I visited “Jekse” yesterday afternoon. He had been working on his graduation thesis for graphic design and was still working – it was due to be finished in a couple of weeks – but he nevertheless heartily welcomed me and another friend of his, a rapper from a band called Sindicato, who arrived at the same time, to his and Cines‘ home – where you can easily read from doors, walls, and even from the water heater how the inhabitants like spending their free time.

Jekse let me look at his manuscript, which was about graffiti. He promised to send it to me – it was very interesting to me because of his insider’s view – so that I could reference and cite it. We had a chat about that, and after his rapper friend left, we discussed some present and future ideas, such as going out painting together some day (i.e. I’d watch them painting), maybe next Sunday or next week, when Cines had recovered from her heavy week at work. We had a cup of tee, he showed me some of his old “blackbooks” (a graffiti painter’s sketch book) and a more recent one, and I got to take pictures of them and given a permission to show some of them in my blog.

While I was leafing through the old books, he was making sketches in the most recent one, and I could easily connect the new sketches to the style and thematics of his graffiti I had seen in Valparaiso.

The oldest book was his second blackbook ever – the first ever he had lost somewhere – from when he was still going to school. You could see that he had been skilled already as a boy, which he verified by telling me that his teacher had asked him once to do a painting on a big panel which was then placed on a wall, and it was still there four years later, when his younger brother entered the same school. He also told me his father was very good at drawing, too, but for some reason would not do any, even if Jekse had encouraged him many times.

I could see that his style and themes had certainly changed a lot since the early days, but if you look carefully enough, maybe not completely.

The other old book was started in 2005, when he was 19, but there were both old and newer designs in it, and many empty pages left for more to come. The Jekse style and thematics were clearly there now, but also some images that looked as if they could have been made by Cines’. Well, they use the same blackbooks and, although they do have different styles, it is nevertheless sometimes difficult to distinguish who has done what.

What a day! 🙂

(Click any of the icons below to watch them as a slideshow)