A few weeks ago, as Halloween approached and the veil between this world and the next was at its thinnest and most penetrable, I felt the angel of death brush past me…
“I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,
And in short, I was afraid.”
-T.S. Eliot
…decaying burner by PYSE, grim reaper character by PYSE. Beverly, MA. October 2015.
About halfway through the story of Tiger vs. Pyse, our west-coast cat shape-shifts to assume another of his incarnated forms: P-ride CTK CTV. With an alternate letter-set to rock with that’s as worn-in as a pair of hockey skates, the Pridemonster takes to the ice in Bruins’ black and gold. His season opener sports Bali-blue highlights cut as sharp as sapphires with chilling precision and prideful indignation–a piece that threatens to pull your shirt over your head and beat your nose bloody. I’ve overheard gossip in the stands lately about the “giftedness” and “phenomena” of certain writers on the bench. Those are words that only spectators use. The guys who are out here playing in the paint every week and supplying this spectator sport are punching clocks every time they drop the gloves. Nobody who’s any good is out there talking about getting rich; they’re talking about getting back to work. Not everyone can play the sport like Bobby Orr played it, and that’s okay with me; it takes just as much heart to play exclusively for the love of the game. The pieces below were painted for no occasion whatsoever:
Pride floats across the continent from Santa Cruz on a cloud of the highest-grade smoke while Fritz the cat puffs and plots some stick-up art of his own. (Fritz by Pyse)
Pyse’s cherry-rock piece bleeds black from bullet-holes and rains flat Rusto drips while flexing in a Satin-white outline that’s so fresh and so clean.
Pride comes back around the block once more to show us the westerly art of the “Chaos Piece” in which each letter bumps a different color scheme. Dopey (by Pride) drops out of Disney to emcee the whole production…I wonder what he’s holding in that hand behind his back…
These are the last efforts from the PrideTiger Vs. Pyse exhibition match of Summer 2015. There’s still some dispute about who took the title, my manager is looking for a rematch in Santa Cruz this winter. Tighten your skates and tape up your sticks boys.
Tiger CTK,CTV is an urban animal that thrives in the bloodlust of the big city so I took him to an alleyway in back of Central Kitchen to stalk some graf game. Pyse LS,RTW is a slippery suburban fish that shimmers in the copper-chrome current. Painting in Central Square is always performance art; Cambridge bystanders stop and suck fumes. Tiger was vibing with a born-again who said he used to write with Boston legend Alert before he found Jesus, I guess the savior isn’t rocking handstyles in heaven. Meanwhile, I was getting hustled for half-empty cans by some dreadlock toy with bad angles. In short, this spot always spells distraction. The restaurateur makes sure that artwork wraps up by opening-time; chaperoned youth-groups show up to stress out pieces indiscriminately but Pyse & Co. persevere, slinging paint and still making the time to pose hard. The cardiographic blue pulse-line in my rope is just to show you that I got a hand steadier than an amateur surgeon after his second drink. Tiger’s piece ran for two days before a go-over by someone with less can-control than an AA meeting in Milwaukee. After this double-burner was documented, we strolled to Harvard for cheeseburgers and beers at Charlie’s Kitchen…well, beers for me anyway; Tiger’s a sober cat.
I’ve been in the rhythm of painting live shows lately. Gloucester sweetheart Carol Pallazolla invited Santa Cruz, CA graffiti writer Tiger a.k.a Pride and myself to paint an 8’X20′ mural on a set of five individual panels at her late-summer event: The First Annual Harvest Moon Festival. Tiger was only six hours off a cross-country flight when he painted a pumpkin-head character in under an hour like he was stepping off a curb. Then he turned around and gave an interview to a local-access television reporter, laying on heavy vibes of sunny Cali carelessness. The festival featured a wide selection of food, crafts, and booze, with performances by Fishtown icon Alan Estes, Henry Allen and the New Swingset, and Jenny Dee and the Delinquents among others. I managed to get a thorough sunburn on my right side while painting this monster (the leftmost four panels of which are for sale individually or as a set). All in all it was a beautiful day; Tiger and I look forward to performing again next year. Please view the “contact” tab at the top of the screen for more information about purchasing a piece of this mural.
The last sweet breath of Summer breeze brought my friend Tiger on a Delta Red-eye from L.A. Tiger is a mad-laboratory-scientist-turned-graffiti-extraterrestrial from another dimension not unlike our own. Transformed by experimental artworks, he emerged a symbiotic creature of his own creation. This is evidenced by a meticulously clean style that thinly masks the seething tentacles of a Martian beast unknown to our world. Homeboy even brought an auger with him from the lab so that he could tunnel into the subterranean wreckage beneath our city and colonize the place. Tiger is a colorful Casanova, and one of his demands was that I provide leashed female beauty to escort him around the planet. He was satisfied to floss beside the Girl with the Silver Chain, a ghetto visage of spunk sprayed to life by the legendary Pyse117. The West-Coast Wildstyle letters were achieved exclusively with MTN 94, the only flavor of pigment that the Tiger finds palatable, while Pyse’s choice poison is a mixture of Molotow transparent paints spiked by silver Flame Acrylic. In this strange story of reverse-species submission, one could say the Tiger has tamed the Girl.
Flatrocks Gallery 77 Langsford St. Gloucester
Danny Diamond polishes up the grit of urban styling against the lush garden backdrop of Flatrocks Gallery in the Lanesville neighborhood of Gloucester, MA. Gallery owner Cynthia Roth invited Fishtown’s resident spray-can wizard to perform his illusions before a live audience in early August, 2015. It was an afternoon of well-rounded hip-hop art that included a boom-bap deejay, live dance, and emceeing. This piece includes a subtle desert skyline in Molotow “Mad C Cherry Red” against a Montana “Raspberry” sky and a force-field in Montana “Bermuda” blue (notice the signature heart-beat vital-sign variation in the top left corner). This piece explores themes of a fiery internal landscape beset by the external world, represented by the cityscape that crowns the piece and the bubbly, watery backdrop of our coastal city at night.
Beverly, MA August ’15
I took some time off from my vacation in Maine to come back South and put in some work for you guys. This little silver gem has been described as “Straight Fire” by prominent graf cats on the West Coast. Piece by PYSE, character by unknown. Belton “Chrome-Effect” fill-in outlined by MTN “Rojo Claro”. Translucent White shows up on Silver like a thin layer of snow on a frozen lake; dig the starburst highlights to the sides. This piece was a warm-up that I painted the day before my gallery show in Lanesville, MA…
Vinalhaven, ME
In late July I was invited to paint some sheets of corrugated roofing on a remote island off the coast of Maine. There was a mid-summer Dionysian celebration in the woods that included two DJ’s, a pig roast, six kegs, and one graffiti writer in the middle of it all. The “Smith” piece is by PYSE, a dedication to the man who makes the event possible (and of course a nod to the NYC RTW legend). Black-Cherry PYSE burner was lighting up the dance floor all night. Check out L.M.F.D. aka DJ Luke MF Duke, he was spinning wax for us after bringing crates of vinyl over on a skiff with an outboard.
Vinalhaven, ME
Beverly, MA July 2015
Last week I was up late watching Netflix and had the pleasure of watching “The Nine Lives of Fritz the Cat”, an animated film based on the comic strip by the famous R. Crumb. Being an alley cat myself, I knew we’d eventually get down. Smoking Burner by PYSE, Fritz the Cat by a VERY special anonymous guest (Fritz sketch by PYSE). I’ve been really stoked on transparent paints lately, evidenced here by the starburst on the far left and the smoke drifting from Fritz’s, a ‘hem, cigarette.
Beverly, June 2015
Beverly, June 2015
…Sometimes being a professional house-painter by day has its advantages. This Blockbuster was painted entirely with a 9” roller, a 3” roller, and a 16′ roller-pole. PYSE also has a seemingly endless supply of acrylic house-paint, this one features a fill-in with the finest Benjamin Moore ‘Regal Select Interior’ Matte-Finish “Abalone Grey”, and an outline in Ben Moore ‘Ultra-Spec 500 Interior’ Flat-Finish “Deep Royal”. Anything less would be uncivilized.
SKRIBBLEFISH 