Rob Larsen

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I'm Rob Larsen and Java+++ is my blog for all things not related to my day job. Everything here on the blog is authored by me in one way or another. If you're curious who I am, continue reading for an in-depth view into who I am and what I've been up to for the past few decades.

Art

The path to this point in my creative life is surprisingly direct. Bits grow on top of bits and styles evolve, but everything I am now as an artist can be accurately traced back to the kid who’d been a regular at the MFA since before he could walk, started drawing as soon as he could hold a pencil and immersed himself in the energy and urban chaos of graffiti in the 1980s. Currently all of that stuff (and the intervening 25+ years) is funneled into work that tries to distill the energy of the city and the freestyle typography of graffiti onto canvas. My process tries to replicate the layering of city walls and the random, energetic way that the environment and man conspire to transform the city’s surfaces.

I've shown my art regularly over the past several years. I've been fortunate to have my art hang alongside artists like Seen, Cope2, Blade, T-Kid, Rickey Powell, Sever, Tracy 168, Ces, Med, Sever, Kem5, Alert, Vault, Alone, Percy Fortini Wright, Sly and Rath. Here's a full list of shows I've taken part in:

I've been interviewed dozens of times for everything from school papers to web sites, books and newspapers about the subject of graffiti art. My comments on the subject have appeared in several places including the the Weekly Dig, local arts website Big, Red and Shiny and in The History of American Graffiti.

I've also done some illustration, both black and white and color, for several local publications; most notably a cover for the Weekly Dig's graffiti issue.

Writing

I've written professionally, on and off, for more than 20 years now. These days I mostly write about technology. Here's a list of what I've been up to from a technology writing perspective.

Other Writing

I wrote about cinema for several years for Boston's Weekly Dig (where I also served as Film Editor), Shovel Magazine and The Boston Metro. My movies archive contains my (almost) complete film writing archive. I was fortunate to interview some very cool people, including Jackie Chan, Donnie Yen, and Darren Aronofsky

When I was younger I also co-wrote and co-produced a play called Black Cats and White Lies that played at the C. Walsh Theater at Suffolk University.

I also wrote a cover article about collectible comics for Rare Book Review and an article about social networking (many years ago) for Association Meetings magazine.

Day Job

Here's my fancy web developer bio

Rob has more than 13 years experience as a front end engineer and team lead, building web sites and applications for some of the world’s biggest brands. Rob is an active writer and speaker on web technology with a special focus on emerging standards like HTML5, CSS3 and the ongoing evolution of the JavaScript programming language. He is co-author of Professional jQuery and the author of Beginning HTML and CSS He’s also active in the open source community, helping to bridge the gap between the front lines of web development and the people actively working on the tools that drive the web. In his career Rob has spent time at Sapient Global Markets, Isobar, The Brand Experience, Cramer and as an independent consultant. Over the course of his career Rob has solved unique problems for clients like Adidas, Motorola, Philips, Reebok, Gillette, Boston’s Museum of Science, State Street Corporation and Harvard Kennedy School.

Check out HTML + CSS + JavaScript for more details.

Teaching/Speaking

I teach and speak regularly. Again I spend a lot of time talking about technology, but I so spend some time teaching and talking about graffiti and street art.

Comics

I worked as an inker in the traditional collaborative process for several years. My credits in that regard include:

Not art-related, but definitely comics related, I maintain a general comics blog at itsalljustcomics.com called "It's All Just Comics" that deals with everything from the world's most valuable collectible comics to the latest/greatest Comics/Manga/BD on the shelves.

The Important Stuff

Beyond all that I live in Boston with my wife and our two cats. She does UI Design and the cats are frisky. We have fun together.