We got an email from a gentleman named Shailesh from eBay’s User Experience design team.  He wanted to have his team, which consists of 25 people, learn more about graffiti.  Instead of taking his team to a, yawn, white elephant brunch, he wanted them to get down with the funk.  So, 1:AM responded by creating a customized graffiti workshop for them, that included history of graffiti, a mural walk tour, painting on the wall, and stenciling t-shirts.  Here are some pictures from the day:

Listening to Nate1 and Roman talk about graffiti

Of course defenestration is part of the mural walk!

Shailesh getting down!

Special treat for the eBay-ers, Mike "Bam" Tyau on site to drop some knowledge

Wall crazy!

Stenciling!

When they were told that they were allowed to paint on the wall, they just went for it and didn’t look back.  You can see the excitement in everyone’s eyes, so the teachers, Nate1 and Roman, stepped back and let them just go at it.  People painted hearts, Maneki Neko (good luck beckoning cats), Iron Maiden, Bart Simpson, letters and more.  The eBay-ers were such naturals at the wall.

Nate1 and Roman did a fantastic job teaching the eBay crew about graffiti.  We also had a special cameo appearance by Mike “Bam”.  The eBay-ers were lucky that they had all three of these guys dropping their knowledge on them.  We were grateful that Shailesh approached us to do this at 1:AM.  One of our goals as an urban and street gallery is to educate people about graffiti and dispel some of the negativity that surrounds this art form.   After the workshop was completed, I heard “Today was a good day” by Ice Cube playing in my head.  Indeed it was, a good day for the team from eBay and the crew at 1:AM.

eBay crew represent!

For more pictures, visit our flickr account.

If you are interested in our classes or group workshops, please email gina@1AMSF.com or visit www.1AMSF.com/classes/

Special thanks to Gina and Rocio for making this day happen!!!

I have never considered myself artistic or any good with art tools.  Dan and Roman encouraged me to take a class and to my surprise, I LOVED IT.  The vibe was awesome.  Roman was enthusiastic about what he was teaching and the other students were fun.  Mai is the creator of http://fashioni.sf and she wanted to learn how to stencil on fabric.  Susie was reppin’ Independent Arts and Media, getting ready for their festival in Golden Gate Park Sept. 26th.   Dania and Dara just wanted to customize their environment.

Nothing but praise to our teacher, Roman.  He taught us how to make our creative ideas come to life.  Everyone ended the class on a good note and after hard work with the x-acto knives, we were finally able to  see what he was talking about.

For more class info, visit www.toyjunkiesf.com or email gina@1AMSF.com.