feather2pixels

My next panels. Satisfyingly, my images are starting to take on a theme which is indicated by the billboard here. What word could better represent the city in flux? For this piece, I was excited to find a site in San Francisco where twin buildings were being constructed. After biding my time, I finally got a shot in which the first building was finished and the second was still under construction, just a skeleton of the structure to be. So I’m excited about this one. It’s going to be really hard to find an image that captures the transformation of the city in a better overall composition.

I might not even try:.The unfuckable-with perfectness of the billboard and the depressingly slim chances that such perfection will strike twice got me thinking that (when this series is done) maybe I will start constructing these scenes from scratch, so every part of them is perfect. Certainly sounds like something I’d do.

Almost-done panels! The color mixed out more blue than the green I planned for, but sometimes life gives you blue. Just have to roll with the punches.

Incidentally, I visited this site again today. It’s at the Pier 66 boatyard, down a small path from Illinois Street, next to The Ramp restaurant. Definitely one of my new favorite spots in the city.

Tomorrow: video from the first day of spring in the Mission.

This key recently came to be in my possession. It looks quite ordinary. Friends, this is no ordinary key. This is the key to my screen printing dreams. This is the key to CELLspace.

Even dedicated feather2pixels readers who recognize the name CELLspace may still be confused about what exactly goes on there. The confusions ends here. CELLspace is one of several adjacent warehouse spaces on the 2000 block of Bryant Street that serves as a community-based art space. It hosts after school programs, private art studios, adult art workshops, and events. Lots of events. This weekend there was a massive clothing swap, which is a great place to pick up loads of Old Navy clothes that Mission hipsters are embarrassed to wear. If there is a roller skating party in San Francisco, it’s usually here. Also, there is a screen printing loft and I like it. CELLspace always seems to be on the brink of financial ruin and, as a result, working there has always been an unpredictable affair. Some days I get in, some days I don’t, and some days I end up crying on the sidewalk. But not anymore. Now I have a key.

Most recent project: Jill’s save the date cards.

The streets are damp, the air is cold, and a handyman is busy snaking unimaginably large clumps of girl hair from our various drains. I am trapped here. I can no longer avoid this journal. And, probably, some of the hair was mine.

Here is some art stuff that happened, for the record:

I got a fat check from The Lab gallery, which represents my earnings from their post-postcard show (post a 50% gallery commission). At $12 a set, they were a steal and I’m curious who bought them. Are they sending them? Where are my gushing emails of adulation? The ruling: The money should cover paper.

Postcard 28 got selected to screen at the SF Independent Film Festival’s opening party. I’m not really sure what that means beyond what they told us:

“Your film is an official selection in the program but, since it won’t be showing in the theater, will be listed just on our website and not in our program guide. Our parties are one of the things SF IndieFest is known for, and people love being able to watch more films while enjoying the party vibe.”

The party vibe: truly the way this film was made to be seen. Eh. I’m actually totally excited. The ruling: We will take what we can get.

As part of a series of large art pieces, I test printed the first of several panoramas I have been planning. This is what it looked like:

That’s highway 280 in the background. The final pieces are slated to be five foot long, mixed media works on wood. The ruling: I will believe in it when I see it.

Oh, and some other crap.

The principal printing for my new series of San Francisco postcards is finally complete. I squeezed out the fourth layer of the 720th postcard just as some kind of Tango event was beginning at CellSpace, where I screen print. Then I biked up Nob Hill and drank alone in North Beach.

Screen printing is so good, it’s hard to contain myself. Tonight, Kristin joined me at Cellspace after a hard day working the dreaded Exploratorium summer camp. While an impossibly loud break dancing group practiced downstairs, we made a series of three postcards up in the silk screening loft. They came out really good. The gifs don’t do it justice. The images and words are (unmistakably) hers; I helped with the design.

Success!

Kind of.

I went ahead with my next CMYK experiment : a full page print with ever bigger halftones–they are really big now. And it worked. Up close it’s just clusters of large dots in four colors, but from across the room the image focuses and the colors mix:

The image is actually a small section of a panorama of Balboa and 34th Ave (a key intersection in my life, within sight of the essential Balboa Theater and the Dumpling King) I photographed this week:

So my next step is to print the whole thing in the four CMYK layers. The print will be about five feet long.