feather2pixels

This might be the best thing I’ve ever printed. Details about this project are on this pdf.

In case it isn’t obvious, this is a site specific children’s toy/word art installation. The tiles are interchangeable by row. I made eighteen tiles for each column (not shown).

The tiles were cut out with a computer controlled router–a true gift of modernity:

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Thanks to zMom for the world’s fastest drying acrylic paints.

This year  I took a literal approach to San Francisco Open Studios and held it in my studio.  Plenty of interesting people showed up and I got some good work done, too.  Joel B. and Meztli, if you are reading this: thank you.  (I first met Meztli at 2008 Open Studios when when she was in 3rd grade and drew me a picture that was so awesome, it inspired me to make a bunch of postcards.  I was so happy when she stopped by this weekend…as a seventh grader!).  Here are some snaps.

I never actually posted the final painting of Camp Director Claire, made by the devoted tweens of the San Francisco Boys Chorus, and stretched on four 50-inch wood slats.  So here it is.  Our masterpiece features a screenprinted background, gilded rays, and a main image made of about 2 gallons of housepaint.

First dance, first fistfight, first girlfriend: having logged many seminal moments of my life at summer camp, it was with a commitment to the memorable that I recently executed my duties as art director for one week of San Francisco Boys Chorus away camp.

It’s never really possible to know what kind of impact you are making on eleven year olds, but my basic plan was to win them over slowly by focusing on a precise five day project. Something that would keep kids busy with their hands and look really cool when it was done. Since the goal was to construct set pieces and props for EB’s parallel kid operas, we ended up painting a 50×50 inch Resistance-style portrait of Camp Director Claire. In her creation class, EB helped the boys work the painting into their story.

We began with a photoshoot.

I digitally processed one of the better images into seven discrete layers:

Over the course of five camp days, I projected each layer independently for kids to outline and paint on canvas hung from the wall. Registration marks were used to line everything up.

Then we stretched the canvas on a frame, ready for the show.

So it was pretty cool. And I got the kids to call me Jono. The painting looked very fine from a distance and I think the boys were into the program. Of course we did a bunch of other stuff. We made signs and banners. One day I chopped up a bit of branch from an apple tree and we made medallions. Located in Sonoma County at a Seventh Day Adventist boarding school on the banks of the Russian River, the setting was a nicer than summer camps I remember but the food a lot worse. A huge thanks to EB, Camp Director Claire, and Jess the counselor.

The twelve week screenprint workshop I have been teaching with the glamorous Angie Crabtree is complete.  We asked our nine high schoolers to print on nice paper for this show at Root Division, but some of the more exciting projects were their clothes and bags.  I wasn’t able to photograph everything, but I did want to record here the little I did get for the ages.  Nice work brahs.  And Angie thanks for everything. Especially the black eye.

Welcome to 2012. It was an exciting end of year season here around feather2pixel headquarters, with several visits from far flung colleagues and several more travels to distant shores. In the interests of moving things right along, here’s some artifacts and photos to recap.

Okay let’s get back to work.

This Friday, Bay Area collectors will do battle in a grueling game of wits that will leave only one standing.  Having slayed his or her opponents, a lucky and no doubt skilled individual will emerge as the new master of this shiny new screenprint on trash.

That’s right, it’s time for the America SCORES Inspired Art Poetry Party and Art Auction.

America SCORES is an after-school program that combines soccer and poetry like so many Ronaldo strikes from midfield.  The auction benefits their programming and in a twist I like, sees each art piece matched with a kid poem.

I got excited about my kid poem by Xitlaly Martinez, which offers a compelling new level of meaning to this particular image.  In the print, an unusually placed couple (on the right edge of the frame) is intently snapping photos of something they see in the SF Botanical Gardens.   I’m not sure exactly what this couple is seeing and I enjoy that sense of mystery.  Xitlaly’s poem fleshes out a back story and I very much like the way the juxtaposition offers the act of seeing as something personal, sacred, and unknowable.

I See You

by Xitlaly Martinez, E.R. Taylor Elementary
2010

I See You
Inside my heart I see you
Up in the sky I see you
Shining in the sunlight I see you
Sparking with the stars I see you.
In love I see you.
In happiness I see you.
In my beauty I see you.
So when I see you I see a school teacher helping me out.
When I see you I see a lion
ess and strong on the outside.
When I see you I see a loving and caring person on the inside.
Everywhere I am anywhere I am I see you.
Right now I see you

My hybrid geometry/art class for ninth graders, “Creative Geometry,” was in full full effect over the weekend. Our second annual art show took place at the Oakland Museum of Children’s Art, and my kids were fantastic. Six of them were there hours early and stayed until the end of the day to help out. This is what it looked like from the inside.

The screen printing workshop for kids was not a complete disaster.  I’ll be damned if every kid in that whole school didn’t get to make a print.  Some of them didn’t even hate it.
Here is a somewhat painful excerpt from the into to one of the last sessions.  I think I make five assumptions before the first three seconds are up.  Teacher of the year right here.
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This week I am a real artist.  I sold two Temporary Spaces sales to people that I know.  However, maybe even more exciting than those intra-zip code transactions were the Kid Monsters orders I received from the 94403 and the 34251.  I didn’t even know a zip code could start with a 3.

So a few months ago, a small girl asked me if I wanted a drawing.  I said of course and she promptly drew this and handed it to me:
(more…)

The response to my call for kid-drawn monsters has been outstanding.  Why did it take me so long to come up with this idea?  The only thing better than free labor is free child labor.

So far, so good:

My apologies for the recent spate of secretive posts.  I am glad to report this entry represents a return to my self-centered general-interest ramblings.  Mission open studios was last weekend and as far as I am concerned, it was an indisputable success.  Lots of people showed up to see art, many of them to my corner of the CELLspace warehouse, where they fed my ego.  This is surely the reason I do anything.

To pass the time, I set up a little screen printing station next to my work, which turned out to be a good way to engage people with my process–I learned that many people are interested in how screen printing works.  As they should be.  It is the ultimate in instant gratification.  I even got to print with some kids, which itself made the whole weekend worth it.  Well, that, and the hundreds of dollars people seemed to be willing to give me for my art.  But mark my words: printing with kids is my calling and some day I will see it through.

For right now, my calling is posting digital images of last weekend.  Thanks for coming, everyone.  If you didn’t come, just wire me money and we will call it even.
My corner:

Screen printing in action:

The panels:

Even screen printed a wall decal:

Sold some postacrds and posters for the low rollers:

This is really funny, right?