Yesterday, I met with the San Francisco Arts Commission committee. I'm taking part in the Street Artist program this summer... I'm going to be one of those guys behind a booth that you see at the wharf or downtown or at the plaza by the Ferry Building. The coolest part of the day was when I was showing my work to be approved by the committee, one of the committee members bought a painting. Ha!
Also, something I thought was pretty interesting -- they remarked that a lot of high quality artists had been coming through the street artist program this year, and thought that because of the bad economy, the arts festival circuit has been dismal. And believe me, especially this year, it is DISMAL. Consequently, a lot of the artists who count on festival sales as a big part of their income have been looking for other avenues, and I'm not surprised that the Street Artist program is one of them.
This leads into something I've thought about for a while, that as scary and inpenetrable as this whole situation seems, I can see a momentum picking up for great community to come together. This summer's bleak prospects are going to flood the streets of San Francisco with extremely high quality art, all without a middleman of any kind, which can only make pricing more reasonable. Great art, great value, and the face to face connection of artist with art lover -- seriously, there's a hint of paradise in that scenario.
Just a small sliver of silver lining. But pretty cool nonetheless.
Friday, May 29, 2009
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
You know what I found out? When you're traveling across the most beautiful country in the world having the greatest steak in existence for three months, it's kind of tough to get back into the swing of things once you get home. It has been really hard, but seriously I've had so much to do, I didn't really have a choice. Some updates:
I managed to get my application into the SF Arts Commission to get a Street Artist License for this summer. I was the last one accepted for this month, which is great news, because it would've really sucked to miss out on the entire month of June. Next step, wander around City Hall today and get various paperwork in order, and tomorrow, meet up with the acceptance board with a bunch of paintings and prove that I actually make the work that I plan to sell. Oh yeah, the plan is to sell stenciled landscapes of the San Francisco area.
Since I'll probably be moving around a lot (you get your selling location based on a lottery each morning), I decided to set up a twitter account so I can announce where I'll be. Plus I'm all technomalogical like that. Follow me here.
Hollywood Fringe is going to have a huge website redesign. Basically make it go from a blog to a full blown festival website. This is gonna take some serious work.
Commissions commissions commissions.
Oh yeah, the new wire idea. I got a sketch down, and hopefully will get to figure drawing soon to get some good ideas. You will be seeing these this summer. Different bases, maybe with an injection of color, maybe even pedestal bases.
Threw a poster together for my buddy in LA who is part of a comedy group. They are the funniest people in California. If you live anywhere in the vicinity of LA, you should definitely see this show. Drew and cut out the triceratops stencil, sprayed it on cardboard, and then layed out the text.
I managed to get my application into the SF Arts Commission to get a Street Artist License for this summer. I was the last one accepted for this month, which is great news, because it would've really sucked to miss out on the entire month of June. Next step, wander around City Hall today and get various paperwork in order, and tomorrow, meet up with the acceptance board with a bunch of paintings and prove that I actually make the work that I plan to sell. Oh yeah, the plan is to sell stenciled landscapes of the San Francisco area.
Since I'll probably be moving around a lot (you get your selling location based on a lottery each morning), I decided to set up a twitter account so I can announce where I'll be. Plus I'm all technomalogical like that. Follow me here.
Hollywood Fringe is going to have a huge website redesign. Basically make it go from a blog to a full blown festival website. This is gonna take some serious work.
Commissions commissions commissions.
Oh yeah, the new wire idea. I got a sketch down, and hopefully will get to figure drawing soon to get some good ideas. You will be seeing these this summer. Different bases, maybe with an injection of color, maybe even pedestal bases.
Threw a poster together for my buddy in LA who is part of a comedy group. They are the funniest people in California. If you live anywhere in the vicinity of LA, you should definitely see this show. Drew and cut out the triceratops stencil, sprayed it on cardboard, and then layed out the text.
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
About a year ago, I first started spray painting on windows. I thought it would be an easier process than pouring the concrete panels, so I could charge less and I'd have a less expensive alternative to sell. While I was searching through the salvage yard, I came across some big glass doors. Huge. My imagination instantly lit up with millions of great ideas of what I could paint on them. That was a year ago. They're still sitting in my shop. In a general mood of getting the bulky things out of my life, I decided to finally do something with the windows in my free time and so this week, took sort of a preliminary step.
I bought a window for a commissioned painting a little while ago and I had gotten it back to my shop before I realized that there was a piece broken from the corner. I couldn't use it, so it's been sitting around for a while. Last week, I had a night off and decided to just get some paint down, try to get a feel about what would and wouldn't work on glass. I knew that I'd have to paint backwards, meaning outline and dark crosshatch first, highlight second, shadows next, midtones.... it all got very confusing. I knew that I wanted to go for a crosshatched look. I took out an old book that I have about the blues and sketched a portrait of Ma Rainey. Painted the outlines and highlights and got this:
A couple of nights later, I added some color.
I kept working after that and decided to stop here.
This is definitely far from perfect, and far even from what I had in mind. But I think I know where I went wrong and I think I know how to do it right the next time. The background is better with a simpler color scheme. The text gets all lost. The body needs to be delineated from the background, and I think the body needs as continual a crosshatch as the face. Next up, when I get a free second, I'm going to paint on the big ones. Keep you guys posted.
I bought a window for a commissioned painting a little while ago and I had gotten it back to my shop before I realized that there was a piece broken from the corner. I couldn't use it, so it's been sitting around for a while. Last week, I had a night off and decided to just get some paint down, try to get a feel about what would and wouldn't work on glass. I knew that I'd have to paint backwards, meaning outline and dark crosshatch first, highlight second, shadows next, midtones.... it all got very confusing. I knew that I wanted to go for a crosshatched look. I took out an old book that I have about the blues and sketched a portrait of Ma Rainey. Painted the outlines and highlights and got this:
A couple of nights later, I added some color.
I kept working after that and decided to stop here.
This is definitely far from perfect, and far even from what I had in mind. But I think I know where I went wrong and I think I know how to do it right the next time. The background is better with a simpler color scheme. The text gets all lost. The body needs to be delineated from the background, and I think the body needs as continual a crosshatch as the face. Next up, when I get a free second, I'm going to paint on the big ones. Keep you guys posted.
Saturday, May 16, 2009
Four sculptures in the Carport Gallery in Russian River
Four of my wire sculptures are going up at the Carport Gallery in Guerneville. It's already started, but they're a part of the Russian River Women's Weekend, so if anyone is going to some of those events, make sure to check out the Carport Gallery. It's at 15098 Old River Road in Guerneville.
I was finishing up a bunch of commissions this week, but I have a ton of new work coming soon, so keep your eyes peeled.
Not really related, but I just saw a picture of this for the first time... a friend was traveling through China and sent me this: the Jade Cabbage at the Taipei National Palace Museum. This is stunning. My god.
I was finishing up a bunch of commissions this week, but I have a ton of new work coming soon, so keep your eyes peeled.
Not really related, but I just saw a picture of this for the first time... a friend was traveling through China and sent me this: the Jade Cabbage at the Taipei National Palace Museum. This is stunning. My god.
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Well, faithful blog readers... I'm back. Back in San Francisco, officially back in my house, and already have a full plate of work in front of me.
I apologize about never really posting while I was in Argentina, but take it as a sign that I had an awesome trip. Truly just spectacular. The single most beautiful place I've ever been in my life... probably because the whole country is so huge and varied. I'm not going to go into too too much detail here, but I'll go over some of the highlights. Also, I didn't get to sketch nearly as much as I wanted to. Seriously, we just had too much to do.
We left early February and arrived in Buenos Aires. We went to a hostel in the Palermo district and explored the place for about two weeks.
A typical Palermo scene
What a city.... just amazing. We saw all the big sites, San Telmo, Recoleta Cemetery, La Boca, not to mention had some awesome food. Argentinians are serious about beef. Whereas here in California, we make a big deal about grass-fed beef, Nieman Ranch, that's pretty much the norm over there. The difference in taste is huge, and when they grill it, they do it seriously. It's an all day affair. All cooked over wood-coals, and never rare, but always juicy. Just awesome.
Recoleta Cemetery
A typical lunch - Asado
The street art is amazing. Some highlights that I saw:
In Microcentro
In San Telmo
And some sketches:
From the balcony of our Hostel
Las Viejas near the Casa Rosada
From there, we spent a weekend in Uruguay on the beach at Colonia, where we basically relaxed, had awesome food, and rode horses. We then headed down south to Pinamar, where we stayed with my girlfriend's family, the nicest people on the planet. Some sketches:
El Faro near Pinamar
Man drinking Mate on the beach
Afterwards, we took a 26 hour busride south to El Calafate to see Perito Moreno Glacier.
Spectacular. Standing on the viewing platforms, you can can hear these gunshot cracks of the shifting ice. We decided to take a trek over the glacier... the joke I came up with was, "Tomorrow we're going hiking on Perito Moreno glacier and our guide told us we will have to wear crampons. After an embarrassing trip to the drug store, I learned that these are ice shoes." I'm a mature guy. Anyway, it was spectacular. You see huge caverns dropping into the ice, out of sight. There were electric blue rivers and lakes within the glacier.
A glacial lake
Scotch on the rocks with glacier ice
Next, we crossed the border into Chile and went backpacking for 5 days in Torres Del Paine. This is the most beautiful place I've ever been in my life. The whole thing is stunning. Every time you turn your head, you see some new thing that is just spectacular. By the end, I was nonplussed by just very beautiful things. Sort of like when you go to Europe and in front of a massive thousand year old cathedral, you think, "Huh, a solid gold cathedral. Where's the cafe?"
Me in front of Glacier Gray
5 days and 50 miles of hiking later, we wound our way up to El Bolson and stayed on a farm called Chacra Millalen for a week. We did some work there, dug beds, picked almonds, and did a lot of relaxing. We hired a gaucho to lead us up to a mountain lake on horseback. It was fantastic. And at the end of every day, we would sit down and eat a huge meal cooked with vegetables that were pulled from the ground that morning. Some of the best food of my life.
Chacra Millalen
Next, up to Bariloche where we rented a car and the 7 Lakes tour. Just beautiful. We went right after a big rain though, so half of the road was thick mud. It was pretty much at this point that I became thankful for growing up in New Mexico and learning how to drive on terrible roads.
Mannequin in a mall in Bariloche
We then took a bus up to Mendoza, did the wine/bike tour, went rafting on the River Mendoza (which since it was the end of the season was only a class 2... nothing like when I went rafting on the Zambezi in Zimbabwe. See how I slipped that brag in there?), stopped by Cordoba, and then headed over to Iguazu Falls. Everything was amazing, but Iguazu might've been my collective favorite place. I loved it all: the red earth, the vibrant green of the jungle, the animals... not to mention the massive waterfalls everywhere.
We decided to come back to the falls later that night to look at it under the full moon. This was one of the creepiest things I've ever seen. Like four things that are terrifying to man all together. The next day, we saw the rest of the falls and went on a hike through the jungle, where we saw countless spiders the size of your hand in 10 foot webs, a capybarra (the largest rodent in the world), and a dozen or so monkeys.
A monkey chewing on a bamboo stalk. Look at that face. It shook a branch at me after this trying to scare me off.
A small note here... even though Lonely Planet glosses over the market in Puerto Iguazu, when I went there, it had some of the best craftsmanship I had seen in Argentina. Seriously. We had seen carved mate gourds everywhere, in every feria artesenal all over the country, top to bottom, but there's one guy in Puerto Iguazu that takes it to another level. They were just beautiful pieces. I bought three... I'll try to post some pictures soon.
We stopped for a quick visit to Misiones, the ruins of an old Jesuit mission. Fascinating history.
Then back to Buenos Aires. We stayed in San Telmo this time, and liked it a lot more. The Sunday feria is awesome... I'm not a huge fan of the antiques part, but the artist booths around it are great. We ate at some great restaurants... Petanque in San Telmo is great. French food, the rabbit stew in particular is great... and in Palermo, you have to go to Lele de Troya. We went here once at the beginning of the trip and also our last night in Buenos Aires. It's a beautiful restaurant visually, and the food is great, specifically the clams and the fish of the day (especially if it's white fish).
Then, we flew home... our backpacks full of dulce de leche. Nice to be back, nice to be back at work, but damn I miss it. What a place. What an amazing place.
Alright, back to work. I had quite a few commission requests while I was away so I'm hurrying to get them done... several painting commissions and a wire sculpture.
Oh yeah, while I was walking through the woods in Chile, I got an idea for a new way to do wire sculptures. How cliche is that? But if I can pull this off, and I'm not sure I can yet, it's going to be phenomenal.
I apologize about never really posting while I was in Argentina, but take it as a sign that I had an awesome trip. Truly just spectacular. The single most beautiful place I've ever been in my life... probably because the whole country is so huge and varied. I'm not going to go into too too much detail here, but I'll go over some of the highlights. Also, I didn't get to sketch nearly as much as I wanted to. Seriously, we just had too much to do.
We left early February and arrived in Buenos Aires. We went to a hostel in the Palermo district and explored the place for about two weeks.
A typical Palermo scene
What a city.... just amazing. We saw all the big sites, San Telmo, Recoleta Cemetery, La Boca, not to mention had some awesome food. Argentinians are serious about beef. Whereas here in California, we make a big deal about grass-fed beef, Nieman Ranch, that's pretty much the norm over there. The difference in taste is huge, and when they grill it, they do it seriously. It's an all day affair. All cooked over wood-coals, and never rare, but always juicy. Just awesome.
Recoleta Cemetery
A typical lunch - Asado
The street art is amazing. Some highlights that I saw:
In Microcentro
In San Telmo
And some sketches:
From the balcony of our Hostel
Las Viejas near the Casa Rosada
From there, we spent a weekend in Uruguay on the beach at Colonia, where we basically relaxed, had awesome food, and rode horses. We then headed down south to Pinamar, where we stayed with my girlfriend's family, the nicest people on the planet. Some sketches:
El Faro near Pinamar
Man drinking Mate on the beach
Afterwards, we took a 26 hour busride south to El Calafate to see Perito Moreno Glacier.
Spectacular. Standing on the viewing platforms, you can can hear these gunshot cracks of the shifting ice. We decided to take a trek over the glacier... the joke I came up with was, "Tomorrow we're going hiking on Perito Moreno glacier and our guide told us we will have to wear crampons. After an embarrassing trip to the drug store, I learned that these are ice shoes." I'm a mature guy. Anyway, it was spectacular. You see huge caverns dropping into the ice, out of sight. There were electric blue rivers and lakes within the glacier.
A glacial lake
Scotch on the rocks with glacier ice
Next, we crossed the border into Chile and went backpacking for 5 days in Torres Del Paine. This is the most beautiful place I've ever been in my life. The whole thing is stunning. Every time you turn your head, you see some new thing that is just spectacular. By the end, I was nonplussed by just very beautiful things. Sort of like when you go to Europe and in front of a massive thousand year old cathedral, you think, "Huh, a solid gold cathedral. Where's the cafe?"
Me in front of Glacier Gray
5 days and 50 miles of hiking later, we wound our way up to El Bolson and stayed on a farm called Chacra Millalen for a week. We did some work there, dug beds, picked almonds, and did a lot of relaxing. We hired a gaucho to lead us up to a mountain lake on horseback. It was fantastic. And at the end of every day, we would sit down and eat a huge meal cooked with vegetables that were pulled from the ground that morning. Some of the best food of my life.
Chacra Millalen
Next, up to Bariloche where we rented a car and the 7 Lakes tour. Just beautiful. We went right after a big rain though, so half of the road was thick mud. It was pretty much at this point that I became thankful for growing up in New Mexico and learning how to drive on terrible roads.
Mannequin in a mall in Bariloche
We then took a bus up to Mendoza, did the wine/bike tour, went rafting on the River Mendoza (which since it was the end of the season was only a class 2... nothing like when I went rafting on the Zambezi in Zimbabwe. See how I slipped that brag in there?), stopped by Cordoba, and then headed over to Iguazu Falls. Everything was amazing, but Iguazu might've been my collective favorite place. I loved it all: the red earth, the vibrant green of the jungle, the animals... not to mention the massive waterfalls everywhere.
We decided to come back to the falls later that night to look at it under the full moon. This was one of the creepiest things I've ever seen. Like four things that are terrifying to man all together. The next day, we saw the rest of the falls and went on a hike through the jungle, where we saw countless spiders the size of your hand in 10 foot webs, a capybarra (the largest rodent in the world), and a dozen or so monkeys.
A monkey chewing on a bamboo stalk. Look at that face. It shook a branch at me after this trying to scare me off.
A small note here... even though Lonely Planet glosses over the market in Puerto Iguazu, when I went there, it had some of the best craftsmanship I had seen in Argentina. Seriously. We had seen carved mate gourds everywhere, in every feria artesenal all over the country, top to bottom, but there's one guy in Puerto Iguazu that takes it to another level. They were just beautiful pieces. I bought three... I'll try to post some pictures soon.
We stopped for a quick visit to Misiones, the ruins of an old Jesuit mission. Fascinating history.
Then back to Buenos Aires. We stayed in San Telmo this time, and liked it a lot more. The Sunday feria is awesome... I'm not a huge fan of the antiques part, but the artist booths around it are great. We ate at some great restaurants... Petanque in San Telmo is great. French food, the rabbit stew in particular is great... and in Palermo, you have to go to Lele de Troya. We went here once at the beginning of the trip and also our last night in Buenos Aires. It's a beautiful restaurant visually, and the food is great, specifically the clams and the fish of the day (especially if it's white fish).
Then, we flew home... our backpacks full of dulce de leche. Nice to be back, nice to be back at work, but damn I miss it. What a place. What an amazing place.
Alright, back to work. I had quite a few commission requests while I was away so I'm hurrying to get them done... several painting commissions and a wire sculpture.
Oh yeah, while I was walking through the woods in Chile, I got an idea for a new way to do wire sculptures. How cliche is that? But if I can pull this off, and I'm not sure I can yet, it's going to be phenomenal.
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