Forged in Fire and Love
Tennessee | October 2025
Aerosol on wall
This one came out of a trip to Tennessee with the homies Zuawe and Qumes.
We had traveled out there to check out a concert inside a cavern, which was already a pretty wild experience on its own. Somewhere along the trip, we also got the opportunity to paint.
The spot was cool.
It was a wall tucked among the trees, surrounded by nature and away from the kind of city environment where I normally find myself painting. That alone gave the piece a different feeling.
I titled mine Forged in Fire and Love.
The main piece was a graffiti throw filled with flames, with a blade cutting through the composition. On the blade, I incorporated the Japanese word for “Love.”
I liked the contrast between all of those elements.
Fire can represent intensity, pressure, destruction, or transformation. A blade feels sharp and aggressive. Then in the middle of all of that is love.
There was something about putting those ideas together that felt right in the moment.
Visually, I wanted the piece to feel heavy and energetic, but the meaning underneath it gave it another layer. Strength and aggression do not necessarily have to exist separately from love. Sometimes the things we care about most are the same things we fight for, struggle through, and allow to shape us.
The setting made it even better.
Seeing the colors, flames, and lettering sitting against a wall surrounded by trees felt completely different from seeing the same piece in an alley or on a city building.
This trip was really about having a good time with friends, checking out a concert, traveling somewhere different, and finding another opportunity to paint along the way.
Shout out to Zuawe and Qumes.
Good music, good people, a wall in the woods, and some paint.
Sometimes that is all you need.
