#13: Trains Pt. 2

More L.A. Rolling Through Iowa...

Above: Rvee and Owel. I love that the central image is of a fish rather than some obvious hip hop reference.

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All images copyright Steve Grody unless otherwise credited.

All of the issues of modern graffiti, such as skill level, creativity, humor, group coordination, technical approaches and so on, can of course be seen on trains, and we will see another selection of that range in this post. While there are a great many writers that I have seen rolling through Iowa, some show up more often than others. This may be that they are more driven, or that the layups that they favor happen to be on train lines that move through Iowa. “Benching” is a term that has two meanings in graffiti culture. It is a reference to young writers in their teens hanging out at a spot, often a favored bus bench, where they would sketch in black books and possibly a friends’ black book and see what their friends have been working on. In the case of train documentation, it means sitting on a bench to see what rolls by. I have a number of favored spots in Ames where I park and work on some musical skills while waiting for a train.

Above: Enox and Might, with an elegant little connecting nighttime landscape.

I hasten to add that while I enjoy a good tag or throwie, I am emphasizing the more elaborate efforts which may be easier for non-writers to appreciate. For the time being.

Above: Jigs, Utter and Wasp. Another “porous border” aspect of graffiti is who ends up painting with who. Utter (center) is from L.A. while Jigs (lt.) and Wasp (rt.) are not. The graffiti community connects people from around the globe in a very lively and engaged way. Note that while they are all sharing the same limited color palette that they bring very different styles, with Jigs doing a chrome-shine style, Utter with representational elements as letters, and Wasp with bevels and bold graphic alterations.

Above: Another good example of creativity with a limited palette is this train with Kick, Buds, a portrait by El Mac, Fuse and Warp. Not the sharpest focus as it was snowing on a moving train.

Above: Gofer, ICR and BWS (originally “Breaking With Style,” a dance crew).

Above: Dewey and Lens KRH (Kids Raising Hell). Looks to me like it’s been running for some time because of the somewhat faded color. And though there are crews that develop a distinctive crew style, this is a good example of writers simply painting in contrast to each other, with Dewey doing a more old-school style with clean letter edges and Lens fracturing his letters more and with active edges.

Above: Biafra with an interesting take on an “end-to-end.”

Above: Koder CSD with more of his elegantly rendered letters.

Above: another one by Koder and notice that when going big with rollers, it’s difficult to have the same fine detail that you see in the above smaller piece on the side of a container carrier.

Above: Waxem ERC BNW crews deciding to do his name in four variations rather than one big effort. There are distinctively L.A. angles in his letters that are an influence of “neighborhood” street writing.

Above: Trav (writing “Traver” here just to have fun with more letters, a thing many writers do)

And for the paid subscribers, thank you! (“Less than the cost of a fancy coffee or beer for a month of posts!”), more beautified and humanized trains!