There’s this fellow named Roger Gastman out there, one of those guys whose work you’ve almost certainly seen even if you don’t know his name, and what we’ve got here today is a set of three prints arranged by him for your consumption. These prints are part of a greater project by the name of “Tools of Criminal Mischief,” a limited edition book to which these prints “The Cans” are a companion. Before you start having a heart attack over how lovely these combinations of ink and paper are, let’s talk for a moment about who this legendary everyman is, and why he loves to hang on to rust-collecting cans of poison so much.

First, you can get these prints right now (unless they’re sold out of course) over at GraffSupply for $95 USD each or $250 USD for a full set. Each print is part of an edition of 250, each is hand-numbered, and each of them is a Giclee Print on Epson Somerset Fine Art stock 255GSM. That means they aren’t a screenprint, they aren’t painted, they’re printed from a printer – a very, very nice printer on very, very nice paper. These will last you basically forever is what that means.

These cans were recently part of an exhibition at MOCA called Art in the Streets, and Gastman once again now has them in his home (or in a closet somewhere wrecking the linoleum on the floor, I’m not sure on that.) What I am sure on is that I’ve got some work by Gastman on my bookshelf right now. This is the guy who created the book Freight Train Art, helped start one of the coolest short-lived magazines in history SWINDLE with Shepard Fariey, (may this magazine rest in peace, by the way,) and back when he was 19 he borrowed $4,000 USD from his mother to start a magazine by the name of While You Were Sleeping, a graffiti inspired magazine that you won’t have a whole heck of a lot of luck finding any information about on the internet. Grab yourself an issue from Electronic Bay if you’re feeling lucky today.

The image you see here shows Gastman sitting amongst a small part of his massive collection of graffiti history, this photo taken by Freshly Serious back in March of 2011 for a post called Graffiti Gasping by S.D. Rockswell. Gastman is currently pursuing art projects, archival projects, and a general continuation of his collection of most excellent Graffiti artifacts. — thanks for the tip, RG!