Home field advantage

Back home in Toronto and starting to get back to work. So much more to come...

The New Map Of Toronto

and also The New Map of Vancouver.

The New Map Of Vancouver

in the past few months, there have been a handful of violent gay bashing incidents in vancouver. in the last few weeks a handful of cowards began tagging racist pro-white anti-chinese garbage in Richmond, a majority Chinese populated suburb of Vancouver. i'm disgusted by this filth and was inspired to use this Map of Vancouver to declare this city a hate free zone.

Also, The New Map of Toronto.

Vancouver Street Heart on Beyond Robson

I am stoked to share with you that i have a new column on Beyond Robson.
The column is aptly titled Vancouver Street Heart, you can check it out here...

http://www.beyondrobson.com/author/jerm/

BANKSY WASN'T HERE

jerm IX & Vegas collab.
photo also by Vegas.

"as Banksy decorates North American cities co-inciding with the release of his film, and the media follows and reports each stencil in every city he hits, we can't help but feel that Vancouver was overlooked by Banksy and his people. we wanted to communicate this invite directly to Banksy, as well as make the point that there are a handful of innovative and unique street artists in every nook and cranny of these cities that Banksy is hitting and it is a shame that the media is focusing in on one british artist, and not showing the same adoration and support for their own local talent. for example, with all of the attention placed on Banksy's trip to Toronto, there was no mention whatsoever of artists like Poster Child or Fauxreel, or any other Toronto artists that play a large role in the street art world. In every city, this intregal part of the story is simply not being told.

to do this, we decided to rework Banksy's classic balloon girl image, in our depiction the girl is now a woman, and she has released the balloon in lieu of pasting up this BANKSY WASN'T HERE banner."

-jerm IX

supersized

word(s) up

death scrolls

last night i sat and made four pieces, in preparation for this mornings mission in PoCo with Open5. the first piece i made, which i didn't put up, is a Neitszche quote. it reads... "in heaven all the interesting people are missing."
for some reason i stuck rigidly to that theme of death with the three poetry scrolls that followed.





edit: the Neitzsche quote went up the next day...

shedding skin

last thursday jerm found himself in an abandoned factory along the fraser river in south vancouver, for hours, with his homies Vegas and Open5. the razor blade lips seen in the first photo were sprayed by Vegas, dozens of them. the last photo is of the character done with aerosol and acrylic by Open5.

ADDICTION NOTICE

pretty much sums up my week.

when depression sets in.

this poem was written 5 years ago, yet it describes perfectly how i felt as i awoke yesterday morning. manic-depression is not as fun as it sounds. i have trained myself to interpret my manic states as "happiness", but depression is still a monster that haunts me. to this day, this is the best that i can describe what that sudden transition feels like.

edit: nice to wake up this morning and see this on Wooster Collective.

V-TARP submission call

Along with my partner Vegas , i would like to extend an invite to any and all to participate in V-TARP, which stands for the Vancouver Transit Ad Re-appropriation Project. All of the info is available on the V-TARP blog. Check it out, then email vantarp@gmail.com for the ad dimensions and the address.

shadow of a street artist

Vegas & jerm IX collab

a1one - Iran to Van

i am proud to be putting up a1one's work in Vancouver and humbled and honoured to collaborate with him. much more to come. A better shot of the piece above by Vegas was featured on unurth.com



a1one is one of my very favorite artists. his work is so rich with style and culture. refreshing, mesmerizing, fascinating. here are the tattys he designed for me.

DEATH BECOMES HIM

jerm IX feature in ION magazine.
click on the photo to read the article.

hello my name is jerm and i'm an alcoholic

i'm not the go to meetings sober and drink 6 coffees kind of alcoholic, i'm the just got back from the liquor store kind of alcoholic. alcoholism comes up a lot in my writing process, i was entrenched in it right from birth. in fact, my middle name Aaron, was derived specifically from the acronym AA. my parents split up shortly after i was born and my mom eventually remarried a man who was once my sperm donor father's AA sponsor. i have been a daily pot smoker for over 20 years, since before i graduated elementary school, but it has never been an issue, just a seemingly natural part of the day. ganja has never caused me harm or raised danger flags to me. alcohol however, is capable of destroying me, i'm becoming all too well aware, yet still mixing those rum and diet soda water concoctions. i don't know why i feel inclined to further expose this shameful truth, but i do. it is the one personal issue that i discuss regularly in my work that is not merely trapped in the past or from a reflective perspective. it's a war i'm still in, and it doesn't seem like i'm fighting a very good fight. honestly, i'm very afraid of sobriety.

It's Yours, Take It! Vancouver 3 - The 2010 Olympic Edition

This was the third time that we hosted this event in Van City. The first two shows were held last year on the stairs of The Vancouver Art Gallery, which is now Olympic Central. With The Olympics in full throttle and the Art Gallery out of the question. we struggled to choose a location for round 3. Security forces and cops are omnipresent. We considered a dozen or so locations and even made some calls while scouting, but nothing was panning out. and time was running out. fuck it, that's what i always say. we hopped off the train at science world, which is Russia House for the duration of the games, and hustled into the park with our boxes and bags of art, just hoping that the right moment would reveal itself to us. didn't take long. the park on the eastern shoreline of False Creek was packed. Stephen Colbert was just finishing up on stage as we approached and the crowd was coming right at us. The Stephen Colbert Show stage was inhabited by a stuffed moose, an American flag and a Stephen Colbert poster that appeared to be a Shepard Fairey, among other Canadiana. The wind coming from the water forced us behind the grassy knoll, as much of the art was on cardboard. we laid over a hundred pieces on the hill as Ninja IX waved her Free Art sandwich board. bang bang bang. Just like before, it happened quite quickly. Many very happy people made even happier. The smash hit of the show was the 50 Canada 2010 pieces on wood by Daniel N., who is Ninja IX's father.





to see the rest of the show and previous shows in beautiful Van City, check out the
IYTI Vancouver photostream.

We picked up the leftovers and began our pilgrimage to the Olympic Torch Cauldron, fenced off to the public. we spread out the leftovers on the benches amongst the crowd behind the fence, looking over the torch, and then we walked away.

Jerm Inc. Art Collection - Daniel N., Liberation Please, Pahnl

over the next few months, i plan to share some artwork that i have amassed from artists that i admire. figured i'd start off with a few gifts that showed up at my door recently.

Daniel N...


Liberation Please...


Pahnl...


love 'em all. mad thanks :)
more pics of the Jerm Inc. collection and some features on the artists to come.

how long am i supposed to sit here with a blank look on my face thinking of a title...fuck it.

when life gives you broken mirror fragments, make stencils.


tower beach mission with indigo...


indigo


R.I.P. Howard Zinn

confessions of a street artist

""i have spoken out a few times on the street about having been molested, and have been blessed to have inspired others to share their story with me.
i am constantly trying to find closure but can't seem to stop making variations of this confession. it's who i am apparently. no matter how far i run or how honest i am, i will always be that little kid, the victim, at that moment of innocence lost. stenciling, wandering, pasting, wondering, suffering, all i really know is that i need to continue screaming what i've always been afraid to whisper."