Stencil artist Scott Williams, digital artist/publisher Dana Smith, and artist Fred Rinne have created a book that combines William’s masterful airbrush stencil paintings with Smith’s crisp digital photo-collage and Rinne’s darkly humorous text. The book is hand-bound with hard-painted covers, inkjet printed and hand painted; it is the AP for an unpublished second edition.

Rinne’s cyber-Beat description of his former – and Williams’ and Smith’s current – San Francisco Mission District neighborhood is amplified and illuminated by Williams’ and Smith’s vibrant illustrations. Rinne evokes Philip K. Dick in his trenchantly humorous yet penetrating portrait of a singular city. And while San Francisco doesn’t really need any exaggeration to reveal its conflicts and contrasts, Rinne, Smith, and Williams stretch the story so far that they could be documenting a city on another planet in another galaxy entirely.

Watch Your Step focuses on illustrating Williams’ heavily stencil-painted apartment of over twenty years. The book’s numerous Borgean twists of oblique autobiography suggest that Williams’ front step is, indeed, a portal into numerous shattered universes, not all entirely pleasant.

Photos and design by Dana Smith.
Text and binding by Fred Rinne.
Spraypaint stenciling by Scott Williams.
Digitally printed, signed by the artists.
AP for an unpublished (canceled) 2nd edition. 28 pages. 17.5×11.5.” 2012.