Back from retirement. Again. NYSE, 2012.

First - no the second - piece I had painted after a six year hiatus. Actually, it had been so long, that I painted a similar piece behind Zane's shop in Escondido a week before painting this one, just to work out some of the rust.  I have always loved graffiti, but there were several long stretches in my life when I had decided that it had lost its soul, had become institutionalized.

What I thought once sacred had been exploited. So I turned away in mourning, convinced it was time to move on.

As it turns out, graffiti is not something one can ever escape. Trust me, I have tried. It might be a scribe on the trashcan at a gas station, or some crazy spot in the heavens, where someone dared to climb and paint. Once you really 'see' graffiti - once you've lived it, it cannot be unseen. It's the uncontrollable urge to tag in the fogged up bathroom mirror of a hotel room. Its the unspoken respect for that new name you see as all-city.

The impact of graffiti on those who understand it is as prolific and far-reaching as the art itself.  Graffiti sets in motion a certain cadence of being, a specific way of seeing the world, of both sampling from and adding to its flavor. It in an affliction of letters and colors and individuality. It fosters a different idea of ownership. Graffiti is in the artist, the pieces are merely symptomatic of that underlying commitment and individual expression.