The Writing On The Wall.

I think I discovered art through graffiti before I ever understood what “art” was.

My grandfather was a sign painter. Eventually he moved into neon, but I remember piles of his old sketches. Hand-drawn letters. Layouts. Words bent and stretched until they became something more than words. I could stare at that stuff forever.

Then there were the trains.

Growing up around Washington, D.C., I’d watch them pass covered in graffiti and wonder two things: Who did that? And how the hell did they get up there without getting caught?

I became obsessed.

I was a skater punk raised on punk rock and old-school hip-hop, and eventually I started meeting other taggers. Before long, I wasn’t just admiring graffiti anymore. I was doing it.

By 12, my skateboard was basically transportation. I’d end up miles from home with a backpack full of spray paint, fat-tip markers, and absolutely no business being wherever I was. As I got older, it got worse. We were out constantly. Walls. Concrete. Wherever.

Then in 2001, my buddies and I got caught.

Three felony charges for property damage over $1,000.

That’ll sober up your artistic ambitions pretty fucking quickly.

I got off easy considering where it could’ve gone. I put away the spray cans and markers and stopped painting things that didn’t belong to me.

But I never stopped loving the letters.

Looking at my work today, the influence is everywhere. The long strokes. Messy lines. Overlapping letters. Tags. Hand lettering. That feeling that something was made by a human instead of perfected by a machine.

The only real difference is the canvas.

These days I’m sitting wrapping rods with an iPad instead of skating around D.C. with spray cans rattling in my backpack.

Probably a better life decision.

But graffiti was my first art form.

Fly fishing was my second.

And I’ll love them both until I’m fucking dead.

-JL