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SABER
By Caleb NeelonPhoto By Chris Haston
Graffiti doesn’t have a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records, but if it did, SABER would surely be found ruling the “Biggest” category. By the age of 21, SABER was already a living legend of Los Angeles graffiti when, in 1997, he executed the largest graffiti painting ever created, making his legend status global. After 97 gallons of paint and a year of carefully planned nights, he completed his painting along the sloping cement banks of the L.A. River, a colossal masterpiece measuring 250 x 55 feet—nearly the size of a football field.
Not that the size of the painting was the only obstacle: the riverbed was also a psychological test of its own. “The L.A. River is a last resort for homeless people,” SABER explains, “so there are some strange lurkers down there. Every now and again I would notice a frequent transient and say hello. Sometimes I would notice some guys getting hungry and they would cook up a dog. Dog smells like the worst cooked, rotten bacon ever. I would find leftovers every now and again, just a pair of dog legs. The L.A. River is about the survival of the fittest. I was always glad to be able to go home and shower and sleep comfortably.”
Every supply for the L.A. River painting had to be hauled over barbed wire and through gangland, then applied without attracting the attention of either the Amtrak or Los Angeles police departments, both of whom patrol the area from the ground and the air. Near the end, SABER blew out his knee working on the slanted surface, but persevered and completed the painting. His father crept into the desolate area across the river from the giant artwork, and after several chases from gangsters eager to relieve him of his camera, took photos of his son, striding across the surface of his own artwork. SABER is not a small guy, but he doesn’t even fill one of the small holes in the B at the center of his name.
The painting is the magnum opus of SABER’s graffiti career to date, but it’s only one of dozens of pieces that he has executed across the United States (and even a few in Europe and Japan) that have become the stuff of graffiti lore—generating the kind of street fame it’s impossible to build artificially.
While maintaining a street presence, SABER’s work has shifted indoors in recent years. When the Los Angeles Museum of Natural History made a giant diorama exhibit on the L.A. River, it was only fitting to call on SABER to create a monumental piece in it.
SABER was born in 1976 in the Greater Los Angeles city of Glendale to artist parents who had both attended the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. Little SABER would often hang out at Art Center with his parents. “As a young child,” he recalls, “I had the opportunity to play around the experimental concept cars, and I was surrounded by artwork and drawings.” His mother worked at Don Post Studios, where SABER remembered playing on the original 30-foot half-torso of King Kong, among other movie sets. “My mom had the original face-sucker from the movie Aliens in her office.”
As a skateboarding high-schooler infatuated with graffiti, he would also get a taste of his chaotic future. “I was given the name SABER by this kid in class, and I loved the letter combination. The same day I earned my name, I was walking with the kid who gave me my name and the girl who gave me my first blowjob, in McDonald’s. As we walked across the street, I was holding her hand and she was struck by a car. She was tossed about 15 feet onto the center divider. She was lying on the ground with blood leaking out of her head and a glazed look in her eyes. Simultaneously, everything went slow-motion and the kid who had given me the name was being assaulted by a large crew of real gangsters with knives and bats. This is where my life as a graff artist began. I knew what I was in for.”