Bama

My boy Desi did this in honor of his grandmother, Bama, who may not be with us much longer. I love this aspect of graffiti - the dedicating of walls to people who may never see the actual piece except in photographic form. She might never make it out to Oakland to see it in person, but it's there for her.
It's creation of an art landmark, a tiny part of the city's landscape altered in celebration of a certain loved individual...there's something poetic about that.

Chair lift - Bruises

I heard this song randomly when I went short notice to meet up with an old college friend of mine in the City. I like it. It's about hand stands. kinda


Chairlift - Bruises (Official Music Video) - Click here for another funny movie.

Hadn't seen the guy in years, 2-3 maybe. He got married in Jersey and I didn't make it. He's exactly the same, I'm not sure if that's a good or bad thing but he is, the way he talks, laughs after saying something embarrassing and even how he pokes, not once but twice. Drank a little too much, took a cab to get some Thai food, dropped Omicel home and went home to Oakland. Oh by-the-way when you're in really good healthy marathon running shape, you can really feel the alcohol, feels kind of like poison.

Eye Writer

You ever seen that flick The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. Before I watched the film I was trying to come up with an image that symbolically represented what someone would feel like if they were perfectly fine as far as brain activity but their body weren't functioning right, the body becomes a prison - I think it's called locked in syndrome. It was so intrigued and saddened by what that must be like and I wanted to try and depict that in a way that would help me empathize, a way that might make more sense to my own life experiences, and share that with others, but I could never find the right imagery. Then one day I saw the film and was like, holy crap!! That's it...a dude stuck in a diving bell in the depths of the ocean. I've never been in a diving bell and I doubt many nowadays have but the message was clear. If you don't know what a diving bell is it's one of those old school all heavy metal diving suits that weigh a ton. A perfectly healthy person stuck in a broken, immobile shell. So the story is actually a true one based on a memior written by French journalist Jean-Dominique Bauby who woke up completely paralyzed after suffering a massive stroke, the book was written entirely by Bauby blinking his left eyelid. His imagination literally set him free. Crazy huh? Watch the movie. Anyhow so the eye writer totally blow me away. Chills seriously riding down my back as I'm watching this.

The Eyewriter from Evan Roth on Vimeo.

http://www.eyewriter.org/

Dontae Dickson

This is Dontae Dickson, the kid I worked with last year. I love this guy. I requested to work with him again this year. Third grade, eight years old. Has a pit named Cocoa Butter Puff, no lie. And he loves seafood.

Community United Elementary School (CUES), forme

rly known as Lockwood Elementary was one of lowest scoring schools around. It still serves one of Oakland's poorest and most crime-ridden neighborhoods, with nearly all of its students coming from families whose earnings fall below the federal poverty level. We go in each Friday and tutor the kids in literacy. You should come too.

By-the-way, Dontae got through all 3 sets of his sight words today. Sight words are common words that we have memorized so that as we read they are immediately recognized. This is the score card where you get a sticker for every 10 words, notice how the entire section is filled, if you run your hand over it you'd feel the texture from all the stickers. That's the tactile sense of accomplishment.

He's the man.

Speaking of CUES, Oakland has some of the craziest names for its schools, these are all OUSD:

Alliance Academy

Ascend Elementary

Community Day High School

Community United Elementary School

East Oakland Pride High School

Excel High School

Explore College Preparatory Middle School

Far West

Futures Elementary School

Global Family School

International Community Elementary School

Leadership Preparatory High School

Learning Without Limits

Life Academy

Reach Academy

Rise Community School

Think College Now Elementary School

United for Success

Urban Promise Academy

Youth Empowerment School

The message is pretty clear. It makes sense when you remember that Oakland consistently ranks among the top 5 most violent cities in the U.S.

China in Oakland

Symbiotic relationship.

Bowl Haiti

Here's a poster I did for a Haiti Bowling Benefit Tournament my friends in the city are putting on.

Bowl Haiti

Date: February 21st, 2010

Time: 11:00 AM

Location: Serra Bowl, Daly City

For information and registration, go to www.jrunkinc.com

Prints were made and the original is being raffled off at the tourney. If there are any left, they'll be for sale. All proceeds of course going to Haiti, not sure which specific org.

Water color and ink on heavy watercolor paper. 26x40

Gung Hay Fat Valentine Presidents Day

I was thinking of going to Cambodia over the summer so I went to the church in the hills where the meeting was supposed to be and after a long unfruitful search through the labyrinth like campus I found out that it was canceled.

So feeling tired I was just going to go to the studio and do a painting of the impenetrable walls of Pyongyang North Korea and the devastation that lies beyond, and something about the curiousity of the children within wondering what lurks outside the city. All based on a NPR broadcast about the education of the elite children in the capital city I was listening to on the way to the church. But then I called my boy because he texted a seemingly distressed message about one of his old murals being buffed.

He wasn't actually tripping, he was working on a piece dedicated to his dad for his birthday at the tracks so I went to join him.

I got there, he was about done, so we walked down the wall as he told me stories about the pieces. Then we walked back, sat on the tracks, examined his piece from the distance and then started throwing rocks trying to hit an empty spray can, all while exchanging about our recent experiences with girls, naturally, given it's Valentines day. The rock throwing becomes incredibly addicting, you hit it once and you want to do it again, then you get frustrated and take a handful of pebbles, shot gun blast them but then all miss and so you vow to hit it once more and quit. It gets competitive for a moment when you're threatened with 2 direct hits before your one and before you know it both of you are standing, trying to get a better vantage. Finally, one bounce hits and it's not completely satisfying but it is good enough and you both decide to stop.

We go and finish off the piece by adding shadows, snap a flick and proceed to try and pop the empties by bashing them with rocks before we go. We don't want to leave even a drop of paint in case some punk kids come by and want to mess up the piece.

The 23rd Tracks in Oakland

The piece done for his dad Jays birthday. Double letters: "Dad" and "Jay"

Trying to pop empty cans


I dont know who this dude is, I think he writes Remex but I like his style..the aquatic theme is clean. I've seen another piece of his, it was a tiger one, i'll try and post a flick later down the line when I get one.

Wintertime in Oakland

Liz Z came by and painted, shes in Seattle learning straight old school french academies style.


Mound of bones. Wing Stop, my first time there.


Sketches for a collab piece coming soon. Stay tuned, it's gonna be dope.

Old Chinese pastor, young Chinese pastor

Spying on wreck in Richmond

Dog spying on us spying on wreck in Richmond



I was allowed into the secret headquarters of a mag that shall remain unnamed



Madalyn in England.
Really in Berkeley. A concept I've been thinking about for a long time. Photos of local spots in Oakland or whereever that look like other distant lands and labeling them that. Watch out because I just may start doing that, don't start tripping out, What! Daves in Nairobi! I saw just saw that guy like an hour ago.


I love the cool tones in this shadow.

Jesus came by the church the other night.

Headshot of the son of man. If I were to draw Jesus I'd draw him like this. Expect he probably would've looked nothing like this. I read that the beard would be trim and the hair real short, and the guy was mid eastern, but I've been to Israel and the Jews are all light complexed so I don't know. I wish some frikin artist would tell the truth for once and draw Jesus like he wouldve really historically looked. I'm sick of the Swedish version.
Oh the real story on this guy, Jason is his name. He and his dad go around whereever they open Shiekh Shoes and do the insides of all the stores. They're working on one at the Eastmont mall. Nice dude.

Oakland Mural on Telegraph and 28th

My first mural, actually not my first mural but my first all aerosol and the first I've worked on in Oakland.

Here's the quick version of how I got hooked up with these guys. I got a speeding ticket on my birthday last year and an expired drivers license citation (bc I completely didnt think of the fact that the license expires on your birthday) so I had a date with the judge. He gave me the option of paying the exorbitant fine or opting for community service. I of course took the community service option, I thought of it as an opportunity to check out a part of Oakland I would never otherwise. They gave me a whole list of possibilities, I naturally chose MOCHA (which is a misnomer bc its actually an art center and not a museum) given that I liked art and working with kids. So while working on the project hanging some kids paintings on college ave I met this dude Sam, an intern at MOCHA, he was all late and tired, an iffy first impression. Anyhow over the course of my stint we got pretty cool and then one drunken night he put me in his crew (this apparently isn't the first time hes done this). And I later found out that he touted me as the secret weapon, I don't write, so he had to talk up my drawing ability. Anyhow we started having these crew meetings and other members were showing up initially but after a certain point I was the only one there besides Desi. Now Desi, the guy heading the meetings is also the founder of Community Rejuvenation Project, an non profit organization that works to beautify Oakland through murals (I mean that's what I think the is vision..I'm still not completely sure. I know it sounds good when he so passionately talks about it). So the CRP is one aspect of the then yet to open Oakland Green Youth Arts and Media Center, the building where we'd meet. At some point in the not so distant past the CRP team was tasked with doing the signage and painting the outside of the building in time for the grand opening. Since I was the only one showing up it was defaulted to the two of us to design and start the mural until the calvary would show.

Here are some in progress flicks:


Tase painting the signage:




This is one of the major portraits I did, the one on the left:

This is the other one:


I guess we worked on it for 8 days. I use spray all the time in my paintings but I've never really rendered a full character until this mural. I was literally learning the technique as I went, there's no better way to pick this stuff up.

Here's a time lapse flick put together by Abakus but the footage was all Deb:



Voila!!

White Elephant

I did this real quick for a white elephant exchange this past Christmas - the theme was: manger. It's all watercolor except I used some spray for the background. Unique for 2 reasons its watercolor and its small.