Featured in the first issue of Hobo Nickels, RAT GAS is my own name for the extremely prolific artist of the “Triple Cities” area (Binghamton, Endicott, and Johnson City, NY), since “rat gas” is a term used in a few of his pieces. He wheat-pastes, staples, and nails hand-written posters with three main themes: God is good, drugs are bad, and abortion is wrong. Through presidencies and panics, he very rarely strays from these three topics. Between 2017-2021 I photographed his work, and even had the chance to meet him once (he was a friendly man). These are some of those photos:
In over 15 years of involvement with graffiti/street art, even the most prolific artists rarely come close to the scale of RAT GAS, who will paste five, six, seven layers of his own work atop older pieces as they begin to deteriorate and fade, and who walks miles on foot across town to spread his messages. Any time I have occasion to visit the area I keep an eye out for him. RAT GAS sightings were one of my very favorite parts of living in the area.
