In one of those "you had to be there" events that happen all over Los Angeles, Crewest(http://www.crewest.com/) was the place to be this past Saturday night. "L.A. <3" featured Mark Ferem signing and promoting his new book "Bathroom Graffti."(www.myspace.com/latrinalia) With live performances by legendary L.A. street artist "mear one" (www.mearone.com) and spoken poetry by Mike Sonksen "Mike The Poet"(www.myspace.com/mikethepoet) who has been gaining a following. If that wasn't enough Overton Loyd (http://www.overtonloyd.com/) was doing live sketches of Mike and mear as they did work. Ferems book consist of shit house poetry from the bathrooms all over L.A. and the U.S. Mark was selling and signing the book for 15$ which was as he said himself a steal. The book is a great piece of work that is chronocaling another type of graphitti art. The entire night was stolen by Sonksen and Mear as the crowd young and old was mesmarized and captivated by them as Sonksen recited his poems with a passion that Mear matched in his painting. Sonksens poetry went down a roll call of who's who in L.A. history from Ray Bradbury to our current mayor Antonio Vigarrosa. His poems took you from Watts and Echo Park to Downtown reflecting on the people that make up these cities. His poems themed from the racial tensions past and present, politics and everything else in between. All the while Mear was in the back going crazy like a man possed painting the city that he has lived in and loves. At the same time Loyd effortlessly sketched each of the artist so perferctly that one would think he spent hours, not minutes sketching. I could tell the night was a success because of the youngsters that attend the show and the look they had in their eyes. They saw me and my skate deck tricked out with stickers that they thought I was a slapper, not yet anyways. I passed them on to sticky rick as they wanted to start doing their own thing and making their mark on the world just like Senkson and Mear have done. However the entire night didn't belong to them, knowing he had the audiance with him, Sonksen took a break to let his prodiche who's name I forgot to get follow in his footsteps. With his mother and younger brother looking on giving him inspiration, he quickly got over his stage fright and layid it down. Senkson met him when he spoke at Hollywood High if I'm not mistaken and since then has seen him as a little brother. Senkson made it a point to encourage all the youngsters at the show too keep on doing their thing, doing what they love and never stopping. The whole even couldn't have been made possible with out the man that is know as Man One (http://www.manone.com/). Man one has had a long history of putting his work up all over L.A. and know in his older age he's become a business man providing services to corparations looking for some street style. He now curates crewest here in L.A.
For me this even was another evening that would have never happened had it all gome as planned. My intentions were to go to the "yo ! what happened to peace ?" (yoart.org)My brother in arms ranked out on me so I decided to stop by after work and still check it out. On my way there I passed a cute girl who once inside introduced herself as Diane. She's a street artist herself and after being looky-lous I asked her if she wanted to check out Crewest. From there on it was out of my hands as another random evening that I was blessed to be a part of. I met great artist and networked with them as this is what I want to write about, L.A. life and event's. Now I'm just waiting to see if Diane will look me up on myspace
