Here are some ridiculous promotional photos for this summer’s upcoming shows featuring Ocean-themed screenprint projects. I might regret this.
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I sure am getting lots of mileage out of my Cliff House/Ocean Beach/Seal Rocks stencils, and here is a recent permutation. It is a birthday present for EB, and also an un-subtle homage to one of my favorite works by the artist Ed Ruscha that I have admired it in the DeYoung museum many times.
Ruscha is a West Coast artist who participated in the Warhol/Lichtenstein driven pop-art movement, and later went on make a series of highly awesome word art paintings in the seventies and eighties. He is one of my favorite American artists. As a mantra, “a particular sort of heaven” perfectly encapsulates my personal West Coast experience, the highlight of which has been finding EB.
(By the way, Ruscha’s “a particular sort of heaven” is incomplete without considering this companion piece)
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A Particular Kind of Heaven | Screenprint on Paper | 19×19 inches | 2013
Last weekend I took my live screenprinting act on the road.
By on the road, I mean four blocks from my studio to Root Division for the second annual Misfit Toy Factory.
It’s a live artmaking event featuring over 35 artists making sculptures, toys, and gifts onsite in the gallery space at Root Division. All works made in this one night only event are cash and carry for $40 each and benefit RD. It’s like a holiday-themed sweatshop for artists, except without the paycheck. I made nine pieces inspired from a visit to California’s other Ocean Beach, in San Diego.
Here is a Picassa album with most of the work. Here some of my pictures:
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October was so busy, I didn’t get to put much here. As a cheap substitute here are some pictures from my life from this month:
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Another winter, another drawn out slog though ever shortening days.
This year, in addition to the usual pattern of increasingly diminishing daylight, I have for whatever reason also been paying attention to the actual path of that low December sun.
And until recently I was doing a good job of keeping this new routine rooted in tangible, real life experience. Then the internet seized hold.
Did you know that in these parts, the sun goes from reaching a maximum angle of elevation in the sky of almost a 70° in June to less than 25° now. Not only that, but the total travel of the east to west path from sunrise to sunset goes from well over 240° in the summer to 150° now. (The sunset doesn’t even make it past due west after September). All the details can be interpolated on this chart:
The positive trade off is the angular, more horizontal moving light. The sunset lasts a lot longer and the golden hour is like an hour long, even if the hour in question starts at 4:30. And of course one of the best things about the west coast is that the sun sets over the Pacific Ocean, the biggest thing in the world. It’s been pretty striking to watch this year and I have collected some photos. I suppose that’s the point here.
Cue the clickable content:
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OK The image for the Cowboys and Indians pieces is ready. I printed out the exposure mask from on two 11×17 inch sheets, which will be joined to burn the screen. This will be a two layer print and this is the top layer. From the western sand dunes:
After I print the image on the 4 quilts I sewed out of 1970’s Italian comix, the final pieces might look something like the following artist’s conception of the artist’s conception.
Recent Ocean Beach finds:
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I have a few new artists joining my CELLspace screen printing studio this month. Consequently , I thought it would be nice to set shop up with a proper sign, so I unpacked a piece of very special driftwood I have been saving and set to work ruining it with my art. I found this wood at Mile Rock Beach in San Francisco five years ago and really, nothing I could print on it could ever improve it in an aesthetic sense. But that has never stopped me before and I have been saving this for a special occasion so tonight I fired up the old t-shirt press and threw down a simple three layer print. Then I screwed in on the door. Took me less than an hour. (Click to enlarge)
The t-shirt press allows one to adjust the height of the screen on the platen.
I secured the wood to the platen with tape during the printing process.
At CELLspace nothing looks junky!
I guess this might be the last of the February Light, since forecasts are calling for the first SF snow in twenty years.
Cherry Blossom Corpses--they were fleeting this year
The mighty Pacific as a storm clears.
My personal favorite. I tip my hat to the person who wheatpasted this to a wall.
This year I realized that something I enjoy about San Francisco winters is unpredictability. This realization possibly has something to do with the the weather during the last few weeks, which has has consistently fluctuated between foggy thirties and sunny sixties. Somewhere in that time, I convinced myself this is not too unusual and please feel free to tell me that my double negative dropping ass is full of it. Also not unusually, I have tried my best to be in the SF outerlands to witness the city in all its messed up moods because I like to think that this is something we have in common.
Here are some pictures that came out alright.
Warm-ass wintertime haze on 47th Ave
The N-Judah turnaround.
Cold-ass wintertime fog at the Sutro Baths
Lost ghostbusters wallet in Golden Gate Park
So instead, I’ll leave you with my five favorite photographs from this weekend.
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It used to be that I was witness to a new kind of sport just about each time I was out at Ocean Beach. By “new sport” I think I mean things in their garage people found to connect to kites. You know: long boards, short boards, card board.
Anyway I still hit up the city beaches on a regular basis, but a long time’s passed since I last discovered a new way that Californians fuck themselves up at the Ocean. This stirred up wistfulness in my soul that wouldn’t go away.
Until last week:
Yes, that is a chariot and, yes, that horse did freak out and threaten to rear the shit out of me, Spartacus and anyone else in its way when an off-leash dog crossed its path a few seconds after these pictures were taken.
So everything is back to normal here and I love it.
Not only that, but last weekend the surf was crazy enough to kill you if the cavalry didn’t. Enough, at least, for them to call to session the 2010 Mavericks competition .
I didn’t go to watch those surfers at Half Moon Bay, but EB and I checked out the scene at Baker Beach, where the waves were not as big as I remember, I guess.
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The 2009 Christmas Tree Burn at Ocean Beach. It was approximately five times bigger and a million times hotter than last year’s fire. However, I’m happy to report that it still only takes about seven seconds for a Christmas tree to burn.
