Sacha Jenkins & David Villorente Unleash "WorldPiece Book" (PHOTOS)

"World PieceBook: The Secret Drawings of Graffiti Writers" is the third incarnation of the seminal and wildly original and popular graffiti books "PieceBook" and "PieceBook Reloaded: The Secret Drawings of Graffiti Writers" by veteran graffiti scholars and practitioners Sacha Jenkins and David Villorente.

Published by Prestel and SHR Airlines, Jenkin's imprint, the books gave insight into some of the practices of some of the world's most well known graffiti artists via the black book, the sounding board for graffiti pieces. Included in the series were PINK, Lee Quinones, KEO, Blade & ESPO amongst dozens of writers your moms complained about while riding the IRT in the '70s and '80s.

This time round, however, Villorente and Jenkins take the show on the road by tapping writers around the world including graffiti artists from Korea, South Africa, Japan, Croatia, Israel and Greece, to list a few of the countries represented in the book. Many of the writers are also women and include MOTEL 7,  KLOR and MAD C.

"World PieceBook" is scheduled for launch today in New York.

GlobalGrind spoke to Villorente and Jenkins about the process. Here's some of what was said.

Sacha Jenkins, shouting out from a Korean deli in one of the NYC boroughs via telephone, on how the book came about: 

"It started with the two "PieceBook" volumes, first one 1973-1987; Second Volume 87-2007. We were in this place where we felt like we covered a lot of ground. We looked at each other and thought, what was there to do next? The name World Piece made so much sense. Dave reached out to some of his peeps around the world, and folks got real excited about it."

David Villorente shouting out from BROOKLYN!:

"I used some of the relationships I had established with in the international graffiti community. Its safe for me to say there isn't a corner of the globe that graffiti has not touched. Had you asked me a few years back, I would have said most of the talent abroad was concentrated in a handful of European cities; Germany, France... but that's no longer the case. Even some of the tropical regions, and Third-world nations of the world, seem to flourishing graffiti communities. Their scenes may be a little less sophisticated for the time being. But for the most part, there's legitimate talent around the world."

What were some of the challenges you faced when putting together this book?

Villorente:  The new book presented a handful of unique challenges unlike the two previous books where we were able to go to people's houses and look at their books. A lot of the communication was at a great distance and, at times, a handful of details were lost in translation; language barriers, time constraints and time differences all presented unique challenges. But in the end, everyone was excited to get involved with the new book. We successfully managed to compile some amazing illustrations from around the world.