Left Coast Letters

In July of this year, while photographing Tubs and a few other spots around the University District, I came upon an incredibly unique collaboration between local legend’s Host, Sneke, Myth, Hews, and a writer named Rime I had not heard of before. Around a month later, Sam photographed another Rime piece, this one a tribute to New York City’s legendary Dondi who died from AIDS in 1998. Since then, I have moved to the Los Angeles area, and we have expanded our focus to the entire West Coast.

Since moving to Los Angeles, and seeing another extremely well done Rime piece along the Los Angeles River, I decided to look into more of Rime’s work. I soon found out that Rime is part of, what is most likely the most well known crew in the world, AWR/MSK/The Seventh Letter, proving how little I knew about graffiti outside of the Puget Sound region. I soon became obsessed with the work of Revok, Reyes, Ewok, and other AWR/MSK/TSL writers. When I visit a new city, I now search out new productions and individual pieces from artists under the mighty Seventh Letter umbrella. While the artists under the Seventh Letter have undeniable skill, they have taken part in a number of commercial ventures, including working with Nike, Adidas, and Scion, over the past few years, drawing the scorn of many other writers. Next week, I will look at how these artists have “commodified” their art and if it is justified. After the jump, see a few more incredible Seventh Letter pieces.

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Tags: Angels Will Rise, Art Work Rebels, Augor, AWR, Bay Area, Belltown, Eklips, Gary, Graffiti, HEWS, HOST, LA River, Los Angeles, Mad Society Kings, Mission District, MSK, MYTH, Push, Retna, Revok, Reyes, RIME, Risk, Roid, Saber, San Francisco, Seattle, Sever, Sneke, Street Art, Streetart, The Seventh Letter, TSL