The summer of 1998 was one of the best in my life. We went skateboarding, drank a weak beer and listened to hardcore. It was as if there were a couple of inches of air between us and the asphalt all the time. Bus drivers, police officers and parents - they were just extras and we all had leading roles in a giant musical. Everything was us. We were everything.

I was too much of a coward to actually get involved with graffiti. I tagged a bit on benches and bins. Wrote my pseudonym with a marker. "Raw". I don't know why I wrote it. But I liked the name. It sounded cool. But I didn't have the peace of mind to make bigger paintings. Standing there sketching and trying to ignore the fact that a train, a policeman or a security guard could appear at any second. My heart is too weak for that kind of stuff.

But there are always different ways of doing things. The word tag also means label. There is always a Sweet Art-version.

Bonus - Watch the movie Pay It Forward.