August 2009: MC Deathbear in Ithaca

There's something about bears that intrigues people. In Grizzly Man, activist Timothy Treadwell lived with a group of black bears in the western United States. We name football teams after them, listen to their advice on preventing wildfires, and even mold chewy candies into bite-sized bear-shaped treats. In short, bears are badass.

MC Deathbear falls into this badass bear category. Between the stickers, stencils, cartoons, and tees, there's no medium too obscure for the Ithaca-based artist. The photos and clips in this post only scratch the surface of what Deathbear's got going on. He writes:

"I've been an artist my whole life, but I didn't really start cutting stencils and doing street art heavily until I saw a Banksy show in NYC. First, I'd just like to say I'm not a hater and I enjoy most of his art work, but the whole time I was looking at the show I was thinking to myself, 'I could do this....I know how he makes these....I could do this.'"

"From there, I started cutting and tagging stencils more. I mostly just make stencils of things that I like (Star Wars, bears and video games, ha.) I just make things that I think are cool... it really isn't much deeper then that."
"The Kimbo Slice Stencil and the MC DEATH BEAR logo are lazer cut out of plexiglass and are both 15x15. I tagged them last summer in Ithaca, NY."
"The other pieces are hand cut stencils sprayed on large stickers for easy tagging. After a close run-in, I got nervous running around with cans for a while...ha. These were also tagged in Ithaca, NY."

"Thank you so much for using my art work for your blog; I really appreciate it. Also there will be an MC DEATH BEAR t-shirt in the Domestic spring 2010 clothing line. When they come out in a couple of months, I'll let you know and try and get you a t-shirt!"

Awesome, Deathbear! I can totally picture this cartoon on Adult Swim next to Aqua Teen Hunger Force and Tom Goes to the Mayor. Anybody else in Ithaca want to comment on his stuff? I'm psyched about the tee shirts and will definitely rock one with pride. For more Deathbear photos, check out his blog.