10 years ago I moved to BK into @byrobingoods basement in Bed Stuy to be my first apartment in NYC. Shouts out Bonobo crew, Murph the rat, 5 Pointz, and cold packs at the deli

My first roommates were @oddladydre and @gabeharden and we shared this 1BR basement spot without any walls. After finishing my last semester at school I moved back to the same spot with @buttchill and a roommate we found on craigslist from Lithuania who showed up in the pouring rain with just a backpack @ka_antis we had the best time being so poor 😅

We had this old black circular table that I’m pretty sure these photos were taken on, that Robin wanted gone by the time we left. I knew I wanted to do something cool on it so I kept it and rolled it around for all these years (5 or 6 different apartments?) with the idea for this work always drawing closer in my head. Real Sisyphus vibes… the idea finally took hold a couple years ago as I was breaking into getting started on Saint Michael

Inherently there is nothing original or creative about this work. It is not mine and is a shared symbology we all can appreciate and find ways to admire in our own way (I’m not Christian I believe in Love). This work is an elaboration on a very specific technical skill set of spending endless hours in photoshop creating a stencil from a photograph (check out Pieta on google), printing graphics to scale (thanks Rick), then cutting it by hand which took me about 3.5 weeks with an exacto blade on my stomach because I couldn’t get the right angle standing up. It’s about setting up the right spot free from wind, and taping down the edges where spray paint can crawl underneath. It’s about learning from so many mistakes, embracing process, and knowing where to go next for the idea to get done the right way.

The coolest thing about this piece is it’s been with me since day 1 in NY and has been with me through every manifestation, all the wins and fuck ups, and is quite simply a living reminder to trust myself.