Leave Your Mark: Sticker Nerds 3

This past weekend, an event known as Sticker Nerds 3 happened. Blood sweat and tears went into the making of these stickers and the volume of hand drawn stuff is impressive mostly because the large amount of demand from the artists did not effect the quality of what was produced.  It looked like it was a complete success for those that threw it and I'm jealous of those that made it in because I was not one of those people. Being that my lunch break was only an hour, I got there before the doors opened with the hopes that I could at least pop my head in and get some cool shots, but this was not the case. The Portland Fire Marshall, in cahoots with the Police Department, found out about the event and all but shut it down. Limiting the amount of bodies that could 'safely occupy the space' to 25, they consequently boxed me out of witnessing the blankets of stickers artistically distributed from floor to ceiling in the event space. They are also huge party-poopers in general. I don't know if you have kept up with their pointless antics at smaller hip hop shows but it's getting out of hand and seems like a waste of resources.  They also kept me from meeting some of the people that I've been following the footsteps of in the streets, that you've seen posted previously - Winston the Wale and Magical PDX most notably, but certainly countless unknown other introductions were missed. I get that in the eyes of law enforcement that the Sticker Nerds 3 event is encouraging vandalism. This wouldn't be an issue though if creative expression was encouraged as stickers are an art form along with all types of graffiti. We're just trying to add some color to this gray place and those dumb looking blank walls, stop signs, and creepy white trucks. You're welcome Portland.It was ridiculous and to say the least I was pissed. Luckily, I made some friends in line that kept my spirits lifted as well as snapped some photos for me.  All photo cred goes out to @villainpdx & @stevowen (IG handles). Keep your eyes peeled for these stickers in the streets, and if anyone knows any artists featured in these photos or otherwise, send them my e-mail address cause I want to feature them (anonymously if need be).