feather2pixels

I am going to do it. I am going to tell you about my current project. That is, after all, the presumed point of this online information dispensary, contrary to what four years of overwrought personal laments would have you believe.

My current project is a permanent installation in a new restaurant opening next month on 24th street.  Right here:

This is the biggest creative project I have taken on since the band’s last record release on the East Coast.  We almost sold one unit at that show and I’ve been riding the wave until now, the point where I shall unleash a thirty-foot wall of artwork upon the residents of the Inner Mission.  The wall’s going to be installed with a grid of several hundred wooden tiles, twenty-four of them screen printed works of bona fide  Art, one for each intersection of 24th street from Valencia to Vermont.  Right here:

Would you like to see some?  You will have to help me artificially inflate my click count:

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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.

The Temporary Spaces found a few homes this summer.

First they were displayed at Dogpatch Biofuels, San Francisco’s only biodiesel filling station. This seemed especially apt, since many of the cityscapes depict the Dogpatch itself. Of course in the continuum of artistic practices, screen printing is the probably one of the most eco unfriendly processes out there. But maybe not as bad as aborted fetuses.

During the month of July, all the pieces were displayed at Liberty Cafe in ever-lovely Bernal Heights. This opportunity was courtesy of my friend, Danielle, who shoots compelling photos of kids (and therefore had to leave her Cellspace studio because of the pot smoke). Anyway, the business features a cozy restaurant and a bakery cafe, the neighborhood go-to spot for fresh Brioche. I’m not sure how much of a splash my art made, but I’m running out of room in my studio to store these. Free storage.

The anatomy poster is done!  All you have to do to see it is move your mouse over the the all-knowing more link and click.  Wait, did I say mouse?  Of course you wouldn’t ever move your mouse over a computer screen.  That would be ridiculous.  I meant move the pointer that is controlled by your mouse.  Or maybe you don’t even have a mouse.  Maybe it is a track pad.  Or a stylus, like my friend Nowell uses.  Could even be one of those useless red nubs.  Oo, any trackballs in the house?  I am sorry for making so many assumptions. I was just trying to suggest that there is a small possibility that the act of activating the more link could be worth your time.  In the future I promise to be a scrupulous Californian and do my part to promote a non-specific, assumptionless society.  (more…)

So after a lot of frustration, I finally used brush and ink to design a screen print with all organic elements.  Nothing lifted from any cameras or old textbooks.  The project is a poster for my friend Eric‘s band, Silian Rail, and this morning I experimented with mini mock ups on 8 x 14 inch Bristol paper.

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I really thought I would never get sick again.

But with the first rain in months came the strong sensation of autumn, a flooded ground floor, and a sick day in bed.  This was all after days of doing nothing but eating nachos and completing my “Working Personnel Action File” for work.  What is a Working Personnel Action File?  Well, it is a dossier in which I argue the case for my retention and in my case included sentences like the following:

“On a warm night after a basketball game, walking along Maritime Academy Drive, the sugar factory and the bridge blinking on the horizon, I realized that I felt incredibly fulfilled.  It was a remarkable moment for me.  While I had determined from the start to exceed the expectations of CMA, I had not anticipated that CMA would exceed mine.”

Wow, you don't just casually jot down gold like that. No wonder I have a 101 temperature.  Anyway, my WPAF took a week to finish and it's 109 pages long. In other news, I tricked a local coffee shop into letting me hang up my panels on their walls.  I didn't even have to show them my art, I just had to promise not to nail in to the wall.  Who knew is was that easy?  Also without nails, I finally hung the pieces up online, too.  Here's the scene in Cafe La Boheme:

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:

Shit

Shit!

Success!

After eight months, the printing of this entire project is done!

This is the seventh and final piece:

The penultimate piece in my procession of panoramic panels is done!  Six ill-tempered layers on this one and each is like a child to me:

Layer 6: (Out of the jar black with a touch of brown)  The youngest and therefore most immature layer.  Clogged up the screen almost on contact.  Virtually useless.  Wants to go to college to be a philosopher or some bullshit.

Layer 5: (Dark Brown) Very annoying.  Required several intermediate screen washes.  Left a big stain on the mesh even after thoroughly washed off.  Will probably run off with pregnant girlfriend.

Layer 4: (Warmish Light Brown)  Was a mistake from the beginning.  Can’t remember how this one was conceived but I think she accidentally got a little acrylic and water-based in her.  Made for a very uneven coat that would get me fired in a real print shop.  Luckily, Layer 5 covered for most of this.  Not that I approve of Layer 5.

Layer 3: (Beige) Just like layer 4.

Layer 2: (Warm light beige)  Went on smooth and lined up with layer one reasonably well.   I have no problem with layer 2.  He talked about business school once or something.
Layer 1: (Warmish off-white) The first born and therefore best layer.  Set a super example for all her siblings but obviously could not save them.  Oh well.  It’s their fucking life.

Socializing has become less natural for me every year since college. Given a long enough exchange, meeting new people now requires me to confess that I work at a maritime academy in Vallejo. I have been experimenting with methods that prevent this from ending conversations.

On a cool night last week over cheap beer at some Mission District bar, I was doing my 2008 version of socializing with someone. The Academy eventually came up and this time it led to an inventory of nautical tattoos: she had two Popeye-style forearm anchors, a lobster on the bicep, something forgettable inside the lower lip, and a bunch of underwater stuff under her clothes. Then an 800 pound dog or something distracted me and that was that. Later, though, as is my custom, I let the episode get inside my head. When your life-changing decisions are another people’s personal aesthetics, is it time to find a new bar?

Instead of taking any kind of positive action, I think I’ll just keep screen printing useless postcards. Here’s the latest set, about San Francisco fast food, currently available at this place for approximately 1/500th of the cost required to make them.

New work:

Look: a six-layer print! After many frustrating three-layer prints, I didn’t think I had it in me. This is a one-panel piece from an image I produced of Tolman Street, one of my favorite streets in SF:

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