Stacy Peralta

Stacy Peralta Instagram – My close friend Johnny Mac from San Francisco recently found himself sipping a latte at Dogtown Coffee, a business now residing in the former space once occupied by the Zephyr Shop. It spurred him to call and ask, “Is Dogtown a real place? And where’d the name come from?” This is what I know; From a young age Craig Stecyk was enthralled with Grafitti which was very prominent in SM, Venice and Culver City in the 70s, primarily the grafitti of the Hispanic gang culture. Each gang had its own distinct style, it’s own markings, and an exacting way in which they designed their lettering and applied that lettering with spray paint onto alley walls and old buildings. Many of these gangs gave their territories nicknames such as Frogtown, Fogtown, Ghostown etc… In ‘76 when I was having lunch with Stecyk and his girlfriend Lynn, a very talented painter, she said to me, “Craig looks at graffiti as an art form.” I nearly choked. Grafitti as art? I’d been led to believe it was paint-based litter. Craig looked at it as an artistic form of communication, kind of the way an anthropologist might look at primitive cave markings. Early on he began incorporating the west side graffiti style into his own art. He used the defunct Pacific Ocean Park Pier as his canvas and it’s where he developed his infamous pig and crossbones and rat and crossbones graffiti art. I also believe it’s where he came up with the name Dogtown. One of the very first uses of the name appears in my “Who’s Hot” article stating, Stacy Peralta is one of Dogtown’s finest. He would eventually turn the Dogtown articles into one of his most enduring art pieces. So whatever the truth is, it’s a mythology that began in the early 70s when Craig picked up his first can of spray paint and began applying it to the POP pier and then to the cinderblock walls that lined the beaches of Venice and Santa Monica’s boardwalk…..Anyone for another latte? | Posted on 30/May/2023 05:58:07