THE FIRST WALL I LEGALIZED. PART I
THE FIRST WALL I LEGALIZED. PART I
Ferburary 4th, 2021
Here’s how it happened:
I got my first car in 1986. It was a Mazda323. First thing I did was tint the windows limo-black. Second thing I did was heat the springs, my car was scraping the ground. And then of course, I got some rims and tires.
Now that I had transportation, I started painting on the west side of LA more, as the West Valley did not have many yards.
It was about two months later, that I made yet another modification to my vehicle. I crashed it head on into a tree racing my friend in Tuna Canyon, or somewhere in that vacinity.
With my Mazda in the shop, I was determined to find a wall I could paint close to the house that I could skate to. One I could paint without getting arrested.
I would skate all over the Warner Center area of Woodland Hills, and expand out from there. I got as far north as Chatsworth, West to Calabasas.
There were some good locations, but no business or building owner that had any appetite for graffiti.
In the mid 80’s, graffiti was still really just associated with gangs. And, of course , gangs - gangs were associated with people of color, who were associated with drug dealing, which was associated with violence.
Nobody wanted graffiti.
I had given up the search when one day, I was in the car with my mom when I saw this pristine wall, heading north on De Soto, just past Vanowen. There was an empty strip of land - maybe there were some tracks and on the other side the lot there was a cul-de-sac with some homes, and there was this beautiful cinderblock wall on the home at the end of the cul-de-sac. So the next day I skate over there and I had written out this note that I wanted them to sign that would give me permission to paint those walls.
I remember I had to stop by twice that day, because the first time nobody was home. I was ditching school and evidently people were at work.
That afternoon I knock on the door looking as respectable as I could with a skateboard in one hand and that hand written note in the other. And... to be continued...