BEWM
AUSTIN, TX
He signed his art BEWM, pronounced "Boom." A lover of stickers and street art, BEWM lived for the trade, collaboration, and the shared moment of making. He collected stickers from people all over the world and gave his own away just as freely, always trading, always adding to the pile. He taught himself to make stickers and street art, refining his style through repetition.
He was only 18 and carried the weight of an old soul. He didn't always find his place easily but never stopped making one for everyone else. He found his people within the art community and made sure no one else had to search as hard as he did to find theirs. Wherever he showed up, everyone was welcome. He was always the first to notice those who didn't quite fit in, who felt unseen or lost.
Bringing people together to create was his way of reaching out and making room for others. It was also how he fought his own loneliness.
Art was how he carried his own heart. When feelings became too big for words, he made something. It gave shape to emotions he couldn't always explain, and sharing it turned isolation into connection. Every sticker traded, every wall painted, every late-night conversation around a sketchbook was another way of reminding himself, and everyone around him, that they belonged.
He was relentless about it. He reached out to established artists on Instagram and through direct messages, asking about their work and whether they had time to meet up. Austin artists like Chilly Willy, War Class, Rabbit Snake, and others noticed him, took him under their wing, and shared what they knew.
He didn't just want to make art; he wanted to do it right. He asked the artists who took him in about the unwritten rules: where it was okay to put a sticker up, where it wasn't, how to add to a wall without covering someone else's work. Street art has its own etiquette, earned through years of practice, and BEWM wanted to learn it properly rather than assume he already knew. That kind of respect for the culture and the people in it was part of what made the older artists trust him. He wasn't just passing through. He was learning to belong to something, and to protect it.
Some of the artists BEWM brought together had kept their distance from one another, territorial in the way creative scenes sometimes become. BEWM got them in the same room. After he passed, they kept meeting up. They still do.
If he was awake, he was connecting and creating. Walls, notebooks, cardboard; if it could hold ink or paint, BEWM could imagine a better version of it. But more than any surface, his medium was people.
His true canvas was community.
He turned acquaintances into friends and friends into family. His art wasn't only what he left on walls. It was what he sparked between people.
BEWM also carried big feelings, heavy and real. Like too many young people, he met the pressure of a loud world with a tender heart. In 2023, BEWM died by suicide. That sentence is difficult to read, but it is not the headline of his life.
The headline is this:
BEWM loved boldly. He created relentlessly. And he made people feel seen.
We tell his story honestly because secrets isolate and truth connects. We strive to keep doing the work he cared about most: kindness, art, and community.
As Drop 008 in the BEWM Canvas Series, this one feels especially close to home.
BEWM’s work was built on curiosity, connection, and the belief that art was meant to be shared. From stickers and sketchbooks to walls across Austin, he created with an instinct to bring people in, make space, and leave something behind for the next person to discover.
This bag carries a piece of that spirit. More than coffee, it’s a celebration of the art, energy, and community BEWM helped create, and a reminder to keep making things, keep finding your people, and leave your mark wherever you can.
