Spek (Boston) Graffiti Writer Spotlight

Spek

I’ve been writing since the mid 90’s. Taking the train into Boston in my early teens instantly had me curious about how different writers did what they did (specifically Monk, Alert, Perl, Case, Ryze, Sex, and so on…). Most of my work has been in and around Boston, but I’ve managed to get around to a bunch of other places. Graffiti has taken me to many cool places and connected me with interesting people all over the world. Before social media, freight trains were the main way to get your name to travel, and a lot of my work has been on trains.

My style has evolved a lot, and that’s kind of why I’m still so excited and eager to paint graffiti. Stylistically, it’s easy to get stuck doing the same stuff over and over again because you know it works. Recently I’ve been taking so many more risks with the style of my pieces, and it’s paid off a lot. Sometimes stuff flops, but that’s kind of just part of the risk. The non-graffiti artwork I do has seeped into the style of my most recent pieces. I have been trying to keep stuff more lose and abstract lately (kind of like it’s breathing), while trying to keep the letters clear and readable. The people in graffiti that inspire me are mostly my crew mates: Space, Ich, Aves, Groer, Apl, Snale, Shot, and Owl, just to name a few. Lately, international graffiti has been pretty cool to observe. I went to Berlin recently and couldn’t believe the amount of graff and how much more accepted it is over there. The most important part of this art form is just to have fun with it and to always keep trying something new.