Burbank Mural

I never knew that much about the city of Burbank. I knew it was relatively far from the cool waters of the Pacific Ocean. I knew it was hot. And I knew it had a great old car culture. That was before I spent the past couple months making the drive out there from the 405 to the 101 to the 134... well that was the way with no traffic. I've spent plenty of time on the 5, Magnolia, and Riverside Dr. attempting to circumvent the masses or just to catch the tail end of Happy Hour.

My first 5 or 6 murals were all in towns that I knew well. Towns that I'd spent time in and had a good idea about the history of the areas. My last two, however, were in cities that I'd spent little to no time in (Burbank and Chicago). There's something intimidating about the challenge of capturing the history and feeling of a town on a wall... when you've never been there. Adding to the challenge was that I wanted this to be my first full-color mural (I had a tendency to lean toward the black and gray).

Nevertheless, after countless hours exploring Burbank, and the lovely bars and eateries within (Fiesta Taco, Santoro's, Champ's, the Foxfire, etc.) and many trips to old book tores in pursuit of vintage photos... I finally finished the wall. Many thanks to the O'Brien brothers for providing the wall, Kat and Ash for keeping me company and donating pizza, Bud Brian for his bar travel guide, and Natalie for being the shop manager and a model on the wall...

Phew Chozen

It had been years since my buddy Kub and I painted a wall together. Back in 2004 or 2005 we would head out every weekend to hit yards, legals, street spots, and everything in between from Ventura County to San Diego. Back then it was always me, him & our third friend Kryst. None of us had real jobs... we just painted... a lot. As the years went on I started working every weekend, Kryst had a couple kids (well his chick did, not him, but they were still his), and Kub got out of Southern California for a while before settling into a regular grown up job.

Fast forward five years and older, more tattooed, employed versions of ourselves met up over on Lincoln Blvd. in Venice to paint together for the first time in ages. And it was exactly why I got into graffiti in the first place. I had an absolute fucking blast hanging out, painting, and catching up with a good friend that I barely noticed that the sun was gettin lower in the sky and that I had to get my ass to work (a problem I didn't have back when we first started painting together). So, until the next time Kub & I paint again here are a couple photos of that day in Venice...

The Garter

So a couple months back I did a pin-up girl at The Garter (a rad bar on Lincoln & Washington). Now, that's not the first time I've started a story like that (true story), but this time it was a painting... a 23 foot tall painting.

This created a pretty cool "Attack of the 50' Woman" thing when you were heading south on Lincoln, but alas it didn't last long. Changes at the bar led to my piece (and a Shepherd Fairey poster wall across from it) getting painted over.

The good news is that I'm gonna be doing a new, smaller painting on the front of the bar in the next couple weeks so if you see me up on the ladder say hi, buy me a beer (Tecate please), or throw me your phone number (like the porn star in Californication does to Hank Moody... provided you like the aforementioned porn star... or are at least decent).

This is the only cameraphone photo I have of this wall. If anyone has a better flick please send it to me. If you're attractive (and female) please feel free to include a few of yourself too...