One of Dreams’ last piece in 1999 with SPIE

For newcomers to street art in San Francisco, Mike Francisco, known as Dream and King Dream from the East Bay was one of the original Bay Area writers and a TDK crew member. He began writing around 1983 and was very passionate about letters and writing and took an active stance in his beliefs. He was senselessly murdered during a street robbery in Oakland on February 17, 2000 when he was only 30 years old. His legacy has been kept alive by friends and family with tribute pieces and events around the Bay Area.

Dream TDK graffiti Wall on Alemany at Bayshore

“I’ve been writin’ since 1983 and basically started as most writers do in the fame game, getting up as much as possible pushin’ you and only you. But once you get past that stage I think it gets to a point where depending on what type of individual you are and the type of consciousness you’re grown up around, then you owe it to your people to drop some kind of consciousness. So everything we have here was something to do with pushing the struggle.” Dream

You can find one of those tributes in San Francisco at 100 Alemany Boulevard close Bayshore Blvd, where 101 and 280 converge. The wall there is completely dedicated to Dream with about a dozen pieces all saying Dream, including his piece that is shown above.

Photography by Joe Dallmann, contributor to Streetartsf

“Style is the most important thing in writing. It’s your identity. It’s what sets you apart from everybody else.” Dream

Learn more about him by watching this video and visiting Mike Dream Site . Check out our Dream page