Hear me ramble.

I haven't felt this empty for a long, long time. The question is here, my friends - who am I shaping myself into? And not to confuse this with our only question of life - Who am I? - let's retrospect my life in the past days, weeks and even months of this winter. Only one thing sparks through my mind - laziness. The completely useless, stupid, life-deteriorating thing there is. The lack of freedom, the [bli:p] of our bodies to do things we like and love. The short minded, narrow vision of thinking only about near future, not distancing ourselves to see the benefits in a longer time span. THAT. And frankly I've slipped into that. I've let me trick myself. Life can't go on like this. It shouldn't. Saying [bli:p] is bad, yet letting your mind play the exact scenario on you life, is just stupid. 


A clean slate, perhaps?




A better version of the boy behind the can?


Well, we can start off by dropping off the few things I've surprisingly managed to produce in the by-gone months of coldness. Digi-mockups, of course, but I hope you will find enough warmth in your heart to forgive me.
Okay, first off we got our Under piece. To formulate the depth in a simple, short piece, has always caught my mind. The seeming loop was quite annoying, producing mockups from simple ingredients of the wheatpasted material on the wall to absurd, literal phrases of the inner-thought. The loop has been broken. I've managed to slip through the literal, absurd and over-concentrated to find this being the best solution possible.

  

To explain this better - If we imagined that the very dark background of this blog was a wall, the white rectangle would be the wheatpasted the material, thus making the word "under" itself cut out. It's simple as hell, but are you sure that the idea is so too?

A lot of cancelled projects we're passed into [bli:p]'s mind to lately, seeming ever so promising at start, later leaving me kind of confused and angry with myself for not being able to untangle my own thread of thought. Well, I've always wanted for you to understand what I'm trying to show with this thing and what it matters, changes and develops within me. So, as they might seem sort of interesting to you, I'll drop them off anyways.

 

The first one later just untangled itself like a subconscious snob move of my brains, but I sincerely hope it's not true. One way of understanding it was of the point we all back up to see ourselves, to be able to rate ourselves much like what a lot of philosophers have written about. The person or rather a point we need to stand at to see ourselves in a different light. But I believe there are tons of better ways to show that, so I just scratched this one.

And the second... Well, a play on icons, a thing I love to do lately, presenting the usual EXIT logo, modified to a scene of a man running into a wall. Some difficulties were spotted of people not realizing "what is that bar in front of him", so the concept itself failed upon release. Thought behind it? Well, a dead end it is, a dead end for graffiti until people start thinking of it differently, until people starting to notice the good and great of it, not saying its bad just cause they're supposed to. That. I struggled to connect this image with graffiti, being that a dead end can be understood widely, even when stuck on a wall.

And in other news - I've pulled out all my notebooks from earlier this winter and have found a rather pleasing sight. I had produced something worth posting here, even if they are just simple sketches of pieces I'm planning to do. One turned out being a finished project of the Dead-end case, a stunning work I enjoyed myself even though I made it myself. And the second one... Damn, you'll never have seen [bli:p] like this. It's a shame it's 5 in the morning here and my printer/scanner tends to beep like mad when turned on. I would rather not wake up my neighbors in such a lovely holiday of new year's. So once again - I leave you all with a promise. A promise for being better, better both for myself and you guys.

So to sum this up - If I turn up here tomorrow, things are rocking from now on. If I don't... Well, I've probably fallen into the hands of the lazy-internet side. 

Cheers.

The Comeback

The fall of the leaves is here. The naked trees, eagerly waiting for the snow to come, brought my mind to a passion I evolved my mind with. Winter with all of its’ perfect imperfections just waiting to strike, was calling me to get back to my notebooks...

 So I did. And believe me or not, the mind was way superior than suspected and had already presented me something interesting, making my comeback even more pleasuring. Three months of absence did not go by without anything stencil-ish happening, I’ve got stories, pictures and ideas to present. Believe me  – bomb trips, money-grubbing and spontaneous subconscious ideas is everything I could ever wanted.

 First things first. On August 15th I promised you guys to get myself bombing. We did, I cooked up a blog and it’s all there. This enrushment of returning myself to my stencils got three blog posts posted in a short bit of time, so you might’ve missed something – here’s the links.

The tips/tricks to pasting

The trip

The summer was nearing it’s end, bringing us towards another tradition of [bli:p]’s – the pre-study enbombment, which was our trips of earlier years, marking the night from the 31th of August to 1st of September with a few stencils in the streets. The date got swapped around a bit due to stuff happening around and we ended up having our scrolls set up at the 6th of September. A little bit about the trip – We had planned to do this very local thing, marking the street I live in with about 30 wheatpastes, making our way down it, then turning onto a larger 4-lane „highway” and bombing some banners and ad spaces. Little to tell about it, I was a bit scared at the beginning, as it wasn’t really night and the spots were really ambitious. We [bli:p]’ed out some JCDECAUX’s as we did with the 22th trip, and I hit a few street signs along the way. We had stand-arts, depth’s, [bli:p]’s, and boring’s with us, making the 4-lane part pretty exciting – funny thing is there were cars driving past us constantly and we couldn’t see shit, cause obviously they had turned on their lights. Lookouts didn’t do shit, so it was pretty much blind luck. But, as I continuously gained confidence everything seemed possible, so we ended up bombing a banner on a highway arc from the above, a collage of [bli:p]’s onto a ‘prosport’ sign and a hell of a lot of stand-arts rolling onto some random locations around the town. When I had finally felt into my [bli:p] and was able to post anywhere I wanted, I ran out of wheatpastes. Just my luck, I guess. The things I really liked in this trip was the amazing combination of athletics and graffiti, used in the city streets – I challenged myself to do some pretty daring things as climbing up a electrical post and slapping my paste at the fifth meter of it, just climbing some electrical boxes and dangerously enough getting on those ad spaces along the highway lanes. That’s what I tend to love in this movement – the amazing ability not only to paste something illegal and to get away with it, but to climb things you’d never climb in broad daylight. Getting upon high-spots and making your way UP (heh, both meanings intended) feels rewarding as hell.

 Obviously after that we had the study-year kicking in and the new (Or rather the returned) schedule fixing into my daytime. But – where many people seem to find despair and boringness, I searched for the exciting parts of the study life. And believe me or not – I found it. Mondays are the literature/art days – it’s the day when you’ve had a whole week to produce the giant body of work needed for both of these magnificent ways of thinking, but mostly the day when you present something rushed in the last day or two. Our art teacher is a great lady – she made us think and conquer our laziness, she boosted my works to something extraordinary in a very short span of time. It was great to make artworks for the class – five hours of different way of thinking can never be boring. It has always been this way, I’ve made a lot of great pieces in the process and I believe the teacher have put some effort in creating [bli:p] too. But to the case – the 18th of November is coming onto us, so we had to make a poster, which would present the Latvian independence day and the things it meant to us. And this was a tough cookie. I won’t be getting into the details of the process, just the final piece and a short explanation I inscripted in the back of the digitally produces piece.

Basically, the poster shows a Lielvardes belt – one of the few ethnic treasures of the Latvian society, blurred in the background, having the 18/11 standing in the middle sharp and untouched. This may be hard for a foreigner to understand, but our country has been ravaged by wars and occupations a lot of times. Our independence lied in our fathers and grandfathers and this means it hasn't had a long life yet. The people of Latvia, torn apart by economics and people of other nationalities were seeking a better life in other countries, leaving Latvia to it’s pending doom. As dark as this seems, it’s true. When, if not now, will the people understand the ethnic value of their past and nationality? When will the people understand that the only string left for a better future is the commemoration of our past? And how will the national tree of Latvia grow with almost destroyed and forgotten roots?

 The month of September came with another delightful, yet interesting thing. My first payed job was due to take place. I guess you remember the flat we crashed in at the night of 22th. Well, the girl who loved the wheatpastes had her father's birthday coming on, so she thought of a tee-design of a stenciled portrait, which would be presented as a unique present. A few phone calls, the thought flew around from friend to friend and finally arrived to me. Delightful. Basically, the concept was easy enough - I get a portrait sent to me digitally, I photoshop it, make a stencil out of it and then get the present made on-spot at the flat I've referred to multiple times now. It was very, very early and it was a Sunday. Bloody cold too, the first day of autumn I really felt, I seem to recall. The stencil was with me, the cans we're in the bag, everything was going flawless. I finally get payed for my efforts, this must be how winnin' is done. Jokes aside, the job went down pretty great. Almost no underspray, I loved the tee myself and so did the mate. A little bit of professional business, a little bit of laughing and a bit of discussing the wheatpaste collage I still want to get on the girl's wall, and it was finished. Digi-mockup not looking even as half as great as the real thing, but this should give you the idea.   

 I believe that's the best portrait stencil I've ever done, mainly because of the huge body of work put into the partial-tresholding. Basically stenciled the lad's face from pieces. Loved it then, still love it now.

 After this remarkable event everything went into a rather boring standstill. A few very, very interesting ideas popped up a few days back, as stated, making my return even more joyful. The text is only the half of the deal, getting us to something very extraordinary this time. Very boring to tell about, very interesting to think about. This is just a completely different way of doing it... And it's exciting as hell.

 And of course - the GCO hasn't slipped anywhere - the comeback returned with the filled notebooks of last summer. Just imagine 30 pages filled with highlighted bits and bobs of business ideas and you'll get the near-by feeling of the Cargoh store. 

But to be honest - I just feel great to think of stencils again. My passion, returned to me, my thoughts, engaged with me, and my dreams, as unreachable as ever. It feels great.

To be back.

[bli:p]

Tips, tricks and other stuff you want to know

As some of you may know – the event scheduled at the 22nd of August actually happened. We went out there, we pasted our stuff, and it looked really great, until those bastards out there tore off almost every single one of them the next morning. The blog is already finished, so no escaping from pasting a review of this very exciting thing we all undergone, but the street pics are coming the long way to me. Until I get them all onto my laptop and take care to sort them ‘n’ stuff, I’ve got a few things to share from the trip I had and the things I learned.

 By the way - I had tried writing something like this a bit earlier this year, but at that time I had no understanding what so ever about a true night trip, as all I had done back then were ‘daylight pieces’, which did take a bit of gut to paste, but not that there was something to learn from it. We’ve gained a bit since that blog was failed, but this time the tips are mostly about wheatpasting, as our perspective on street art changed drastically just this summer. Of course, it’s still a lot about the fear we encounter back at home, when the possibility of somebody catching you and the whole concept of getting out there at night might seem a bit dangerous and unpleasant.

 I don’t know much about your (From the fact that you’re reading this, I understand that you are, if not a street artist yourself, then a person highly interested in the whole process) emotions before the spray, but when I sat back at home for the first time and actually warped my mind around the idea of getting out there,  it did seem a bit scary. The shit you can encounter, the people you may meet, the many possibilities there are of something going wrong can be creepy at start. But the truth is, and this shall be the first tip I’m giving you in this post, that

 ~ At night, the streets are wiped clean of hardly any life forms at all – Maybe I am terribly mistaken and large cities like London or NY are swarming full of life 24/7, but if you venture out in the city here in Latvia at about 3o’ clock, the only people you may meet are, and this is from true personal occurrence, - a bum, a guy with a dog, three drunks at a closed patio cafe’ table and a small community of 4 people discussing something near the doors of their house. That’s it. If we don’t count the cars, four in total, then this can barely be classified as ‘life’ at all. So there is NOTHING to be afraid of, especially if you

 ~ Build a crew or at least have some people around you –  And by this I don’t mean that you can’t go out there alone, most definitely not. 95% of street artists started their way up alone, but by having a crew or even not street-art-related people around you, you feel a lot less nervous. It’s always great to have a lookout for any possible shit and a mate to chat with along the way. That’s just more fun.

 And this gets us to the wheatpasting part of the topic. Let’s drop a few off right now.

 ~ When pasting a poster, glue the surface dearly, and if your piece is not something of a weird shape, like a drawing, place it right onto the stain you’ve created. A thin lick of glue over the poster, and it should stay there forever. – Some people suggest to glue the backside of the poster, but I find it way too annoying. If your wheatpaste is of a warped shape (drawings etc.) this could be done to prevent you from missing the edges, thus making it easier to peel off later, but if your poster is made from a thin paper (copy paper you’d use in your printer), then this step can be skipped with ease.

 ~ When pasting a poster, care to hit higher spots, as they’re way too harder to tear off - To do so, feel free to buy the painters pole for brush extensioning. They come in different lengths, 1.5 metres will be more than enough.

 ~ When pasting a poster, seconds are of the essence – What seemed very handy back at home, may turn into a catastrophe out there. Take care to think over your whole strategy before you leave, you might find some unexpected ‘plot-holes’. I learned that the thing that worked the best was to have a plastic bag in one hand, with the gluing equipment in it (Have the glue can opened at all times, and the brush placed by the side of the can. Some choose to carry the brush with them at all times in their hand, but that is a bit daring and suspicious for the few by-passers), and an unbreakable cardboard box with the wheatpastes in it, placed in the bag on the shoulder. That way you can just pop out your wheatpaste with one hand and glue them on with the brush in your other hand Also -

~ Have your posters rolled one by one, only then to place them in a location that can be accessed with ease, but where the scrolls wont get torn or mashed – Never roll your scrolls in one big mess, like you’d scroll 5 large sheets of paper by stacking them one over another. This is the most unhandy thing you can imagine, cause to get out a single poster, you’ll have to unroll all of them, thus having your bag messed up by the second wheatpaste you put up.

~ Wear the shittiest stuff you’ve got when pasting – the first times around your shirt and trousers will be stained with large bits of glue that’ll pretty much make them unusable for any other action. EVER.

~ Get a brush you’ll be able to paste your poster with the minimum of hand movements possible – I bought an 8 inch brush for my 5 inch (at most) posters, and found it very handy - it just took me two swipes to paste a poster. If you’re pasting large format drawings, get the biggest brush you can get, so you won’t spend a hell of a lot time pasting it – I mean wheatpastes were all about the massive development back at home to make the street process as easy as possible, right? I prefer brushes that look a bit like toothbrushes, not the ones that look like you’d use them for an oil painting. The only difference is that the first ones can be mounted onto the before mentioned painters extension pole, thus allowing you to hit greater spots every time.

~ The glue you need can be cooked back at home, but I prefer using some wallpaper glue you can buy at any home depot – It’s a great misconception what many people say about wheatpasting glue. In a lot of forums about 90% of people say that pasting w/pastes with bought glue is possible, but it gets the price up sky high, if you do it regularly. The thing I found was a packet of ‘Metylan’ wallpaper glue, I guess it’s originally ment for indoor wallpapers, but it holds posters outdoors floorlessly and costs just about three bucks. This gets you a staggering number of 10 liters of glue, when mixed in (The packet is of 250 g, yellow and the glue is in dry form. The proportion, when mixing it in, is 1:40) and that, if applied right, should get you about 80 m2 of posted posters. Go to stencilrevolution advice/tips section and search for the under-topic of ‘is wheat really necessary?’ – it’s started by me (/bli:p/) and is all about the glue I like to use. So – I prefer to buy glue as it is not that expensive, but people who like to make shit back at home can always just use the recipe of wheat, water and sugar. The few dangers are that the thing can get burnt, making your whole house smell like shit and that the paste might not hold your posters, if it’s not made with the right proportions.

 ~Running is always an option – from all of the tips I’ve presented, this is the only one I’ve never used myself, as I believe the problem that needs this kind of solution occurs so rarely, but this is a thing worth to remember anyway. Most cops, if they every catch you, will just ask you to take the poster off, but if worse comes to worst it’s, as stated, worth to think about.

 Hope this helps you not to make the same stupid mistakes I made the first time around. If you have some more tips you’d want to share, fell free to drop ‘em off at twitter, facebook or just right here in the comments bar.

Cheers,

[bli:p]

Hey, wait. You really did it?

22nd of August has passed well long ago, but there hasn’t been a single blog since. Documenting the fine trip I experienced and the scrolls I pasted, I present you this awaited personal diary of mine.

 I opened the front door of the garden with a slight creek. Rain was everywhere, making every solid surface at ground level melt into the massive sludge of mud, grass, but mostly water. My scrolls were well packed in the backpack, along with mtn 94 and the stencils, crushing any doubt of possible water damage dealt by the Sky. A few steps until the large brown doors slammed behind me – I was finally inside, just a notch wet of the downpour I had caught on the way from the bus station to here. The balcony hadn’t changed munch since the last time I had made my canvases and stickers here – a few cardboard pieces left on the floor and some color on the ground were the only reminders of the small body of work I had put out that day. Small indeed, when compared to the stuff I had planned for today. In fact let’s count it up. My once wild dream of 100 scrolls was far too ambitious, as for the very first time of wheatpasting it’s impossible to put that many up by any chance. And it was raining. The huge number truncated down to the delightful 5 of each kind, having [bli:p], stand-art, artwork’s the only mirror worth having, You and me, boring’s the new interesting and depth lies within the viewer, summing up 35 scrolls in total. With the rain still daring my patience every time I looked over the ledge, I started working. Scroll by scroll, song by song (Mostly Kasabian – bass harmonized with the weather incredibly) I was moving slowly to the milestone of half, then to the finish, when the white balcony door opened and an awaited face popped out from the corner, greeting me and my work, hung up on the clothes stand just beside of me. One of my partners for today's’ spray was a student of art, able to rate my work with an eye of the experienced. An irreplaceable skill worth having, when hitting spots all over the town (As for this kind of pasting, placement is as important as the messages carried out with them). A little bit of chatting, spraying, song listening and eating – the hours had passed, getting us near the time we ought to get out of the house. It was too dark to see whether it was raining, or not, by I thought I heard some splattering, as I packed everything up (Brush, Glue, Glue can, scrolls, cans and a bit of money for those small road expenses, but no stencils of my pieces, which played back greatly, when the you&me stuff was unpacked) and left the house. It was about 11 o’ clock, and the rain had stopped, making the bus-waiting much more joyful. In a matter of 20 minutes I found myself in the city center, along with my mate. Our task was simple – we need to get to the third member of our artsy crew, get the keys to the flat we’re crashing, go there, wait for the end of the night shift she’s working, meet her up at the flat, get the glue mixed in, pack the bag lightly, leaving only glue, brush and scrolls in it, get the city smashed and then crash at the flat. A few missed buses at that nightly hour and the discouraging rain, who left as fast as it appeared, left us a bit bored and wet, but we made it to the flat safely, passing the few hours with three things - A ‘Saturday’ magazine (Entertaining stuff), de Montesquieu ‘Persian Letters’ (Didn’t get far though, found my joyful mood way too jolly for such rather heavy literature) and a book called ‘The Joys Of Smoking’ (Most definitely creepy thing, Google it up if you dare). In a few hours time our group was complete, as the third and final member of this not-so-much-graffiti-experience crew arrived at the flat. ‘I’m tired, are we doing something or what?’ were one of the first things she said to me. Only one more thing to be done – suddenly everybody was concerned of the state of my preparings, asking me to show the scrolls I had previously made. Lots of unrolling and idea getting actually got one of the ‘artwork’s the mirror’ and ‘bli:p’ up on the girl flats’ walls. To test the skill of gluing, as some might say. (The funny thing is the flat wasn’t the property of any of my mates’ – it was owned by the friend of one of the spray-helpers, Ruth by name. She turned out to like the door piece I had made and just asked me to do the entire collab of every scroll I’ve got on one of the walls. Fun.) After that we finally left. There is so much to say about the trip we had, but let’s not take too much of your time.

 The flats’ location was, if not in the heart of the center of the city, then a few minutes walk from it. First piece we slapped on was the ‘artwork’, a few blocks later another one was pasted on a white column and a [bli:p] slapped over a ‘please do not park your vehicles against the gates’. As later explained, no pictures of these were taken, so the only thing you’ll see, when passing through the area, will be a glue stain with some white, torn paper on it. Exploring the many great spots out there continued, as many pieces of ‘stand-art’, ‘depth’ and ‘[bli:p]’ were pasted all around the area, not leaving the slightest chance of me remembering nor the exact location of each of them, nor the order of me pasting them. I’m just glad we decided to take photo’s ‘on-the-spot’ at one point, as our route back home wasn’t even remotely near to the one we took, when left the house. I guess my favorite was a street sign I transformed, using a bit of agility to get onto the electricity box, then getting on a small ledge over the corner, finally  slapping [bli:p] over the first name, making it a [bli:p] street. Censorship by ones’ looks on the do’s and dont's. How awesome.

 I have pasted the economical creativity blogpost, documenting the [no]fears we experienced, the people passing and the whole concept of the things you might want to think about, when pasting w/pastes, but I guess you’ve already seen it, as getting those precious photos from one of the helpers is taking a hell of a lot time for me.

Next morning we terribly overslept. In fact so hard there was nothing to be rushed for anymore, so I went down for a packet of milk and some corn flakes. Of course, as any criminal, I returned to the 15 scenes of crime again, and found almost every scroll torn off by the early street cleaners and/or angry people. The few ones still up there were some artwork’s and the „high” spots I hit – the both street signs. I guess a movement of hand to tear off the wet poster still classifies as something to be done by the people cleaning everything, but a little agility required to get onto an electricity box is not. I mean – if police is not doing it’s job good enough to get the guys on scene, the street cleaners are top-notch here in Latvia. I can only be proud to have such awesome people around me.

 The pics we got should be inserted here... If there were a lot of them. Our logic of „We’ll be returning the same way, don't worry” got us pretty fucked. Now how sad is that...

Cheers.

Wallpaper paste and posters EVERYWHERE

I know that promises and [bli:p] are a tricky one to combine, at least the part of actually keeping it. We've had some crashes of tees, studio pieces and ideas, but mostly Street Action. You see - this baby has been nagging me ever since those stencil std word-based cliche's came along, but the problem has always been the same - I have never known graff people who could paste along with me on a daily basis. Some people interested in the process have come along, but we never truly got to that part of us lurking the shadows of Riga at night. Until now.
 Usually when I post a statement, it goes something like this - 'street action planned! stay tuned!'. Promising as it may seem, but that's not a sentence to rely on - a true bomb trip has a date, people and pieces ready to be pasted. Always. So - 22. of August, at least 2 people accompanying me and 7 types of wheatpastes to be pasted. We've found our distinctive style and the street art type to spread. Now it's time for action. The plan is to paste 50 - 75 wheatpastes all around Riga at the night from 22. to 23. Such magnificent pieces as 'You and me', '[bli:p]', never before seen 'stand-art' and 'depth lies within the viewer' and many others will be made in a few days time, as there is a whole week for preperations. Getting to the paper shop tomorrow, spraying the pieces the day after tomorrow + making the last Cargoh related stuff. Detailed blog coming your way, as always when we get to do something of a studio-ush kind.




We're finally getting there.
[bli:p]

The truth about minimalism and the modern ‘minimartist

 To be quite clear – minimalism is the bitch of all the art forms there are. Not only has it usually gained the most attention by using the least detail… The ‘clean’ feel of anything under the humongous slogan of minimart is based on everything other in the world. The enjoyers of minimalism (and there are a hell of a lot of them) are tired of the ‘colorful warfare’ out there, so they seek for a relief for their tired eyes. Completely clean colors, drawings and even text, literally supported by every overused thing there is in the world. Now that’s the ultimate outsourcing.

 The ‘man behind the canvas’ is something of the same, but different kind. Although they have the ability to use the least physical materials/work to make something look profound, the thought behind the process needs to be as clear as possible. The truth is that minimalism is not a free-pass for creating something original. It’s not something with the least elements possible, no composition, color schemes or a thought behind it. I mean – it’s still an art form, isn’t it? It can be bad, it has its’ rules to fit in and the dos and don’ts. It still needs talent, work and education both to create and rate. The truth is – sometimes it can take even more time and effort than something that may look very visually detailed and colorful. Take a look at the most of the classic minimalists out there – Rothko for instance created layers, layers and layers of paint to create the powerful feeling of the visual force, a composition of color can raise. His works are the complete maximalism of the feeling, somehow fitted in the slogan of minimalism. And that satisfies me the most. You see - ideas have a certain style, direction and feel to it and usually have a complete ‘antonym’ to them – for instance the before mentioned minimalism and maximalism. Two completely unrelated ways of thinking, related with the thickest bond possible.

 To understand this perfectly, we must get to the roots. A work of art can present different ways of enjoyment – classic oil paintings were a satisfaction to both eyes and soul, as the huge body of work, immense details and realistic scenes presented the emotion the artist had intended to present. The work, put in the making of the painting, simply shone through the canvas, giving you the indescribable feel of profound quality. The modern movement of street art, particularly the people I like to call ‘intellectual street artists’ (By this I mean the people who present a certain thought through the painting on the wall, not just the before mentioned feeling of liking the painting because of the composition, colors etc etc – Banksy, for instance) present a different completely different mind satisfaction. Art is now used as the weapon to strike the minds of the citizens, presenting thoughts through the least materials possible.

 Because of that, minimalism is vital for people like Banksy, Mobstr and many others, including the street art persona I’m trying to become. This kind of art doesn’t need immense details or rich colour palette to support its’ needs. Street art can now present the thought that needs to be provoked, thus actual physical detail becomes useless. And that right there was the ‘why’ that called me into stenciling in the first place. The innovation of this paradox was the thing I was searching for.

 But again – art has too many subfolders to choose from and the options of how to present the chosen style. Creating minimalism can not ask for actual manpower, as it may need very less of the elements a classic painting deserves. So, if used correctly, it can be a simple work of mind. I could spent hours of developing ideas, reshaping them and making them sound, look, feel and think great. I love the moment when a sentence carries the thought from one person to another, maintaining the clear thought the artist had put in it. It’s awesome to see people interpreting the idea to their own understanding, getting out something completely different from it, than I had wanted them to get. And minimalism is the only way to do it. For an idea to travel from person to person, it needs to be as clear as possible, both physically and mentally. It needs to be clear, unharmed by the colourful warfare out there. That’s just the most effective way to do it.

 But really – art has been deconstructed enough by the people too lazy to actually create it. It doesn’t need a why to create, creativity is never about the reason. Emotions don’t need to be explained to make them work. They just need to be out there, on the walls for people to see them, feel them and think them. We just need more art.

[bli:p]

Let's just do this

 As already stated, my computer broke down in quite a stupid way. The screen went so dark I couldn’t see [bli:p], so an external display was needed. It took time to buy the freaking cable and to find all the possible cheap solutions plus the internet was down for a long time, so let’s just say I’ve made enough excuses to last until I go cold. So – I worked a lot on the theoretical scheme of the Grand Cargoh Opening. I still can’t believe I haven’t sorted out this yet… The point is there is so little to be done it’s actually quite weird I haven’t done it already – I just need to get a valid credit card (Apparently maestros don’t do the thing on the internetz) and get myself a paypal account, which redirects to the first matter. And yes – the free ad space canvas is going to be remade, some new slap designs printed/or sprayed and the whole [bli:p] persona swapped around a bit. Needs something of a money-ish kind, but I’m pretty sure I still have some lying around on the floor of my 200 m2 gilded studio.

 As for the slaps. After making that rather blind statement in the last blog post, things went pretty bad. The stencil had to be so small it got to be impossible to cut the letters, caps clogged, cans ended, paper was torn etc etc etc… You wouldn’t want to buy the thing I had at the end of the day, mainly because of the immense detail I had planned, but didn’t have the skill to actually maintain. And do believe me – 528 letters, when gapped and fitted in a 30X20 cm area, is way over anything I’ve ever done before. Even if I did make the slaps hand sprayed, they’d cost a fortune just because of the huge body of work I’d have to put in it. I mean – in the end you wouldn’t even give a [bli:p] over the medium of the work – hand sprayed or printed slaps are almost the same, the hand sprayed just being more expensive and frankly not even nearly as qualitative. So – the idea was really charming, but the actual process of creating appeared to not exactly meet the possibilities of one trying to keep the prices as low as possible. So basically -  the whole question of hand sprayed and printed was truncated down to the plain matter of fitting the needs of the idea. Each type of sticker needs a different kind of appeal to it, so slaps as the smaaaaaaaaaaaaaal (about 6cmX1.5cm) free ad space would be impossible and meaningless to hand make, but a Delta X slap would definitely ask for a unique appeal 100% of the time. (I hope you get why, the description of the idea hasn’t yet formulated, but the basis is quite simple and I believe understandable to anybody who has ever been exposed to physics.) But feel free to give me a shout if you have a different perspective on this thing – I’ll be more than pleased to make an exclusive package of hand-sprayed stickers just for you…

 Keeping up the revisions – my new notebook has went from blank to [bli:p]-ing [bli:p] awesome. The looks of the thing just makes me want to do this to every notebook I will ever have in my life – the cover is hand-made by me and has been attached to the back of the pack of the 200 pages with spray adhesive, allowing me to write stuff on the cover in a beautiful, yet minimalistic way. May not sound as good as it looks – recycled 200 gsm cardboard just can’t be evaluated blindly. But back to the case – the content of the notebook is just as exciting. We’ve created heaps of new ways of [bli:p]-ing, the two most exciting explained below.

 By the fact that you’re actually reading this, I assume you’ve noticed the changes around the InvadingSAM main page. Mainly the header. The colour scheme was something like this a while before and it was changed after a friend of mine suggested it to me. At the time it seemed a pretty good idea to do, but now that I’ve found the magnificent idea of ‘vandalizing dictionaries’, this one seemed to go with it the best. This is like the millionth time I swap [bli:p] around here, so just go ‘meh’ and pretend it’s been like this all the time.

 And THE thing - “[BLI:P] [BLI:P] raaaaaaaaaawr my name needs to be capped and fitted everywhere” has transformed into a simple [bli:p], pasted onto the wall by a (and this feels terribly exciting) brush and some wheatpaste. Yes my dear friends – we’ve gone from stencils to wheatpaste and it just seems to go better and better every time around. For people not familiar with this kind of  street art – the main difference between a stencil and a wheapaste is the fact that the stencil is used to make a picture directly onto the wall by a spray paint, but a wheatpaste is an already printed, or in our case sprayed, poster which, when applied to wall and glued from every possible side, creates a picture of contrast, speaking directly with the spectator. Obey is considered to be the king of the kings, but people like swoon and Krisjanis (Latvian artist, being the first to put something of that kind up on Riga’s’ walls just last fall) are keepin’ the game pretty high up. Google the first two and you’ll see the greatness of it all. My slogans needed an environment to plunge into without being overcast by the rain, making the wall wet thus three times darker. I needed contrast and completely esthetic space free from everything else, thus being able to collide with the city’s dirty walls even better. I needed white paper and dark Alte Haas low-cap letters with no bridge bits, no comas, no dots, no nothing, but the thought provoked by the few words there are. Needless to say it needs practice – the next weeks shall be spent buying and boiling different kinds of glues and testing them out on heaps of different papers, and this shall probably end me up in the last day of summer, wondering how the hell am I going to fit studies with street art, but in the end it will finally bring me to finding a distinctive style of my own not just mentally, but visually too. For now though everything I do is mainly around the GCO, but after something starts coming in from the Cargoh’s side, every tiny bit of my attention is going to be all about STREETS. ‘cause that’s what I am, right?

Anyways – this has already become the longest blog I’ve written, so let’s not make the internet suffer more than it already does.

Cheers

Map of problematique

How does one grow, when everything around tends to fall apart? How does one achieve fame, wealth and keep given promises, if everything around him speaks against it? How does one keep believing there is possible an exit? How does one can write a blog post if his computer display is dark as hell and must be ‘powered’ (and I use term power very vaguely here) by a table lamp, set on his lap?

 Well, the answer is quite simple. Doing the thing he needs to do. My computer could be broken down and my skateboard torn to pieces, but I’m still doing the stuff I told I will be doing – today I sorted out a bunch of slap issues and there are some exciting news coming your way after the lenghty fly of thought.

 The unexpected breakdown of everything got me thinking about an issue we’ve all stumbled upon. The problem of any kind has always been a friend, but mostly a foe, for everyone everywhere. The problem is the natural antipole of the success and the world, generated to maintain a balance, tends to keep these two together. Our actions are filled with these ‘pests’ and some may even say that a life with no problems is the point to reach for any human being. True, impossible and silly. The problem is our foe and is mainly considered of a bad thing to happen, but we’ve all learned that an object or a thought always has its’ pluses and minuses. As previously stated, in some cases it may be our only true friend.

 To reach for a problem free life seems right in its’ purest form at first glance. Bad is bad and we don’t need that. But let’s distance ourselves from the black and white, dipping in a little gray. A great type of people to look at are people who like to consider themselves artists. Artist by definition is something of a rather weird type, when inspected by a mind of normal, rational person, and because of that the term itself is widely used as an offensive term. Artists are people who, instead of physical job, have chosen to live their lives by different standards, reaching for moral satisfaction, ‘free’ lifestyle and distinctive whole being from the usual citizen. Artists are people who have found an other way of living life and overcoming problems by simply not accepting the attitude of the mainstream factory worker. They are people with a magnificent way of living life, rising the great emotions from, it seems, complete nothingness. What a magnificent way to overcome a problem of moving your muscles. What can be more blissful than selling your geniusness, sleeping long hours and doing what you want to do with life!

 A world without problems stumbles to continue its’ natural processes and ends its life in complete stagnation. A problem is the cause of action, a problem is the why of anything out there. It’s something to be adored, not hated. I’ve written about this in my last bogpost – the fiasco of skateboarding happened to be the best thing that had happened to [Bli:p] in weeks – I finally sat down and did something. It moves us. It let’s us get things we’ve always wanted to get. Why don’t people get it and think of a problem from that point of view. But, from the other side, a person Morris dancing in joy ‘cause his car broke down would seem a bit weird.

 And as promised. After ruling out some plans for the cargoh store, WHICH ACCEPTED MY SUBMISSION, I was left sith one problem. My printer was out of ink. A problem of a rather small, unimportant matter made me take back my words and open with a new way of making slaps. We’re going hand-made. Yes, when the slaps appear in the Cargoh store, you will be able to buy an authentic piece of [Bli:p]s’ and actually slap a piece of glue, paper, Mtn 94 and a bit of creativity onto a wall of your or worlds’ room. The packaging issue was sorted out – for now I’ve thought of these wonderful combinations – Free Ad Space (packs of 10, 30 and 100, 320mm by 70mm in size), Persona Non Grata #1 (packs of 30 and 100, 700mm by 900mm in size), Persona Non Grata #2 (packs the same as the previous one, 110mm by 300mm in size) and an interesting twist, featuring a number of every before mentioned sticker, selling at a highly lower price because of it’s humongous size. Quite exciting, ain’t it?

 And in other news – The cargoh store has allowed me to open a store for my [Bli:p] and finally start selling things. My laptop is down, but in a matter of days it shall be sorted out and the work on my store started.

Stay tuned!

Promise Kept aka The Finally Enough Pride

 6.30am – I’ve woken up and am sitting, staring into nowhere, for quite some time. Didn’t have much to sleep due to the massive job I have to do today, preparing my stencilish thingies until 2am.

7.43am – Arriving at the studio. The rather artsy balcony feels great in such a sunny and mildly breezy afternoon.

7.55am – Kind of happy – no need to actually make an easel. Found a kind of sappy one already lying on the ground here. Weird. But still very good – works for the thing I need to do.

8.00am – Unpacking. I had taken quite a lot of junk with me, as there is a whole bunch of things that have to be done today. Here’s the list.

Montana 94 Black

Montana 94 White

Montana Spray Adhesive

Respirator (This IS needed if ever spraying anything, believe me)

Scalpel

Scalpel knife

Paper knife (Just in case)

2 Markers

Pencil

3 Notebooks, each about a certain part of [Bli:p]s’ business start

Digital camera

Some batteries (Yes, my old-school digital camera still needs batteries)

2 B1 sheets of acetate

1 B1 sheet of sticker paper

Unfinished stencil – Free Ad Space (BebasNeue)

Finished stencil – Free Ad Space (BostonTraffic) (For some stickers)

Unfinished stencil – Body; Soul

Finished stencil – Measure yourselves

600mm X 300mm Canvas

Giant roll of cardboard (Floor protection)

Pair of Scissors

Acer Laptop

Laptop charger

8.15am – It’s on. I was planning to do almost all of the canvas’ pieces today. That included Free Ad Space, Measure Yourselves and Body – Soul, leaving Braille to be done next time due to the lack of necessary components. Some stickers – I was just messin’ mainly, trying out some Body – Soul , Persona Non Grata and Free Ad space stencils onto the glossy glue paper I’ve got. Nothing of a pilot-y feel, but this phase is still a MUST for [Bli:p]s’ business thing. (As you may know, I’ve already pronounced that all of the stickers will be printed with a laser printer, not spray painted. This is to keep excellent quality, 100% monotonousness and price as low as possible.)

Lookie, We've got visual thingies!

The start. As every artist in the world, I begin with a snow-white canvas.

 My ever so small work desk. 3 cans, computer and some acetate. What more could you want?

Heh, modificating easels with hand-sprayed stickers. 

Spray space. Promising.

Trashing.

The first stencil has been adhesed to the canvas.

And here's the first canvas. If I were you, I'd want a one so bad right now.

Who's Ed?

Looking like that when bought. MAGIC.

 A rather sappy image of the Free Ad Space. RAWR, I will have to make it again.

 

And in the end...  destruction

 

  

To resume this whole thing, I feel happy about myself. I got over my rather sad inability of will and did the right thing. It's great to actually have something done and stored for selling, not a vague conception in your notebook.

 Cargoh! Here I come!

                                                                                                                               

Promises Suck aka The Never Enough Parade

 I just broke my skateboard. Just like that – apparently, Jart decks are a) not so good b) being held in the storage of Boards.lv for a long, long time or c) great, just this one was a factory failure. The cracking sound literally broke my whole world at that little moment. I wasn’t even allowing a thought of ‘breaking board’ come into my mind – I believed these objects of a certain price and quality run for at least a season, possibly even two. But well – as another 30 lats get smashed right in front of my eyes/feet, I can’t help but to notice the possible moment of conspiracy. For the last days I had completely forgotten ‘bout making art, so probably this wasn’t such an accident. I mean, look at me now – I need at least 30 lats to buy myself a new waste of time and energy, so I need to open my cargoh store as soon as possible. Chain of needs, resulting in me doing something worth doing at all. That’s just weird.

 You know – June was a wonderful month for both me, my art, my skate skills and both InvadingSAM and the Twitter. It was great to see more people actually taking interest in [Bli:p]s’ world. 11 posts of ISAM and god knows how many tweets made a great, GREAT 30 days of an interesting real-time adventure. July was something of a bit different kind. The month has already kicked halfway through and all I’ve done is – played through Marc Ecko’s Getting Up AND Bioshock; landed a Kickflip (Wooooooooooooooooooo) (Right before cracking the OBJECT); learned to jump onto little boxes with my board without falling off instantly and made some terrible canvas pieces I’m trying to forget about. 1 ISAM post. Miserable. So – from now on the next 14 days are going to be spent on YOU GUYS! 1000000% art making, starting with the complete buyable product photos tomorrow. Also – Making an easel tomorrow to allow me to make art in the best way possible. Doubley also – TRYING to release a blog post daily ‘til the end of July. No promises shall be made, but a considerable amount of effort shall be put into doing the thing. That I can promise. I mean - I 'aven't got anything else to do anyways.... Oh and yeah – no late night action from now on – the right thing is to sleep for about 7 hours, but not from 4 ‘til 11 am. Will be trying to revert to the regular 11 pm to 6 am thing – that is so much more productive in every way.

 But again. I shall be judged by my cliche’s and my spray paint can, not the meaningless words I like to use so much.

The Monkey Crew. Highly inspirational.

!Consider before reading! Information supported by this web-page has been identified as highly inspirational and may lead to sleepless nights and highly active mental disturbness. May raise rebelliousness and the will of free speech.


I know I've mentioned the word 'Fall' for multiple times on twitter, but I believe it has to be said just one more time. Although the album itself, at first glance, didn't seem as something valuable to me and was considered as the 'AGAIN Albarn has made something dull-ish', the true value of the concept unwraps itself only after a day or two of listening to it. Of course, Gorillaz has always been a very abstract and vague project right from the start - four digital muppets with somebody behind them. The debut was one of those things that has the potential of the group shining through the plastic cover, but that isn't just there yet. It had a few genius breakthroughs such as 'Latin Simone' and 'Dracula', but in whole it wasn't something I'd want to listen to from one end to another. 'Demon Days' though was the IT they were searching for. Electronic, free and completely awesome. The album that brought Gorillaz fame and the 100% song-rate I'd been waiting for. It was the thing that didn't ask you to open iTunes for the whole playback of the amazing number of !!!23!!! songs. Then came the grand phase of nothingness and complete desperation of the fans of the wild monkeys. 5 years passed and the 'Plastic Beach' was released just at my birthday. The greatest gift for me and I believe to millions of fans all 'round the world. The big buzz was highly boosted by the internet page, the whole 'island plot' and the mysteriousness of the pre-released single 'Stylo'. The many, many, many compilations Albarn had drummed up seemed very posh at start, but when reveled, didn't live up to their names. It was good, but it had gotten away from the luck formula of DD. Little more electronic and native-feel like. Interesting, but not genius. And to my surprise - the same year Damon drummed up the multi-collabed beach, he released something made 100% on iPad. That seems like something that should bring a more intimate feeling, shouldn't it? And there it was - a little misunderstood, elettronic and very less vocal like. It's not Gorillaz of their regular meaning. It's not 1001 people sharing the same job. And that's why it's so interesting. It's nothing about the good old guys/girls who used to sing'n'rap in the mic. It's Art in it's most true meaning. It's the new thing, the new standard for anything even remotely connected with electronic music or Gorillaz. Grab it while you can. Gorillaz - Fall

Selling Out An Art Form. What?!?!

 To me, a graffiti writer is somebody who puts all his effort in doing the thing he loves the most – that is why I don’t consider myself a true street artist. A true artist leaves the house every day before he finds a reason to stay inside and never doubts to paste the most bell-bounding throwies, tags, stencils, wheatpastes etc. Etc. At the most dangerous spots there are in the city. He doesn’t have to think ‘why?’ and he knows no fear, but it’s as important that the message he carries is as powerful as his attitude on spray-painting. An urban artist is the person who takes the priority in making art, not fortune and never tries to take the fame for a work of his repeatedly – he remembers that the fame of a person is a thing acquired if his works are good enough, so shouldn’t be anything to concentrate on directly. He never ‘goes to a restaurant just to take a shit’. His true priority is the art he spreads and the ideas he provokes. Nothing else matters. An artist is that person, who consistently has a new piece to tell about, no matter if you talk to him daily or hourly. He’s always in his own world, and again – nothing else matter – his thoughts are always on the same subject. His efforts are entirely based on making great art and that is his only priority.

 But again – artist is still a person, who has to eat. People who paint walls and get paid for it are doing it, ‘cause that is the thing they do the best. It’s the only thing they really can. The same can be applied to the modern street artist – he makes art and often makes money out of it and there is nothing wrong about that. A buck or two out of a good canvas is completely awesome – the term ‘sell-out’ is a completely absurd phrase of both desperation and stupidity. The whole mess started just after Banksy spread his wings at the Sotheby’s and twisted everyones’ understanding of graffiti. The guy had made completely astonishing art for quite a while and finally his work had paid off. What is so wrong about that? In retrospection, this would be the same as walking to a sportsman and saying that he’s a sell-out, just because he isn’t entirely working for his own joy, not money. You see, graffiti was essentially the resistance of tagging, throwies, wildstyles etc.etc. Especially in the beginning, graffiti was something not understandable to a regular citizen and was pretty only in the eyes of the creators themselves. Then, one day, POW – this Bristol-based stencil artists pops out of nowhere and starts taking things over by doing shit no one had ever thought of. Suddenly the smearing on the wall was entirely understandable to everybody and had truly spoken of an important matter. And what is the only way to react, when you’ve been writing tags for years and years, not getting any money or real fame for it (Fame given by the society, not only the other writers), and suddenly seeing a guy who had the idea of provoking something important through a stencil, grabbing the big buck. I mean, isn’t screaming out ‘sell-out’ in most pure form of jealousy the only option you have right now?

 There is no way of selling out a form of anything. It’s just not possible. A person who makes money out of art is not a sell-out. He’s just fucking ten times smarter than everybody else are.

[Bli:p]

The First Pilot Has Arrived + Minor Updates Attached To It

 From a vague concept to a complete reality – that’s the trip my ‘Free Ad Space’ has travelled through in the last 24 hours. The first pilot of the Grand Cargoh Opening is here and it’s looking better than ever – the three dimensions have brought life into the digitally assembled words.

The ideological concept has remained untouched, being the same as it was when it was digitally presented to you. - “As the world’s biggest brands mark their existence in the world, by scrawling giant slogans upon 3 metre banners, the companies have succeeded with their devious plans. Every person, exposed and dragged into the colorful warfare, wanders the town not noticing the fact of him being a simple weapon in the hands of the urban maharajahs, leaving himself vulnerable for the subconscious attacks. We go into a shop and pick the stuff the slogans told us to, not noticing there’s a cheaper and as qualitative alternative every time. The urban landscape of b-advertising have got us in a state it just seems right to buy their stuff. We’re being bombarded from every space in the city and now – even from every space of your living room.” – indeed so – the Ad has finally stepped into, for now, my living room, but very, very soon is going to be available Worldwide to, as previously stated, everybody everywhere.

 With the huge update of the pilot-products comes some of the minor updates of the ‘Invading Streets And Minds’ store. First of all, the packaging options I had previously mentioned somewhere here. The first sticker pack has been made in its’ very much ‘pilot’ stage, and has already been transferred to you via Twitter. As mentioned – the size is the only thing that’s really changing when we get to the real deal – the material (330 gr/m3 cardboard) and the layout is something we’ve already decided for.

 As for the canvas sizes, the concept is still pretty vague. The proportion is definitely going to be 1:2 for almost every canvas we’re selling. One of the provided sizes is 30X60 cm and that is again something we definitely know. Probably we’re releasing two more optional canvas spaces for you guys – a pocket version of 10X20 (maybe 16X32) and a huge version of 40X80 (maybe 36X72). The official sizes shall be released when I finally get to the main seller, and see the whole production they are offering, myself.

 And now the only major update of the blog, sorting out the start-out products, that you’re going to be able to buy right away after the store opens. After a rather long period of deciding, I’ve adjudicated that the only right thing to do, is to start with 5 distinctive canvas designs, releasing the other stuff later. The good new is, that this won’t last for long – within a weeks’ time we’re releasing a new product for you. This rather fast pace is going to be maintained as long as the shop’s running. The future products are – two sticker lines, a set of makeshift graffiti, t-shirts and many, many other eye and now even touch-candies for you to obtain.

 Updates end here, stay tuned for even more pilot-pieces and real stencil designs, expected somewhat soon!

[Bli:p]

Priority Flip

 I’ve been forgetting something for this whole time because of the ‘cargoh-selling-frienzy’. For the last few weeks everything I’ve been doing is constantly writing some business plans, tweeting like mad and sorting out some problems for the Cargoh store setup. And all this for what? My mind, blindfolded by the theoretical money, had produced a silly idea of me getting incredibly wealthy over my art in no time, thus evoking a very upsetting feature of my mind – greed. And I don’t care what Mistabishi says about the goods of Greed and the great features it gives to the world – in art greed is something completely unacceptable. Apparently, for last weeks I’ve put my complete priority over money and have completely forgotten of the actual process of graffiti. I had forgotten of the whole essence of street art – the fun your finished work can give to you. I have visited Twiends, googled for some advice on Twitter managing and done some pretty idiotic things just to fill my wallet with theoretical money. I’m here to make a confession and to make sure I never let this get to me again. Blogging, Tweeting and Flickring is completely acceptable, but only in one case – when your priorities are of the fun you might get from it and the ideas you share and the people who could use them to actually make their lives better. My agenda is not anymore to jeopardize street art by making money, but to maintain its’ original point. This being said, I’m not going to even think about raising my blog or twitter stats, so people would know me better. My only goal right now is to make great art. GCO is going to happen, but under completely different agendas.

Confession made,

Complete douche

i Need. iGive. iTake. The Triumphs/Fails Of The Modern World

 I understand why these little gadgets of ours are so popular nowadays. I am too waiting to get my hands on a completely new HTC Desire phone and I just can’t wait. The feel of the new technology and the never-before felt options to share your life with everybody everywhere is simply amazing. A little while back, I read this short article of a Latvian journalist who visited a show in London which was all about Steve Jobs, his life and how he created the Fruit. The article was more of a trip review, so only the end was something that truly spoke to me. The journalist had listened to this showman impressionate Steve Jobs in a quite funny, yet dramatic way. It was pretty much the usual story of a rising star, until he got to the point of the actual manufacturing of ineeds. Apparently, a company called Foxconn is the main out-sourcer of the Apple company. The factory of this beast is located near a village in China, where hundreds of completely underpaid workers are doing the same action for days, months and years and never see home. Apparently – the village is so far away that they don’t have the time to visit their families, ‘cause they have to work, and this is not a lie, 10-16 hours a day. They sleep in packed bedrooms, where everyone has a bed so small that the mediocre American would never fit in it. And the most shocking part is that the company have actually tied some nets over the workers' heads - you see, every now and then somebody decides to try to get out of the routine and, taking an elevator to the top floor, jumps over the metallic cliff. The story goes on, uncovering the terrible tale of child labor, cruelty and greed, raising gasps, shrieks of shock and laughter of the showman's amazing ability of impersonation from the crowd. The most interesting part of the whole article is the finale'. “As we walked out in the street everybody pulled out their iPhones and scrolled through the updates of what had happened in the past 2 hours of their Internet absence. I too took out my iPad and started interacting with the flashing keyboard. I knew that this device could have been assembled by little, dirty children hands, but.... ....how can you resit the temptation?”

 That made me think. You see, the modern kings of the urban world have done a great job at making us need something we most definitely don’t. The glamorousness of the iWorld has made us pretty dependent. But let’s retrospect this whole situation and see where it takes us at longer notice.

 Somebody designs something completely awesome. The completely theoretical awesomeness is boosted by TV and Internet, thus creating the boom of cool-being. The cool-being spreads and affects everybody everywhere – we all wan’t these little thingies and we can’t resist but to open our wallets and buy them. That way, people like Steve Jobs and many others have invented a new thing we all depend on, but that is completely need-less. Thus they’ve created a fortune by generating a good idea, but never thinking of the future. Were will this madness bring us? What will happen when the last molecule of aluminium and steel will be mined and used for another apple device? What will happen when we are left alone with our dependencies, but with no daily dose to support our needs? What happens when a junkie can’t get his dose?

--Emotional Implosions--

The thread of thought goes on and on, but the main idea is pretty simple and so is the outcome. Material for the night.

[Bli:p]

InvadingSAM Changes. What Happened?!

I believe everybody who properly visits my blog, when I advise them to, has spotted some minor and some major differences from the original design that had spent almost a year as the template of InvadingSAM. These changes were crucial to maintain the modern look of the blog it hopefully has now.

Of course, If you’ve followed me on twitter, you probably know why I did this. Every little change of the blog was tweeted with a small review of the whys and hows...

 First of all – The template change. From a self-powered [Bli:p] domino madness, I’ve gone to the most simple of the simplest color/font schemes there is. This is due to the fact that [Bli:p] is a minimalist, thus needs to minimalize everything there is. Funny how I didn’t suspect this bizarrity earlier.

 Secondly – Headers and ‘share-ers’. The header of the blog had changed from a rather dull and ordinary typeface to a wild, but cheap-looking Persona Non Grata madness, when finally was changed to a minimalistic, one-colored, handwritten inscription. A lot better, I think. The share-ers of the blog are here to allow you to share me with the world and do it in the handiest way possible. Two in count, they all are here to spread your love to the world – the ShareThis app, which is located under ever blogpost allows you to share the blog you’ve just read with the world via largest of the share sites there are. The other one is located on right sidebar, just on the top, to redirect you to my personal facebook page.

 Thirdly – The 330X82 sidebar images. These are the most interesting innovations of the InvadingSAM changes. Each of these is a small representation of a certain element or a website of [Bli:p]s’. ’We’re going visual’ is the only website redirection, as it represents my Flickr page. The other five are something completely new and, I believe, quite awesome. These are the new sub-directories – each one of the pictures can get you to the first post of a series of the blog. A little bit ‘bout all of them.

 ‘Great People Great Art’ is the series of me telling you about the great artists and communities of the Internet. For now, only the first one, featuring Stencil Revolution, Indigo, Pahnl and Jerm IX, awaits, but more volumes shall be released soon.

 ‘As It Says On The Tin’ or rather ‘Economical Creativity’ is the series of long-ago-mentioned creativity blogs. They are here to support new-born graffiti artists, by telling them about some of my personal ways of reaching great ideas every time.

 ‘Why? When? How?’ is all about things worth thinking about, but are not quite related to a finished stencil of mine. All of them are essentially based on an old or unfinished idea or even a song and should be understood like a expanded explanation of an interesting thought.

 ‘Updates, Designs, Insights’ or rather ‘Cargoh –Made For-’ is everything Cargoh.com related. All of my ideas of sellable items go here.

(FYI – clicking the image brings you to the first (sometimes only) blogpost of the series. Some of them have only one of them, so no underneath-text gadget is needed, but the ones that do contain more than one blog are supported with the gadget including all of the posts)

 And last, but not least, ‘Desktop Backgrounds Available Here’ are the personal 10101 [Bli:p]s that everybody can obtain for personal use. All based on a stencil of mine, these buddies should keep your desktop looking ever-so-neat at all times.

 As you can see, some of these have something below them. These are the topics that each of the series contains – as stated – it should be as handy as it possibly can. Of course, the regular ‘That’s all there is’ widget is still there for people that like classics, but it has been relocated and now has taken place below the blog post.

 The remaining gadgets have been there ever since, and I believe, do not need any extra explanations with them.

 I’ve been working hard on the re-designing of InvadingSAM and I hope I’ve succeeded – the overused, maximalism has transformed into a light minimalism and is totally the thing you’d want me to look like, right? Some comments, tweets or PMs would be definitely wanted for this blog to look even better.

Hope you like it!

[Bli:p]