feather2pixels

Did I mention I was invited to join a new collective gallery owned and operated by artists?

Did I mention that this gallery is on the same Larkin Street block where I purchase my quasi-legal pharmaceuticals as my favorite Morrocan restaurant?

Did I mention our first show goes up this February?

It is all true and I am planning something exciting, complete with special effects.  Check out the gradient technique:

I bet Andy Warhol never thought of that, welcome to the future,.

Please check in again soon to see what I am making and how this series comes out.  Or even better come to the show.  I would love the moral support:

Gallery 1044 February 2012 Show
1044 Larkin St, San Francisco
Feb 01-Feb 26
Opening Reception: 2nd Thursday (2/9) 6-10pm
(Did I mention I will be offering this absurdly cheap, unique and gallery-enabled series of screenprints)

This Saturday saw the completion of a rare printmaking collaboration between myself and the extended Bregman family.

The project involved the production of one edition of prints that modestly explored the concept of Kindred.  Ziggy (aka Zmom aka Zig_Poet@gmail aka Erin’s Mom), an accomplished Santa Cruz print maker, started things out with a woodcut she described as “invoking the family tree:”

[flv:zmom_print.flv 480 360]

After that, I compiled a primary source motherlode of old letters, journals, report cards, and telegrams found in the Bregman family archive and also one of the world’s great junk shops (thank you, Ben Hill).  With the help of Erin and my letter-writing typewriter, I constructed the words into an extra special, one-layer silver screenprint:

Today in my San Francisco studio it all came together:

What a cool little project. So now I guess if someone I don’t know likes it, it’s off to Australia. Or something.

Little Opera is definitely one of San Francisco’s top fifteen, possibly only, all-kids’ opera company.

After an initial round of tee-shirt fabrication for the kids, Little Opera founder and feather2pixel sex contractor EB worked with me to print something more suitable for adults.  Since the kids’ shirts, as you will recall, featured an intriguing but possibly altogether inappropriate obscure nineteenth century composer, we figured there wouldn’t be much to change.

The kids shirts featured a dark print on a light shirt:

The adult shirts were printed with a negative image for the slightly more advanced light print on a dark shirt.  Getting a suitably opaque light print on a dark surface is a notoriously unfun screen printing technique to execute.  Conversely, deliberately executing light on dark poorly may result in this pleasingly nuanced monochromatic effect:

Cool, huh?  Amazing that it’s just white ink with a little medium for transparency and sparkle for attitude.  To me it says “I give to charity but I don’t take shit from anyone.”

Here’s negative and positive stencils:

And finally, here is the staged joy of screenprinting:

Everyone likes tee-shirts, most people like cute kids singing, and a small number of folks like opera.  That accumulates to a fairly good reason to make tee-shirts for Little Opera, San Francisco’s newest all-kids opera company.

In discussing the design with Little Opera CEO and supreme empress Erin Bregman, we decided each year’s shirt would feature a figure from the sordid history of Opera. This inaugural year’s mascot, Engelbert Humperdinck, was selected mostly on the strength of his mustachioed headshot on Wikipedia.

Tonight we made a dark print on light shirts for kids. Stay tuned for the exciting follow up I think I will call light print on dark shirts for adults.

You will note the exquisite detail one can attain with a fine mesh screen.  Note it!

[flv:little_opera_shirts.flv 640 480]

I just finished a commission for a new print.

…On metal!

In what could be described as a compressed period of time, the entire feather2pixel operation has been thrust into the Bronze age, though The Raw Steel age might be more accurate as bronze actually turns out to be too expensive.

Like many recent decisions, I accepted this challenge without a good understanding of what it entailed. Like many recent consequences, my ignorance was punished.

For example, I thought quarter inch-thick  steel seemed reasonable for this project.

Funny, I never realized that you can’t return one hundred and fifty-four cubic inches of machined metal just because you didn’t realize it would make an absurdly heavy art piece before you bought it.  Metal is heavy.

After I obtained a more reasonable slab of steel on my second try, I was introduced to enamel screen printing inks, which are toxic, extremely flammable, and are known to to cause cancer in California residents.  These inks, which resemble nail polish, are what you use to print on basically any non-pourous material.  My studiomates loved it.

The project depicts the home of the commissioner, on the aptly named Hill Street.  Here’s what happened:

(Hill Street on Steel on f2p Objects page)

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.

On second thought, I hope not. That kind of looks stupid.

Here’s my next step in the Cowboys and Indians piece:  painting the quilted cowboy comix.  I did this with a mix of Mod Podge, water, and screen printing ink.

Selling it like a decoupage pro:

The theme of this November’s Spacecraft First Thursday show at CELLspace is Cowboys and Indians so I have been inspired to use the Italian comic book I bought in Venice last summer. It’s called “Tex” and it’s from 1977.

My first step was to photocopy the pages and sew them together in 3×3 foot paper quilts. More soon!

Well, I investigated another presentation for my Screen Prints on Trash series at the recent Spacecraft first Thursday show.  The theme of the show was “Unresolved,” and I decided to panel the Precita prints from the ceiling to the floor, inviting people to step on them.  Maybe this is laying it on a little thick, but as an experiment to reconsider the value of art, I liked the way this worked out.

Of course next time this idea needs to be taken much further.  I had visions of an entire art show that forced guests to navigate exclusively along a narrow walkway of art like the one I started here.  I was thinking maybe beds of nails could be laid out to prevent people from cheating.  Or lava or something.

To make up for full speed ramming me on skis in 2010 Because he admires my work, ex-sailor Tommy Stillwachs allowed me the honor of printing the open/closed sign for Arbor, a new taphouse cafe in Oakland he is involved with.  Owned and operated by Chris Marquez and Suzanne Stillwachs, Arbor opened last Saturday.   And that night it closed.  The next morning it opened and after precisely nine hours it closed yet again.

I would like to think my sign made all of this activity possible.

The sign was screen printed on some beautiful and seriously warped scrap wood.  Precision screen printing requires a very uniform separation between screen and substrate, so I was happy this wasn’t a precision job.    The final prints turned out appropriately sloppy.

Open Studios 2011 has come.  And Open Studios 2011 has gone.

Gone fast, I should add.  I forgot that the many interesting people and opportunities that pop up during the weekend make time fly.  I even got a little photo-op at Mission Local (not to be confused with Local Mission), thanks to blogger Molly Oleson.  Click to slide number 5.

My goal was to turn a humongous pile of scrap cardboard into an series of serious work that anyone who wanted could afford.  And if anyone didn’t look like they could afford it, I probably just gave the piece away.  I think that’s what Open Studios is best for.  Opening your studio to the public shouldn’t just be about self promotion, but also engagement.   As a screen printer, I am lucky enough to have the means to make this sort of thing work because I can make a shitload of prints.  So I hadn’t really thought of it exactly like this until now, but I guess my goal was to make the weekend an experiment less about promotion and sales and more about art as an act of engagement. I really want to explore this aspect of printmaking further.

Thanks to my new friends from Mexico City to City Hall to 22nd Street.  Special thanks to the old friends who showed up, Phanna, Serai, T-man, Michelle, and of course EB.  It’s nice to be supported.

Cellspace open studios 2011 (click to enlarge)

Prints on cardboard

Next up after Open Studios is Unresolved: a group show at CELLspace with lots of guest artists from the famous residency program at SF Dump.  I have a big one planned for this.

Here is a sneak peak of a new series of screenprinted cityscapes on cardboard I have been working on for open studios this weekend.  They are experiments for part of a larger and presently secret public art project I am developing.  I have to say, this is going to be a unique chance to get some painstakingly rendered artwork at absolute rock bottom prices.   I will be offering have 4 new, different limited edition prints on trash; paper prints of most of my Valencia to Vermont work (24th Street cityscapes from the Mission); even a few remaining Temporary Spaces prints on wood; and some other surprises.  I hope it’s a good year.

Cellspace Open Studios 2011
October 1 and 2
11-5:30
CELLspace: 2050 Bryant St in the Mission between 18th and 19th.

SF Open Studios is coming up.  I will be practically giving away selling a new limited edition of screen prints on trash.

…If I don’t spend all my time organizing the event and designing promotional materials.  Here’s the postcard:

CELLspace Open Studios

11-5:30PM | Sat-Sun October 1-2, 2011 | 2050 Bryant St