Tom Cat Spray

David Ebbinghouse has long been one of my favorite artists in Bloomington. Recently David revealed he was the notorious underground graffiti artist Tom Cat Spray. Beginning in 1984, amidst the obscene and juvenile graffiti scrawled on the backs of Bloomington buildings, there began to appear a different type of graffiti that reflected thoughtful, detailed art often with a poignant message. Tom Cat Spray's dancing skeleton images stenciled in florescent colors along with a social comment forced even the most fierce graffiti opponents to re-think what graffiti was. The debate as to whether or not graffiti is vandalism still goes on in Bloomington today but everyone agrees that Tom Cat Spray was a special artist. Tom Cat Spray's graffiti days ended in 1988 when the police nearly caught him. They got his spray cans and his stencils but Tom Cat Spray escaped never to be seen in the nighttime alleys of Bloomington again.

Category:

People & Blogs

Tags:

• Art
• Graffiti
• David Ebbinghouse
• Tom Cat Spray
• Bloomington
• Indiana
• Wandering Turtle Art Gallery
• Duane
• Busick

[helmsing]

Another example of what makes Bloomington unique...and very hard to do justice when describing to folks who have never been to this special city...