I really wanted to feature the Ramones, but on a trip to the beach with my family, they convinced me that anyone who could do more than 100 sold out shows would beat the Ramones as New York’s greatest musician. He’s the piano man, so I wanted to incorporate that in his piece, along with the New York tags. I recreated his image with vintage license plates arranged in a small mosaic in the center hole. Funny thing about this piece: after posting it on Instagram, it was liked by two members of his band, and has gotten a lot of attention.

I used Michigan tags to create the J, O and L in JOEL.