ICHABOD
| ICHABOD | |
|---|---|
| File:Ichabod freight.jpgFile:Ichabod freight.jpg ICHABOD's signature | |
| Native name | ICHABOD YME Circle-T BMC SFL |
| Born | |
| 🏳️ Nationality | American |
| 💼 Occupation | |
| Known for | Freight tags, Skull Cliff |
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ICHABOD, also known as ICH, ICHOR or simply by a signature skull image is a prolific freight train graffiti artist in the United States. He began writing tags in the early 1990's and has remained one of the most well known and celebrated underground writers ever since. Despite his underground fame, ICHABOD has never come into the mainstream and claimed fame from his work and his identity remains unknown.[1]
History[edit]
Little is known about ICHABOD's life.[dubious ] He was a railfan in his early life before he knew about or was interested in writing graffiti. Whilst illegally visiting train stations and rail yards to watch trains as a hobby, he used to make fireworks and explosives out of abandoned flares.[2] When walking around yards he became aware of the idea that tags made on freight trains would travel around the whole country and would be visible to millions of people.[3]
Signature[edit]
ICHABOD is most well known by his signature tag. ICH written tick-tock on the lower-middle of freight train cars, accompanied by a skeleton figure holding an index finger up. When bombed fully, the name ICHABOD is written fully tick-tocked over a whole car without a character. Though this is his most common design, ICHABOD has also thrown up bubble tags, character-only tags and occasionally photo-realistic pictures. Although the vast majority of his work is on train cars, ICHABOD has pieces on walls and bridges, often in unconventional styles.[4] ICHABOD is a member of the prolific graffiti crew YME (Year-round Metal Enjoyment) and was shortly featured in a feature-length 2015 documentary created about the group by Mint Films titled "Year-round Metal Enjoyment", for which he also wrote a foreword. [5]
Skull Cliff[edit]
In 2001, ICHABOD laboriously covered an entire man-made quarry rock face with skulls and bones in Lynnfield, Massachusetts. Colloquially dubbed 'Skull Cliff', the unofficial landmark has attracted widespread fame and has become a landmark of the local area, even appearing in the Atlas Obscura,[6] as well as being the top Google Maps landmark for the area.[7] The art piece is emblazoned with the tag -
"TAKE THE KNOWLEDGE THAT YOU WILL SOMEDAY BE THESE BONES AND ENJOY NOW ALL THAT IS PRECIOUS. ICHABOD. YME.. 2001.
It has become a popular photographic spot and local geocache location. [8] In the 2010 book The New England Grimpendium by Edgar-award winning author J.W. Ocker, Skull Cliff was described as "Some kind of two-dimensional technicolor archaeological dig or rainbow, the leprechaun at the end of which you wouldn't want to meet". [9] The artwork often appears in lists of 'creepy' or 'haunted' sites of interest such as those created by Massachusetts' largest news source MassLive. [10]
Culture[edit]
Despite his illegal art, ICHABOD has become a well known figure in the model railway fan culture. His graffiti-tagged railway freight train cars have become so well known that model replicas of them are now sold to railway collectors. [11] Many fan groups have been been created around trying to locate and document his work, the largest being a flickr based group that has currently amassed over 3600 unique photographs of his art. [12]
References[edit]
- ↑ "ICHABOD: Ooh, I like that one". Graffradio.com. Retrieved 22 January 2019.
- ↑ "Parallel Rails: ICHABOD". Theworldsbestever.com. 22 September 2015. Retrieved 22 January 2019.
- ↑ [1][dead link]
- ↑ "ICHABOD THE RAIL GOD". Nothingbutart.net. 3 January 2017. Retrieved 22 January 2019.
- ↑ "Year-round Metal Enjoyment". Year-round Metal Enjoyment. Retrieved 22 January 2019.
- ↑ "Skull Cliff". Atlas Obscura. Retrieved 22 January 2019.
- ↑ "skull cliff massachusetts". Google.com. Retrieved 22 January 2019.
- ↑ "Geocaching - The Official Global GPS Cache Hunt Site". Geocaching.com. Retrieved 22 January 2019.
- ↑ Ocker, J.W. (20 September 2010). The New England Grimpendium. Search this book on
- ↑ "10 creepiest things in the woods of Massachusetts, from Skull Cliff to Satans Kingdom". MassLive.com. Text "https://www.masslive.com/entertainment/index.ssf/2017/10/13_creepiest_things_in_the_woo.html" ignored (help); Missing or empty
|url=(help);|access-date=requires|url=(help) - ↑ http://www.tophobbytrains.com/99305350weatheredcoveredhopper-ichabodgraffiti3-pack-weatheredgraffitinscale.aspx
- ↑ "ICHABOD, the rail fiend group". Flickr.com. Retrieved 24 January 2019.
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