Two Latest Prints Just Posted

7th and Carondelet 

Corner Of Pico And Union

  Prints from both editions were just now posted in my online shop. Only one print of 7th And Carondelet will be sold in my shop; the rest of the edition of 15 are for sale on consignment at McManus & Morgan in Los Angeles. (see address below)

McManus & Morgan Fine Artist Paper

2506 W. 7th St (corner of 7th and Carondelet)

Los Angeles, CA 90057

New Pico Union ACEO Auction

Pico and Union (Pico Donuts) by: John Tallacksen

Bid on this original painting here

This is the first in a series in which I hope to work out my relationship to my neighborhood as an Anglo male in a Latino community. The scene depicts a popular donut shop on the corner of Pico and Union where there are always men playing cards outside. The occurance of these men playing cards at this location is so common that when many of the youth watched me paint this card they recognized who and where it was immediately. I plan on using this as a color study for a larger painting of the same subject matter. The painting is a synesthetic piece meaning I used my Color-Grapheme Synesthesia condition to determine the color scheme. On the back of the card you will find the title "Pico + Union" written in the colors that my mind's eye sees each letter in which I used in this piece. Spray paint is a staple in the street art world and is rarely used by ACEO artists which is why I try to use it as much as possible.

El Nombre De La Ciudad ACEO

El Nombre De La Ciudad by: John Tallacksen

  I created this card earlier in the year as a color study for a larger piece after becoming a fan of Fabian Debora's work. For me painting this piece was a way to cope with my city's lack of preserving or understanding it's own history. Currently there is a sort of ban on murals in Los Angeles which effects a lot of things negatively. Our city was named after a mural in Spain depicting angels surrounding the mother Mary.

  At the same time we have a lot of human trafficking going on in McArthur Park and other areas. I don't quite know how to defend the people being sold into slavery of different kinds, but this piece is the beginning of my action against it. Those of us in the church hold the purity of Christ's mother in high regard, but we need to do the same for God's daughters. This is why the young girl I've painted dressed as the Virgin de Guadelupe isn't supposed to be Mary. Instead this girl represents the average girl in L.A. 

Spray Paint and ACEOs Hecha en L.A.

Green Iguana- spray paint and deco markers on trading card by: John Tallacksen

  The very green and yellow iguana above is my second experiment with aerosol paint and ACEOs. As far as I know, please correct me if I'm wrong, there is only one other artist in the ACEO world who uses spray paint and that is Daniel Flores. 

  Personal history lesson: I met Daniel Flores in Los Angeles back in 2008. We were both a part of a local art movement called L.A. Street Productions. Back in the early 90's L.A. Street Productions became the first collective of artists to create ACEOs and ATCs in the L.A. area. There still aren't that many artist in Los Angeles making trading cards. Mr. Flores became one of our premier ACEO artists. He continues a very successful run on selling ACEOs on ebay to this day. For a while he was using spray paint to create his backgrounds. I saw that and decided to try it myself. I am an advocate and practitioner of street art (only legal) so of course I loved the idea of taking my deco markers and spray paint collection into my body of miniature artwork. You'll find that this is a unique style within ACEOs emanating from L.A. and quite possibly nowhere else as of this writing.

Please visit my auctions on ebay.com to bid on this card and many more.  

Mi Oración

This piece is being auctioned over the next 9 days at my ebay store.

Title: Mi Oración (my prayer)

Description: A painting on a broken skate deck of Death losing it's sting over the city of Los Angeles, and hopefully your city as-well.

Story: The broken skate deck I used for this piece was given to me by a young skater from my neighborhood in Los Angeles. I collect these from the skaters so I can turn them into art. I find it fascinating that this board of wood has not only traveled the streets and hidden corners of my city, but literally slid across almost every surface I can imagine. What other artifact knows the city more intimately than these skateboards? The jagged crack that runs through this particular deck reminded me of a city skyline which gave me the idea for this piece. Mi Oracion has been in different art exhibits around Los Angeles at Tribal Cafe and Mama's Hot Tamales. It is a very special piece to me because of the prayer it carries. 

Medium:Aerosol paint, acrylic, deco markers, white-out, and twine to hang it.

Graffiti 101: The History

(piece by: Revok)

I'm a big fan of origins. I like the origin stories of characters in hero comic books. I like the origins of popular samples in Hip Hop music. I definitely like the origins of art movements. Everyone knows that "early" graffiti (such as wild styles, burners, etc) was popular in the boroughs of New York City during the 1970's and 80's, but how far back does it's history go?

(piece by: Seen)

The script or "tag" form as-well as the colorful grapheme and character based form of graffiti is said to have been started by this man in Philidelphia...



Writing on walls in the 1960's may sound pretty old to your average Justin Beiber fan, but I wasn't born yesterday. I'm pretty sure it goes back much further than that. There have been more than a few art history classes that I've attended, and as far as we know, one of the first uses of art by humans was in the form of paintings on cave walls. We all know that they looked something like this...That's right, graffiti goes all the way back to the dawn of human kind. In fact, the first stencil ever used on a wall, that we know of, was an early artist blowing barks and pigments on their hand as they placed it on a wall.
Check it out, it even looks like they were throwing up a "west side."

Street artist Banksy shows us what a more modern stencil piece looks like. Note the flat black shapes that make-up the city worker buffing out the cave paintings. (to me this piece is warning the cities that if they buff out street art and graffiti, they buff out our past and our innate need to communicate on walls.)

So every other art form owes it's existence to the act of painting on walls. Some people have argued that putting paint to wall is even born within us. If that's true, then why do most people associate the term graffiti with crime?

Man's law and God's law are often very different. So deciding what is truly right or wrong while talking about "the law of the land" can be a very complex process. Personally I refrain from altering anyone's property in any way without asking them first. If a person feels that painting on someone else's wall without permission is within their moral compass I like to remind them that they also have to be willing to pay the consequences of any action they take in life. In California, "bombing" the streets can quickly get you 2 out of 3 strikes on your record which would send you on your way to receiving 25 years to life in prison. I would rather see us and the state invest in schools, libraries, and jobs so please don't feed into that crooked system.

On the flip side, I don't think it's right that large corporations can rent billboard space in our neighborhoods without our permission. Currently my neighborhood has many instances of alcohol abuse destroying our collective sense of family and self respect. The alcohol industry never asks us if they can put their ads on our walls, yet they are everywhere. I wouldn't mind these images being replaced or covered up with more positive and useful images. If a billboard selling "spirits" was ever placed outside of someone's house or near a middle school in Beverly Hills you better believe there would be a ruckus.

I'm getting off topic. Maybe I'll return to the morality of graffiti at a later date. Speaking of God, as a Christian I know that my spiritual heritage includes graffiti. Under the city of Rome early followers of Christ refered to themselves as "fishers of men" or "pisciculi" which means little fish. These students of Christ were hated by the Roman powers and often hid and met in the catacombs. Since much of their practices had to be done in secret (or get arrested and killed) they had to communicate who they were to each other. Below is an image of how they would do that through images on catacomb walls.
Creating art on walls or on the ground was a very important system for these people. They had to communicate who they were to others in the know as a means for survival. In the Biblical book of Daniel chapter 5 there is a story where God relays a message to king Belshazzar by writing on the king's wall. This is where the term "The writing on the wall" comes from.

(Belshazzar's Feast by: Rembrandt)

I could go into the Egyptian and Mayan glyphs on the walls of temples, altars, sun dials, and tombs. I could also write endlessly about fresco paintings or Japanese calligraphy, and their influence on graffiti, but that would take quite some time to get through. Generally, what I'm saying is that an art-form currently known as graffiti is as old as human history. There are deep historical reasons for a person to write or draw on a wall. I encourage all of us to not immediately link graffiti to crime. There are many forms. There are many reasons.

Please walk forward every day in a growing knowledge of the lives around you.