(Pic #1) Divine delivery: Today’s lit loot from Drip Machine
Art Supplies: Manna From Heaven
Why Urban Decay Is My Jam
Confession: I slam on the brakes and jump out of the car to capture the detritus of life.
It’s the dirty, weather-beaten, peeling surfaces of walls and structures in any large city. You typically won’t find these textures in the fancy parts of town, so that’s why I like to take detours and longer ways home. Some of these moments end up on canvas, some find their way onto the hand-painted jackets in our new “Urban Artwear” collection.
It might just be a simple combination of colors…sometimes it’s just erosion, but most of the time it inspires an idea — or series of ideas — for some funk-ass abstract art.
(Pic #2) Ventura, Cal.
(Pic #3) San Pedro, Cal.
(Pic #4) Los Angeles, Cal.
(Pic #5) Oxnard, Cal.
Art In The Alley
They are those almost-accidental spaces between buildings — invisibly supporting the rest of the urban landscape. Backstreet alleys. Not quite streets, but still a means of passage. Often hotspots for crime, and more often than not, packed with heaps of trash and debris.
But if you take the time to look, you just might discover backstreets and alleys provide extraordinary opportunities for found art. I stumbled upon the funky warped wooden “sculpture” as I exited the back door of my favorite deli in Woodland Hills. (Pics #1 + #2, above)
I got lost in the backstreets of London, and snapped a quick shot of this garbage can and its discarded adornments. (Pic #3, below)
(Pic #3) Blackfriar Alley, London, UK
And my photographer friend Stephanie Sydney nabbed this exquisite image of a store window in a back alley on La Brea in West Hollywood. (Pic #4, below) It’s one of my favorites, and it now hangs in larger-than-life size in the halls of Fortune 500 companies in New York.
It’s always worth stopping for the shot.
