Pawn Works Unveils Sticker Collection: Nick and Seth Tell the Story

December 17, 2011 Artists, Chicago, Gallery

Do you geek out on stickers? Come on, you know you do. To you, the world is a place where slapping and hitting are good things to do on your daily travels, especially if the surface is dust free. We are regularly smacked in the email with exhortations to come out to huge sticker fests and New York has probably a few hundred doorways that are so slapped up and multi-layered with gluey handmade postal labels and mass produced vinyl tags that if a bomb blasted inside the whole door would blow off in one piece. Most sticker fiends point back to the late 70s, early 80s as the time of genesis for this phenomenal addiction and passion, possibly encouraged by Miss Marsette, your second grade teacher who had a pretty figure and pleasing perfume and who used to put a Papa Smurf or unicorn sticker on your History report to award your good work.

For many Street Artists and graffers and collectors and fans of stickers, it is a life-long love: Just ask Dave and Holly Combs, who have run Peel Magazine in print and online since 2003 , or MAD One, who has been running Sticker Phiends in Phoenix since ’08, and King Rid and Jice of Brass Knuckle Crew, who hosted a proper show this summer in New York with contributors from around the world. Add to that list Seth Mooney and Nick Marzullo, founders of Pawn Works in Chicago, who this week formally proclaimed a long love affair with the humble sticker by mounting a personal tribute with a lot of history totally taking over the gallery windows – a moving and triumphant event in their sticker geekery. They’ve been minting their own line of home-made stickers for a little over a year, but this installation takes in a couple of decades.

Pawn Works Gallery: Sticker Collage (photo © Brock Brake)

Brooklyn Street Art is lucky that photographer Brock Brake was on the scene to capture the momentous proceedings and even more fortunate to get this very personal insight into some of their history and personal favorites from the guys:

“As sticker heads and collectors ourselves producing and distributing stickers for artists from all over the world via the Pawn Works Sticker Club we have obsessed since day one. All the way back to the days of repping Cruella DeVille and The 101 Dalmation’s, He-Man, Scrooge McDuck, G.I. Joe and other childhood favorites on our sippy cup’s. Both Seth and I can remember holding certain stickers over 18 years ago back to before we were teens. Some of those stickers and many more hoarded over the years as well as new jewels created through the club over the last year, reached their final destination.

Pawn Works Gallery: Sticker Collage (photo © Brock Brake)

We committed our ‘priceless’ stickers to an intense vinyl sticker collage representing the essence of what Pawn Works is about, the love and support of those responsible for the culture in which we are ensconced in. We often reminisce of our time as harmless teen deviants taking Stussy Clothing labels off of shirts from the mall back when the price tags/labels doubled as unique, hard to get, vinyl stickers. Anyways, we spent most of February last year making this collage to have on permanent display at Pawn Works. This year we are going to display it publicly along with the help of our friend Lucas Blair from Hedrich Blessing Photographers and Vinyl Wrap Technician from Roll Out Industries in Brooklyn, Michael Yrigoyen.

Pawn Works Gallery: Sticker Collage (photo © Brock Brake)

A few of our personal stand-outs include the instant classic logo of street wear boutique Bodego spelling out their name using the logos of Major League Baseball teams, which was quite common in the 90’s into the early 2000’s. The use of the Montreal Expo’s logo as the ‘e’ plays on so many levels for us, we love this sticker so much that we don’t feel bad it was taken off a hostess pad at a pub so many years ago. We can’t forget an all time favorite in the 513 OG Circle Sticker. Representing Cincinnati and the grime of their streets, this sticker was everywhere long before we were anywhere. This particular sticker thrived on a privately-owned Tetris Arcade game for so many years and thankfully was salvaged along with the Tetris machine from a damaging personal relationship. Got away with the sticker! Collectively, we love this sticker.

Pawn Works Gallery: Sticker Collage (photo © Brock Brake)

The Beastie Boys Ill Communication window sticker 4 pack and J-Dilla’s The Shining album cover sticker top our music charts. With a strong representation of stickers from the music, street and skate cultures, representing brands, boutiques, and important figures in the scene and our lives from Harold Hunter, Keith Haring, Mark Gonzales, Harmony Korine, Jeff Staple, The Dude and more we pay homage to the artists, designers and players on all levels. More notable stand outs include the original Cost and Revs stickers from the Early 90’s, Skewville’s Keep On Grass 1st edition on clear vinyl (small), many hand drawn labels from Evoker,Amuse,Poor One,Full Quip, KWT Crew, ATAK, DMS crew, Full Bleed and more, the scratch ‘n’ sniff pot leaf stickers are always a favorite for us as well. As are the original Ox-Fam Banksy stickers,the endless amount of hand-cut vinyl’s from SKAM Sticker Artist out of Portland, the over-sized classic ‘not for the handicap’ sticker from Gabriel Specter and anything by The Grocer.”

~ Nick Marzullo and Seth Mooney, from Pawn Works