. There is a lot more that goes along with these events but those are other stories for another time.