Jaes – About 7 years ago my younger brother (by 2 years) started catching little tags in a little town called Summerland. Immediately I thought ok I’m going to do this too if my lil bro is and loves it I’m in. Got rolled my first time publicly painting with him as my spotter playing video games on his phone. Immediately I changed my name and started going hard with SODA SFU as my mentor. He taught me all the fundamentals and I went crazy with it. My name wasn’t JAES until I came out on the news with my second name and thought I should start fresh with less toy shit/dumb spots.
I was inspired by SODA’s clean style and letter structure. But at the same time I was so drawn to more grime/wild letters and crazy spots. This was thanks to KERA who was my idol and is now a dear friend. Him, BUGE, PUTMUP, ZONER, JABER, SAUTE, and SKEAMZ are a few of many dudes I’ve been inspired by and admire a lot. Along with a ton of other guys in the RIP, BAMC, KOG, CBS and RK crews. I really pay attention to and love the spots, quality of work, and letter bending they do. I’ve also been inspired and supported a lot personally by a ton of amazing friends/family and Santa Barbara’s EastSide neighborhood. RIP SEB “Cbass” my best friend and and guardian angel.
My style came during the beginning of my struggle with drugs and alcohol when I had to figure out how to make something work out of all my substance fueled artistic mistakes. I started drawing a ton and painting mostly pretty chill spots after I got out of a little 6 month period of incarceration, when I wanted to lay low but still paint a lot. But at this point the substance abuse and trying to use sketches from home were just a mess of a combination.
So I ditched bringing my notebook sketches to spots and started just trying to freestyle only which was hard and nerve racking. But I tried just using stuff I had down on hot spots and I learned how to be faster and to incorporate my mistakes in my stuff and as time went on I just started using mistakes as lessons that became my style. It taught me a ton of technique and it keeps my stuff from looking TOO much like the same stamp over and over.
I’m 22 years old and sober now so I guess I’d say learn from your mistakes and use them to be better in life and whatever you’re passionate about. Wins and Lessons. -JAES
