Happy New Year!!!!!
2011 was great, I expect 2012 to be even better. I have a feeling many good things are coming with the new year.

First a big Thanks to Alisha from Houston, TX for signing up and winning the Monster painting from December free art!! Congrats!

For the first month of the New Year I am offering up a 17″ by 33″ spray paint on wood piece.
It is from a short series of paintings I did late last year. Once again it will come to you framed and ready to hang.

Some of the rest of the series

How?
Simply fill in the form and hit send

or send an email with your name and the words “Free Art” in the subject or message to yo@iwishthatitwouldrain.com. At the end of the month, there will be a random drawing. If your name is drawn, you win! I will then send you an email asking for details on how you would like to obtain your new piece of art! I will cover shipping to the Contiguous United States. I am more than happy to ship elsewhere, but have to ask for some compensation.

For more info and all the details about the free art project click here.

Emails for this piece will be accepted up to 11:59pm CST on January 31st. I will draw the name and the winner will be announced within the next day.

I learned how to upload videos to youtube. This is from the the first Dia De los Muertos Show at Mattie Rhodes. The Mariachi’s broke into to Stan Getz “Girl from Ipanema.” Look forward to more grainy videos.

stole the Abels/Jade pic from http://www.flickr.com/photos/11700551@N02/

Back in 2007 I snuck into an art show at the Leedy Voulkos and Third Eye galleries called “Sorry for the Miscommunication.” The show was organized by Nicole Emmanuel in memory of her nephew who had died, the street artist Solve. I was called by a friend to tell me that my old graffiti name was on the bill. Long story short, Nicole let me in the show and the name being billed was being used by a Chicago artist that used the same name. At that show, not only did I meet Jessica, but I also met Nice One. When Jessica rebuffed my initial advances, me, Nice One, and Skame took a quick jaunt around the neighborhood and became friends. Throughout his stay in Kansas City, Nice One, along with Skame, did some fucking crazy spots. At the time, Nice was doing freehand graffiti characters, large pufferfish like… well it would be easier to show you, they looked like this. In fact, this was more than likely done on that trip.

Thanks to him being featured on Flavorpill: Chicago for his CUAS installation, “Tax Free” after losing touch for a while, we reconnected on the interweb. Since we last spoke he’s switched up his style, approach, and mediums. I look forward to kicking off a new interview series here on the site for the new year by soon bringing you an interview with Nice One.
Get to know his art in the meantime here: niceonestreetart.com

Complex Magazine makes great lists. This is an undeniable fact. From Artists to sneakers, music to cars, and also trips to the strange sides with lists documenting “ridiculous sports tweets,” and “top ten animals movies that will make you cry like a little girl,” you can lose hours in minutes. I got hip to these lists through a steady run of a “Top 25 graffiti writers from (insert city) of all time.” Through proper outsourcing each list was great and knowledgeable.
So looking for new music to listen to I was excited to find this list. My excitement was immediately tempered when I found “Watch the Throne” at number two. (Sidenote: i found that album to be an enormous letdown from what I heard. The catchiest part of it is by a dead guy, Otis Redding.) Disregarding some mainstream stuff and some hipster bullshit her’s what i found interesting, listed in order starting at 25 going backwards to the top….

So there you go. The found This last artists to have produced the album of the year. It’s growing on me but I’ll have to hear it straight through or something. I’m definitely most intrigued by the new Roots album. I’ll go buy that. After that A$AP Rocky comes off like an east coast Tyler the Creator with less imaginative raps but perhaps better overall songs. Pe$o has production that is hard to beat. Kendrick Lamar and Danny Brown both interest me. I would like to hear more from them. The Cults and Toro y Moi seem like solid listens, good studio music. My Favorite? The Pusha T Tyler the Creator track. Great visual representation of two worlds colliding.
Sorry for the lack of posts. I gots to buy a flickr pro account before I upload anymore images….