This was from 1994 at the old Venice Pavilion. One of my favorite writers SE One aka Selfish aka Wreak and I did a few early morning missions at this place. I learned a lot painting with him and still incorporate some of it today.
This piece later got dissed. For those not in the graff scene, dissed generally means crossed out. It's one of the manifestations of beef in our culture. This beef came as a surprise to me since I really had no idea, and still don't know where it came from.
It's possible there was a misunderstanding somewhere. Sometimes you might paint a spot that has layers of tags and scribbles over someone's piece; once the piece has tags on it, it's fair game to go over, but maybe the person wasn't aware that their piece had tags on it.
They think you went over a clean piece and get pissed about it. It's a weird culture to navigate in that way. I've had a few misunderstandings like this over the years. I often tell people to take a photo of the spot before they paint so they have some evidence.
It's an interesting thing to think about in general. Sometimes you go at things with the best of intentions, but someone can assume the complete opposite. I know I've read people's intentions wrong a bunch of times. Got pissed, then realized I had it all wrong.
These days, I try to remind myself of that famous quote by Victor Franl:
“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”
Taking that space can definitely keep you from stepping in shit most of the time.