Sour Grapes in Los Angeles.

My boys Sopa and Peña were out in L.A. last week taking care of some business and taking a break at the same time. My good friend Adam Peña was accepted into graduate school at Otis College of Art and Design, which is one of the top art school in the nation. He was out there checking out the campus and visiting with the professors at the school. We are all very proud because Peña will be the second SG member to be in a graduate program. While they were out there, they checked out a lot of cool stores, art galleries, museums and even went to a Dodgers game. We have come a long way from being some ghetto kids from Oak Cliff (Dallas, TX) to a group of friends making their creative and artistic dreams come true. It has been a though journey to get to where we are at, but we are only beginning. I know that there are young artist out there that are influenced by us and that just fuels us to continue to work hard and succeed. I always say that our accomplishments are for all of our raza (people), not just for our crew. Check out more of Adam's work at www.adampena.com

Welcome to the Family

This past weekend, the Sour Grapes family welcomed 2 new members, Stale and Groyn. These 2 guys were a natural fit because they are dedicated, talented, and experienced artist that will help our crew grow even more. Our motive for this crew is to have a support system that will encourage us to maintain a creative lifestyle and it has worked for the last 8 years. Over the last few years, our members have begun to branch out into other creative outlets other than graffiti and it has been a very smooth growth for all of us. Although we are all working on different projects with different material and technologies, graffiti will always be our core.

Ken Little Studio Visit

This past week, a group of grad students and I went over to Ken Little's studio in downtown San Antonio. Ken is our sculpture professor, head of the graduate program at U.T.San Antonio and also an internationally known artist. Ken Little's work is very appealing to me because it has a playful side to it and his hard work and dedication allows his pieces to work well. Some of his pieces remind me of cartoons and characters that a lot of street artist are doing today. Being a graffiti artist, I was naturally attracted to his figures and I am sure that a lot of the young street artist would feel the same. Ken's sculpture studio is huge and very well equipped, allowing him to work freely with wax, plaster, wood, clay, found objects and even metals. Check out more of Ken Little's work at www.kenlittle.com

Sneaks Up 2008

A group of sneaker heads here in San Antonio organized a very successful event this past weekend, which celebrated the sneaker culture. The event was basically a bunch of sneaker collectors showcasing their collections. The venue was full of people from all over Texas and as far as Hawaii. There were people of all ages and all races at the event and everyone had a good time looking at sneakers, listening to music and buying merchandise. Our crew, The Sour Grapes was excited to be a part of the event and we released our new summer shirt at Sneaks Up. We were a little nervous to present our work to a different city because of most our supporters are in Dallas. To our surprise, we did very well in selling our new shirts and some of the designs sold out that very day. Our first customer bought three different shirts and he wore one for the entire event. We have been down with the sneaker culture for a while now and it’s exciting to see how much it has grown in the last 2-3 years.

UTSA 24th Annual Student Art Show

The UTSA 24th Annual Student Art Show has held last week and I was honored to receive 1st place in the graduate student category. I have to say that it was a pretty large show and so there was a greater amount of competition than the year before. I was able to get 2 out of the3 paintings that I entered into this juried exhibition so that was pretty exciting. I am always honored to have people look at my work and interpret it in their own way. People in attendance were stopping to look at my paintings and actually getting close to them and studying the things that were going on inside them. The average person looks at a work of art for like 5 to 10 seconds before they move on, but I saw people look at my work for a lot longer then that. The show was nice overall and I plan on entering next year with some better paintings.



"Best Freinds" 1st place winner.

The art of Young Wook Song

This past weekend I got to see a show of works by my colleague Young Wook Song at The Satellite Space in San Antonio. Young is an artist from Korea and is also a graduate student at UTSA. The show that he put together is his graduate thesis show which all grad students are required to have in order to receive their M.F.A degree. Young's work has a lot to deal with his childhood in Korea and he has explored this concept through drawings, paintings, sculptures and instillations. His show "Reminiscing" consisted of large charcoal drawings, paper sculptures and instillations. Young has always been one of my favorite artists from UTSA because of his hard work, dedication, and explorations through different mediums. His work looked amazing and I am sure that he will do well in his future endeavors.