Cray One

I was blessed to have found my calling in painting Spraycan Art (Graffiti) in at a young age. Fame had found me early in my art career. When Hip-Hop culture first hit the Bay Area with documentaries like “Style Wars” and a B movie called “Wild Style” I was hooked and I started to Break Dance. I was a total Jock before hip-hop influenced my life but after a two to three year stint at

B-Boying, I started painting. After my name was noticed in and around the Bay Area, I started to venture out into surrounding cities to recruit for my new group called TWS “Together With Style.”

We were the first Bay Area Crew. We were the kids who used Fine Art and also incorporated European graffiti style and with a little original San Francisco flavor, we were doing pieces that no one had seen before. We were trail blazers doing advance and technical works. We developed new color theories and patterns, all with the use of spray cans. We had our fair share of haters

out there who did not like what we did. This was usually the result of differences in graffiti lettering style and ideologies.

We were putting artistic flair and originality into our work and while others were following New York influences, we followed our own dreams and aspirations because we knew that this was not a fad! This art form was here to stay and we all knew it was going to change our world. I knew it and I wanted IN big time. I was dedicated to this art form, for life. I kept painting and eventually, local, national and international fame got around to who this young kid in San Francisco was doing.

When, eventually my work was featured in a book called “SprayCan Art” representing San Francisco and the greater Bay Area, my life was never the same. I was fortunate to have accomplished so much at an early age and was represented by several agents. When I was 19/20 years old I found opportunities to create murals by doing commissioned works and building a portfolio. I was the first graffiti writer from the West Coast to do a one man gallery show in Palo Alto, Ca.

At this time, I was published and fortunate to be video taped on many local news networks. I also was one of the first to put a piece on a Muni Bus and the first to ever paint a whole-car Southern Pacific freight train which I was credited for 25 years later in a book called, Freight Train Graffiti”. Thank god I took photos! Others made similar claims but they did not have photos...