feather2pixels

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)

A Particular Kind of Heaven | Screenprint on Paper | 19×19 inches | 2013

I recently completed a piece for the beloved of a beloved friend.  Based on a photobooth picture, the piece was made entirely from materials I had lying around my studio. Bill (on the left) came out looking a wee bit feminine, but he is a very secure man and so I didn’t worry to much about it.

Bill and Christina | Ink,  Screenprint on Plywood | 18×20 in | 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:

A few recent gifts (that I have pictures of):

Game

Watercolor

Needlepoint

Rap Video

[iframe src=”http://player.vimeo.com/video/53496463?badge=0″ width=”500″ height=”281″ frameborder=”0″ webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen></iframe> <p><a href=”http://vimeo.com/53496463″>Fischer and Erin Wedding Card (Rap Video) Version 2.0</a> from <a href=”http://vimeo.com/user4805707″>Nowell Valeri</a> on <a href=”http://vimeo.com”>Vimeo</a>.</p>]

Hello.  I recently completed a small commission to develop this photo into a series of prints, using only nine planks of laminated pine and one slice of homemade Ranier cherry pie:

The commissioner? My sister Michelle. The event?  Her birthday in July.  The final prints can be found in my objects section.  Here is a small sample:

Have you ever been to a zine festival?

Well I have.  And recently, too.  Seduced by a roomful of lovingly crafted publications of  varying aesthetic merit, I found myself inspired but only to take the laziest possible action: to spend money.   So I bought a bunch of zines and thought that maybe in the future I might like to print a zine, too.   My favorite of the lot was “Truck Face,” a memoir of a punk’s work as an elementary school teacher.

I suppose that experience planted the inspirational seed for Erin‘s Christmas present, an edition of her play “Tvá Kamila“ that I designed, screen printed, and bound.  Right now it’s my favorite of her plays, and possibly even the most zine-like.  That’s pretty much the entire story besides the part where I misspelled the name of the play on the cover, which did not even turn out being the stupidest thing I did all week (cue footage of me desperately speeding to the San Jose airport to catch a flight I forgot about).  But besides that I rule.

Here it is:

Here’s a little piece I put together for my friend Cooper.  It’s a screen print on wood and a year’s worth of MUNI fast passes.  He’s giving to someone special for Christmas and it’s better than anything I am giving this year.

After 539 pages of final exams, 72 end of year emails, and too much Excel wrangling for a grad school dropout, the 2007/2008 CMA school year is done. In the final classroom for the final final on the last day, there was a bubbling surprise waiting for me in the middle of the room.

My very own novelty fish tank!

Fisch tank.

And now I am going to Cleveland.

Citibank‘s fine services over the last few years have afforded me not only convenient, cash-free payment options at my favorite merchants, but also 60,000 ThankYou! Reward Points, redeemable for exchange of an impressive array of national and local goods and services. For many months I have pondered my 60,000 ThankYou! Reward Points, the question of which Reward would put them to best use, and the mathematics of hospitality. Economically speaking, the item with the most favorable ThankYou! Reward Point to dollar exchange rate is simply a direct credit card payment (142.86:1). I’m stingy when it comes to anything that isn’t CDs, traveling, or the movies, but this option seemed too depressing even for me (it’s something Jill would do, though). The idea to treat my seven of closest and most carnivorous Bay Area friends to a opulent dinner of huge steaks and fine beverage came to me in the shower and so it was that before I was dry, half of my ThankYou! Reward Points were redeemed towards credit at the punctuationally-challenged Ruth’s Chris Steak House at a somewhat less favorable exchange rate (100.0:1). If you do the math, you will discover how laughably off-target my cost estimation was.

Weird thing was that it was kind of worth it.