I've been super busy again!  I recently returned from a 3 week trip to San Diego, Tijuana and Los Angeles.  I was blessed to have the opportunity to paint with people I love and admire!  (And, I swear, the new website is coming!  Slowly but surely....)

Many, many thanks to Isaias Crow who offered me an opportunity to collaborate on a freeway piece with Christian Flores at Chicano Park.  I teach many of the young people I work with about the legacy of Chicano Park in order to illustrate the power of public art and community organizing.  This was a profound honor for me, and I was also very blessed to meet Victor Ochoa, who I greatly admire.

Glow (Mexicali/San Diego), Monstrinho (San Diego/NY/Get Vicious), Eloaf (New York/Cali/Get Vicious), Norteno (Tijuana) and I came for a quick afternoon wall in Tijuana, right next to a bustling neighborhood street market.  The wall owners asked us to paint something for the kids.

Here we are with some of the beautiful, joyful young people that hung out with us as we painted!  Jimena and her siblings are the grandchildren of the woman who runs the food cart right next to the wall, and they were such great company.  They sang songs, and helped me with my Spanish.  It was an honor to paint for them.

And here's a video put together by our friend Eloaf of the afternoon..

The wonder team :)  This was a lovely day of painting.

While in Los Angeles, I was lucky enough to see my the De'Lish Dames and document them backstage and in performance.  I've known the troupe leader, Micha Pagano, since I was 5 years old, and she is one of my most cherished and inspiring friends.  They are an incredible burlesque troupe!

And, on a completely different note, I just turned this in for the homie Edwin Vazquez's "Comix Gone Rogue" Project.  I was inspired by the recent announcement that Wonder Woman and Super Man were getting it on- and figured I'd play with the idea of sexuality, masculinity, femininity and power in this fun, raunchy cover.  (Peep the SWV lyrics in the back!)  http://roguecomix.blogspot.com/

This is a quick piece I did inspired by the writer's block and the young people I worked with in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico in June.  The poem reads: ""Blackbook Sessions" - "They say there is a drought in Ciudad Juarez- and that every unpaved road is wet with blood. But I have been lead to a man-made oasis of art and dignidad, conviction y communidad. It is here I dip my toes and rinse my brushes and am refreshed. En la manana, a la interseccion de libertad y calle insurgente, we laugh in broken Spanglish. "Revolutionarios are never rico." The people are thirsty."

I've taken a little bit of a break from the "Okay, Stupid" series I was working on about dating, trauma and self-representation.  However, I showed this one recently at the Beatboxing Championships here in Brooklyn a few months back.  This one is called "Why I Quit Writers" and the poem is as follows: "I dove into you, hope first, bouncing off your bubble letters. Bubbleheaded. I made you feel silver and violet. Slivers of violence. Long walks at 3am to decipher hieroglyphics. Tongue kissing in wallball courts. It was the curious, frightened, eager, grateful wide-eyed pre-teen love I'd never had. Something between an art and a crime. I dove into us, Raw. You treated me like a caricature of myself. Told me not to make cartoons about you. Do I need your permission to make cartoons about me? Why did you question the way that I spoke? my tongue thick against my teeth, loose against your skin. You made me question everything I said, which made me reevaluate everything I thought. Somewhere between a blessing and a curse. Snorting your cum out of my nose like I was laughing too hard while sucking down freelunch milk cartons. You lost me with three simple words. Bitch. Asshole. Cunt. We lost one another in the wreckage of seemingly excavated tombs. Abandoned sights. I was in awe of you."