08-29-2025: apparently I am reminiscing hard and appreciating my own hand lettering skills. My goal was to add more tags to posts but this one came up.
Edit: it’s 2021 and they have created an L.A. Graffiti Black Book, but it’s currently sold out.
07-08-2015: I made this for the Getty Research Institute in 2012. Explore the book here.
This video was filmed 13 years ago – the year was 2011, when I was still painting graffiti. I was pretty chunky too, haha. I like how my piece came out btw. Oh and the comments are funny too now that I look back at it; I actually avoided reading them for a long time because feelings or even watching this video because of my weight. Of course most guys always have something gross to say.
Time is so wild.
Painted with WINK and Angel179 for Art Primo.
I must’ve drawn this 5 years ago. I usually date my drawings but for this one, I didn’t.
Halloween last year was pretty non existent. I still look forward to it even though I don’t even dress up or actually do anything for Halloween.
I think it’s just mostly the vibe for me – the darkness, the fog, spooky atmosphere, horror movies, Samhain, etc. Just like how I like the design of the main Sanrio characters enough to get it tattooed on me but not be an actual collector of those items (unless it’s Badtz Maru). Ok, I’m rambling.
I live in my head, I live in the world of ideas. It must be the combo of my Fire and Air signs (Sag and Aquarius).
I’m missing my cat. I’m missing Roxy. This drawing was pulled from a 2016 folder of photos and both Tabby & Roxy were in there. She had an art show so we made a spontaneous trip to Las Vegas and texted her when we were already there. She was so stoked.
I’m also reminded that she passed 11 days before Halloween. First year anniversary on top of the pandemic was hard. This year is already flying by quickly. The years are just flying by as I get older, period.
And yes, I made a bigass file size, looping gif of my cat Tabby so I can look upon her sweet face until this blog is gone.
Does the depression, sadness and self-pity go away because the season feels lighter and brighter? Maybe we just put it on the backburner until we feel the overwhelming pull of Pluto to take us back under to brood over our sins and aggressions. The neverending balancing act between love / self-forgiveness vs self-loathing, guilt and shame. Such a beautiful mess we humans are.
Everything is a cycle. Cycle of life – death and rebirth.
I really like this drawing of a geometric flower with my bunny in shades. I miss the way I used to draw. I feel like adulthood has robbed me of so much and I feel somewhat resentful. Like, what happened to the old me who used to just draw and create all day for no reason, no purpose whatsoever?
I know a lot of these thoughts are just passing through. I know I have much to be thankful for. It just feels like insanity at times when you realize that you have 12 signs, 12 houses, 10 planets and 4 elements existing within us all – every single one of them wanting to express themselves at any given time in an infinite number of angles.
Enjoy the aging process.
It used to be so fun, challenging and also frustrating building websites; I was so obsessed about how mine looked and I was constantly tweaking it. The site was built in HTML via Dreamweaver, I was using iframes and tables to align elements. At the time, everybody was doing it that way.
Then WordPress came out.
All this reminiscing came about because I was thinking about Futura 2000’s website around 2004 when I started learning web design.
His website stood out to me because it was very experimental and out there. Everybody was using Flash to make their website graphics interactive.
However, I didn’t learn how to code actual HTML until 2014.
So yeah, before I switched to Save the Savages – Shermgrafik was my first ever domain.
Want to take a trip down www memory lane? You can see old versions of websites at Internet Archive.
Everyone’s waiting for me to start painting again…
including me.
It’s bullshit to wait til you’re inspired because when that actually happens
you’re either at work or on the computer or on your phone or washing dishes or feeding the cat or doing laundry or shredding years of paper bills.
I have no one to blame but myself for my lack of artistic pursuits lately.
But then again we’re in a fucking pandemic.
I don’t want to paint roses, women, etc…been there, done that.
So I wait and wait and wait…
Do you ever mourn the person that you once were?
It’s a trip how one’s ego motivates you for a long time. For over 20 years, painting graffiti was all I ever gave a shit about. That and making sure my profession was somewhat creative.
Then my mom died in 2006 and even though I still painted, the desire to paint consistently started to fade away. I’m not going into details, but other people ruined it for me too.
Your consciousness changes over time. You are the same person but different.
I didn’t realize that I would also experience a death of some sorts, but I did. I’ve died over and over.
Copied and pasted from my birth chart report:
Your Sun is in the 10th House of your birth chart meaning that you’re the sort of person who likes to make your mark on the world, in particular through your profession.
The Sun is in Sagittarius
Your Sun is in the Zodiac Sign of Sagittarius indicating that you’re a sunny and optimistic individual, with a love of adventure. In fact adventure plays a key role in your life, whether it be literally traveling around the globe, or metaphorically speaking exploring the world of ideas and philosophy. You’re particularly enthusiastic about anything that expands your world and helps you forget about daily chores.
These last few months has left me feeling jaded about the spiritual community. From spiritual bypassing to fake Instagram gurus, to false spiritual “influencers”…
I know it’s nothing really new but on top of a pandemic / economic depression / apocalyptic times maybe that’s why I’m not as vested in Crystal Healer LA as much as I was before. My relationship with Reiki has also changed as I’m learning to decolonize my spiritual practice, which is complex. I still love crystals though and believe 100% in their healing abilities, I just don’t know where I belong in all of this.
Perhaps that’s why I respect and admire the Devil so much; even though he/she/it is a made up figure it still represents a powerful, opposing force. Last night as I was going to sleep, I pulled the Devil tarot (the third card of 3) from the Labyrinthos app.
At least the Devil, who is a symbol of our shadow / aspect of our true and unconscious desires – won’t lie to us. Of course we will spend half our lives denying it, but if you look at your life thus far – your unconscious was really running the show all along. Please read Existential Kink by Carolyn Elliott.
Here’s an old drawing that I did, scanned and altered in Photoshop. At the time of this drawing, I wanted to be a tattoo artist so I was heavily influenced by Sailor Jerry’s flash. You can see that i borrowed the demon head from him.
Hail Satan.
I don’t really give myself enough credit sometimes. Well I can finally look back on my work 10 years later and say that it was actually pretty good, like this SHERM drawing.
I really don’t miss painting graffiti all that much but I do miss how I can get very detailed with my letters.
I realize that this blog of mine is sloppy as fuck. It’s a mess for sure but at the same time, I really don’t care. This is my personal art blog, this is where I get to truly express myself and say all that I want to say. I don’t get to do that on my other sites. Though I’ve put up artwork for sale on here, I’ve really not tried to monetize this.
Actually, I did try to use AdSense once but my site wasn’t good enough for Google. Oh well.
So if you’re visiting this site – yes, I’ve redirected SHERMGRAFIK.com to here. Sherm is long gone, it was an old graffiti identity.
What’s going on with me these days? I honestly don’t know. I’ve been in this neutral zone. I want to learn and do so many things that I tend to get pulled into different directions, thinking that I can do it all. Part of me wishes to know what my purpose is but I think I’m going to drive myself insane if I keep asking. It’s almost as if I’m not satisfied with the answers, as if my life purpose is supposed to be profound and exotic.
I think in some ways, I’m just supposed to be me.
