Grass for Gandhi Fundraiser

Your support is greatly appreciated!!

Bonner Center Block Cleanup

Thanks to the Bonner Center at TCNJ for coming out and getting the block ready for Windows Of Soul as part of their 9/11 National Day of Service!

Care Trenton donated rakes and gloves for the clean up and has similar events all over Trenton so if you want to get involved, check 'em out!

WINDOWS OF SOUL PROMO

WINDOWS OF SOUL..CALL FOR ART!

Soul of the Message 2012

S.A.G.E. Collective presents:

SOUL OF THE MESSAGE 2012


Featured Artists:

Will "Kasso" Condry
LUV1
Lank Williams
Leon Rainbow
Aylin Green
Andrew Wilkinson
Roebus-One
DEMER
Vanity
James Carey
Ricardo Coke

Featuring Performances by:

Black Collar Biz and Roebus-One

Spoken Word:
POLO Cortez

DJ Ahmad of the 1s and 2s

Opening Reception:
April 20th 2012
6pm-10pm

Location:

219 Gallery
219 E. Hanover St.
Trenton, NJ

Trenton St. Patty's Parade

Many thanks to RAIN and the Art All Night people for bringing out the SAGEs to paint live on the AAN float.  It was sooo much fun! Check the video to catch what I could capture while painting on a moving vechicle (which is admitedly harder than I thought).  Something like 4k people flood Hamilton Ave and turn Trenton into a sea of green New Orleans for a few hours. 

RAIN and LUV1

LANK and KASSO

Black Collar Collab

Saturday February 18th was a big day in Trenton Hip Hop with the release party for FOREVER BLACK (available on itunes), the dope new album from Black Collar Biz. S.A.G.E. Collective and Black Collar go back like Snapbacks and Starter jackets, so you know we'd be in the building. LUV 1 blessed the walls with some really nice pieces and KASSO, not only rocked the album art and postcard illustration, but came thru to Live paint and he asked me (LANK) to join in. For an event such as this, the only move was to knock out some portraits of the man himself, so I got to cutting up an image of Collar on the mic and placed them either side of KASSO's portrait. Went with one white and one red (shout out to LUV1 for the idea to do the angel/devil theme) and added text for some background texture.

All the artists, poets and MC's were great, Collar rocked it, and everybody had a great time. Cop the album and come thru next weekend for Garden Variety at the Trenton Atelier on the 25th to see what real hip hop looks like!

-LANK



Good Collar/Bad Collar - LANK & KASSO

GARDEN VARIETY SHOW : AGRI-CULTURE

Saturday, Feb 25th.

N.N.S. B/W S.A.G.E. Present:
Garden Variety Show!

Performing:

Rich Quick

Mr Fickle & Yehudah Nabiy w/ DJ King Islam

Omega Ice

Skrewtape

Black collar biz

Yasin

Willie Dynamite

Moe Fit

King don

Jynxx Kilah

+The Open Mic Cipher!
Featuring Beats By Divine Drummah and Gov Mattic.

Hosted By Edobeci

DJ's J. Gainey DJ Ahmad on the wheels!


Doors Open 9pm

$5

"SOCIALIZM"

Join us on March 2, 2012 at 7pm for Trenton Social's monthly FIRST FRIDAY who this month will be honoring the amazingly multi-talented, very unique and Trenton's own, Will "KASSO" Condry!

KASSO as he is popularly known excells and is known most for his unique portraits and vivid aerosol based murals which are located throughout the city of Trenton and across the east coast. Will has participated in numerous non-profit organizations and has been commissioned to produce fine art for celebrities and avid art collectors. He also teaches art in after school programs for our areas young who show creative talent and interest and is the host of "The Garden Variety Show" at The Trenton Atelier where artists and musicians come together and create masterpieces!!

For the past few months EVERY Thursday Will has been putting in lots of time, concentration, paint strokes, sweat and open arms to ANYONE who has came into Trenton Social and who has asked to be a part of his live art sessions. He would photograph either 1, 2 and sometimes 3 individuals at a time and produce them in his vision in usually 4 hour time periods! Over the past few months he has produced numerous "outposts" that will ALL be hung up March 2! Now that is a dedicated and true artist!

Will "KASSO" Condry is a TRUE DEDICATED and ORIGINAL artist! I have had the pleasure of being painted by him twice and working with him on various projects! Some of his outposts are ALREADY sold so YOU DO NOT WANT TO MISS THIS EVENT!!! It's going to be PACKED! Free to attend! Bring anyone!

-Valentinas Vanity(curator)

MLK Day of Service

The Bonner Center at TCNJ asked me would I be interested in working with my former high school during the MLK Day of service lead by the community service organization "Jersey Cares"
www.jerseycares.org/. The day would consist of graffiti cleanup and mural restorations at the school. I was asked to to design 4 mini murals which were painted by volunteers of Jersey Cares and students and faculty of TCHS and The Bonner Center. Each mural was designed with the intent to inspire peace...hence the imaginary of the Doves. Below each Dove is a quote by Trenton Central Alum Shawn Carter, better known as JAY-Z, influential Hip Hop artist, music mogul and business man.

It was a great time and the community support was awe inspiring. Thanks to the Bonner Center for the opportunity to give back to my alma mater. I'm looking forward to doing more events like this in the near future!

-WILL KASSO


"Jersey Cares" volenteers painting the "Dove" murals I designed




Finished product

SELF TAUGHT

First blog post of the new year! Been slacking somewhat on the write ups and such...getting things in order for 2012 can be taxing, but no worries. Luv1 and myself produced our first wall of the new year earlier this week. We decided to set our sights on an abandoned building on the north side of Trenton.

We had no set plans...we just wanted to shake the dust off and take advantage of the unusually mild weather we been having recently.

Luv kicked things off with his abstract works, but this time using a limited pallet and I produced a portrait of a child with my abstract "kasso circles" following after. I also chose, like Luv, to keep my colors limited. Luv had the idea for us to keep most of the raw center block and brick unprimed..to give the production a most rugged feel.

We blazed out the entire wall in 4 hours. Other than the massive mounds of dog feces we had to maneuver threw..and I mean MASSIVE AMOUNTS, we had a great time producing this wall.

Special thanks to Shawn of CALI BOUND PRODUCTIONS for documenting this project and producing this awesome video! Check it out:


Peace.

-KASSO

Thursday Throwback: Inc Magazine

Way before there ever was a SAGE, back in 10/07, I got a call from RAIN to paint with the VS Crew at the World Trade Center in Inc. Magazine's Headquarters.  My can controll was admitedly not on point at this point, but the magazine folks loved it!  I had a great time, getting my pizza and beer on with the Viciousez.  This was my first time painting indoors with spray paint and I learned a valueable lesson that night...use a resperator!  I think I bought one the next day lol.  You can even see me stumble getting off the ladder in the video below, I was dizzy and all messed up by the time I left.  Another thing I remember is security was unbelieveable in that place.  It was by far the most heavily secure place I have ever been in. 

*Ironic interesting fact, I got that call to paint, I believe, because a member of VS, now member of SAGE, PLAN aka DELVE, couldn't make it. 

here's a snippet of mine...

KASSO in progess...

and a video RAS made,  for TerraCycle (who hooked us up with the gig.  Thanks Tom!)


One Love,
LUV1

THURSDAY THROWBACK: "CONCRETE ALCHEMY TOUR..2008"

KASSO and DELVE..along with 13 other artist from the east and west coast were apart of an aersol artists tour called CONCRETE ALCHEMY sponsored by "Albus Cavus". For two weeks in the spring of 2008, these artists painted 4 large scale murals in 6 days...coinsiding with 3 gallery shows, which spread from NY to Maryland. All of the artwork for the gallery shows was also done on tour.


The integrated methods of S.A.G.E. Collective were seeded on this tour. All the walls were fully integrated and multi layered. SAGE collective philosophy about the intuitive creative process also was founded within "Concrete Alchemy".

For more info about the tour, follow these links and check out the video:

Photos of all the walls produced via ARTCRIMES: www.graffiti.org/ca/index.html

CONCRETE ALCHEMY INTERVIEWS:
www.albuscav.us/concretealchemy/

CONCRETE ALCHEMY VIDEO:

Rocking Out

This past sunday, Luv-One and myself took a trek threw the woods of rural New Jersey to..drumroll...PAINT ROCKS! I know..sounds a bit weird. Luv contacted me earlier within that week to ask if I would like to join him on his nature adventure. At first I was like...paint a rock?! We should rock a wall! Then he told me that some of the rocks were as big as five feet wide! When I heard that...I was like "Yooooo, this can be great!" Lets do it!" If I cant paint a wall...then a wall size rock sounds pretty interesting!

Luv paints these quirky lil' characters. He's been doing them for years on canvas and other materials. I believe he said most of the inspiration for these characters comes from his son's drawings and that the two of them do this all the time simply because it's fun! So thats was the idea for the day; to paint a rock or two and keep it fun...like a child would. While we were out there painting, I at first thought this was a bit juvenile, but once u do your first one it becomes an instant addiction...u want to do more!

You want to find the rock with the most character...the most personality...and bring it to life! What I thought would at first be a waste of time, became a time I would never forget! What we were doing was reliving our childhood. Taking nature and turning it into art! Using what's there to create something new! I swear, it was like being 10 years old again. We were adding "character" to nature; giving it a personality..and making it our own. It made you wanna seek out new "rocky" terrane, while at the same time taking in the beauty of the breathtaking country side. In doing what we did, it made us appreciate the beauty of nature even more so than before. We both agreed that this day was something epic..even if just for us. It literally planted the seed of new ideas and possibilities! It made me see that sometimes you have to strip layers away and revile whats inside to find something new. It showed me not to judge a situation buy what's only on the surface, and if you want something of value, you have to seek it and dig for it. We sought and found....and who would have thought a rock in a hard place would move creative mountains! You cant spell "nature" without A....R....T!

Checkout the pics below to what we "rocked out".

Peace.

-Will Kasso


KASSO


LUV1


KASSO


LUV1


KASSO


LUV1

Thrusday Throwback: "BORN WITH LESS"...2009

This wall was produced in early February, 2009. S. A. G. E. was still in its infancy as a crew...pretty much just consisting of myself and LUV1. LUV contacted me that morning asking if I was willing to come out and paint. It was an unusual day for the middle of the winter. We had a freak 70 degree day! We decided to jam out at Terracycle and do something small and non ambitious.

What started out as something with the intentions on being light heart quickly grew into a full blown mini-mural jam session. LUV had some references from newspapers and one in particular stuck out to me. It was an image of a young woman holding her son during "Hurricane Katrina".


I choose to do a representation of it while LUV painted an image of Hip Hop icon "Lauren Hill".



As usual, we jammed out the background with our abstract works...which at the time we were still developing. We also had very lil paint to work with due to it being the off season. This wall was literally done with scraps of paint.

Half way threw LUV had to leave to pick up his kid from school, so I decided to stay to finish up the wall. While I was finishing up, the rap song "Smile" by Tupac and Scarface kept playing in my head. Ever since I saw that pic from the hurricane, I couldn't get it out of my mind. So i went back to the beginning of the wall and put a quote up from that record....part of Tupac's verse which reads "Born with less but your still precious". I figured it summed up the feeling of what the image(the mother and child) conveys.


After the quote went up, it started to rain, so i broke out and went home. It was good times none the less.

For those who havent heard the song SMILE...check out the video below.

peace.
-KASSO

Social School of Funk & Soul

Get an audio education in Funk & Soul at Trenton Social!

DJ Tangency spins a musical history lesson of the best Funk and Soul. Find out where those fresh and funky samples you hear in today's Pop and R&B songs originated! The night also features live painting by WILL KASSO!

www.facebook.com/Tangency

NO COVER ... GREAT FOOD ... SO GET ON THE GOOD FOOT AND GET ON UP TO SOCIAL!

Throwback

Delve, Lank, and Paper Monster

Highland Outtakes

Thursday Throwback: AFRIKA/BAMBAATAA MURAL

I figured I'd take it back a few years and showcase one of our first sanctioned murals. I remember this one very well. The day before this one was produced, myself, Leon Rainbow, and Demer of "Vicious Styles Crew" were featured on the TV show "AMERICAS GOT TALENT". To make a long story short, that entire process was not what I expected and I left in a not so great mood.

The following day, LUV ONE and myself planned on doing this wall. This time we were joined by my friend and fellow artist "Frances N. Bradley". Frances had been in contact with me for some time prior to this wall. She wanted to learn the art of spray painting and I welcomed her to join us on this wall. LUV and myself were accustomed to working very intuitively and spontaneous, and with Frances being a solid fine artist and illustrator, I told her the best way to learn spray paint is on the spot. I told her not to worry about mistakes(she was a bit nervous being her first time working with the medium)...because working with us, u wont make any.

The only drawback was the weather. It was raining pretty much the entire day, but the store front had an oning that gave us protection from the elements.

Luv-One brought a image of Hip Hop pioneer Afrika Bambaataa to produce. I brought an photograph of a West African Princess and Frances brought references of different patters and photographs relating to Africa.

We started off painting in the same way we continue to paint today...very loose and free-form with the portraits to balance out the abstraction. After about 4 hours, LUV had to leave to pick up his son and Frances had to leave not much after. This left the wall half way finished. I decided to finish up the wall myself and to use the anger and frustration from the previous night on "Americas Got Talent" to energize me.

Around 9pm that night I finished off the wall. 10-12 hours of non stop painting. Needless to say, I was pretty beat, but felt great to have wrapped up this project and to get over my "AGT" meltdown.

LUV also produced one of his first videos off of this mural...check it out below.

Happy Thanksgiving!

-Will Kasso

Izzy

Giving the gift of art is always from the heart.  -LUV1