feather2pixels

Here’s a random finished piece from my series of prints on trash.  I am submitting some stuff to a group show featuring art made with recycled materials, so it’s actually not all that random.

What was more random was the inspiration to fabricate these pine boxes over the summer.  I remember thinking it would be cool to design the one on the left with a sliding plexiglass cover so I could fill it with something later.  Turns out the something was landfill, and I really like the “art materials” bag visible on the end:

San Bruno Electrical Distribution | Landfill, Screenprint on Cardboard |  10 x 20″ each | 2013

Detail:

A new artist information sheet printed on scrap cardboard! For my City Art debut on February 1st.

A generous helping of my next generation prints on trash is now installed at the next generation Philz in Noe Valley.

The original Philz, located just an extended stumble down Twenty-Fourth street from Noe Valley, is one of the Mission District’s most gloriously funky and popular coffee shops.  Hard as they try, no other contenders can seem to offer their customers ancient sofas quite as cozy nor Scheffleras quite as overgrown as the original Philz.  However the new breed of Philz are different beasts altogether, with each new iteration reimagined to accommodate  its indigenous clientele the way a young Lothario might modify his affect to the preferences of women in each new territorio.

Phil is ever the shrewd businessman.

For my own selfish reasons, this works to my advantage.  Not only was this the first official “installation” at Noe Philz, but I got three beautiful new walls to fill with recent screenprints.  The only question was could I improve them by hanging my art on them?

I took the opportunity to dig a little deeper in to this ongoing project, focusing on the disposable nature of the cardboard and the act of editioning and framing trash.   Some of the more visually compelling of these pieces were beat up from being installed on the floor of  a CELLspace show, so I decided to spend some time putting others through the ringer, too.  I soaked them, sanded them, smacked them, derided them with harsh language.  Actually I was pretty impressed by how hard it was to make screenprints on cardboard look beat up.

In addition, I let myself go with an idea for completely transforming a few of these into mini dioramas, which was fun.  I cast one of them in prehistoric amber (a.k.a. casting resin) with embedded prehistoric flies (already dead). I custom fit a beautiful tree branch in another, complete with functional pine cone.  A plastic dinosaur is eating one piece from the inside and another is a simply a plastic-faced box containing the remnants of a print.   Even if it’s just me and a few kids who think this was a good idea, I stand by it.  I think.

Here some snaps.  Thanks to Tamara S for staying up till midnight helping me install.

I have been working on preparing my prints on cardboard series for an upcoming installation.  Mostly this involves fabricating lots of box frames out of hardwood flooring planks, but I also started thinking about ways to transform a few of the pieces into small dioramas. It’s been fun to think of ways for the art to interact with stuff.

In general I’m interested in exploring the possibilities of the limited edition in printmaking.  Traditionally, printmakers (and often sculptors) generate a limited edition of anywhere from two to a few thousand identical prints, typically in one session,  designating each piece with a serial number and then destroying the master plate so that no more prints can be struck.

To me this is one of the most compelling aspects of printing in the age of mechanical reproduction.  The edition draws attention to a separation between the expressive and technical components of art making that is unique to printmaking.  Printers spend most of their time pulling prints, which usually feels like an entirely different thing than being creative.  The inspiration diverges from the perspiration–they can be entirely different activities.

Part and parcel to the workmanlike aspect of manufacturing prints is the intriguing burden that technology places on the contemporary printmaker:  in an era when reproducing multiples of anything is frivolously easy,  the art maker is compelled to not only generate multiples by hand–the art maker needs an interesting enough reason for multiples to exist.

With that said, here are two of my frivolous ideas for transform a few of my multiples into playful dioramas.  I think the installation will feature 14 regular prints and 4 or 5 different altered prints.

1. Three Cones print cast in amber. Embedded with prehistoric bugs, the surface is hopelessly glossy so the photos suck.

2. SF Botanical Garden print with dino. I found this plastic toy on a walk a few years back.  It seemed strange that it was unpainted, maybe some kind of prototype?  My best guess of the species is Suchomimus or perchance Baryonyx.  Joe Pisch, can you confirm?  Anyway, this is a rare case in which hoarding weird shit I find on the beach paid off.

My latest series of prints on trash (three traffic cones in the park at thirty times of day), is up at Cafe LaBoheme.  This is my second showing at Boheme, one the great gathering places of the Mission District.  The pieces are a little misaligned and wobbly because we have to suspend all art from above, but this is basically my vision for this series.  Nice photos coming soon!

Cafe La Boheme (across from 24th Mission BART station)
3318 24th Street
San Francisco, CA

I was already on pace to complete this new series for the beginning of February.

So I figured I might as well proceed with my weekend woodwoorking marathon to fabricate the frames on schedule. How could I pass up the chance for such choice alliteration?

It feels good to be manically productive.  I feel that this series has moved me forward in some important and presently not understood way.  Thanks to Jesse and zMom for advice, room, board.

[flv:30_frames.flv 480 360]

The payoff:

OK, because the gallery that was to show my ambitious new series (24 new pieces in 24 days) has dissolved before it even got started, there remains no reason to pursue the imaginary sense of suspense I was previously attempting.  I shall heretofore reveal all.  This new project is another series of prints on trash, but even more legitimate trash.  Imagine me diving into an absurdly deep dumpster at work wearing my fancy dress shoes and you will have imagined the back story of this series.

The image is three traffic cones sitting in one of my favorite Golden Gate Park glens, and the neat thing about the series is that each piece is unique.  Not only is each rectangle of cardboard disgusting in its own special way, but the base layer of every piece is printed in a different color that blends into the same white light that illuminates the cones throughout.  The different colors span the entire visible spectrum and the net effect is a gradual journey from twilight to dusk and back again.

I am not sure if that makes such sense, but the idea was to hang a six-by-four matrix of all twenty-four pieces by color.  Kind of like this mockup.  The idea was to price them so low that people would be idiots to not buy them, and as they did the installation would dissolve and I would be rich.

Here’s the sequence of a few of the pieces:

Layer 1
Layer 3
Layer 5

Next: A small oak tree becomes thirty frames.

Recently I devised plans to expand my series of prints on trash.  Among other things, those plans include building box frames out of scrap hardwood flooring and plywood.  I don’t think most of my work warrants or deserves frames, but there’s something I like about putting a flourish on a frosted flake box I found in the mess hall dumpster.

So it was with great effort that I completed a few prototypes last week.  A box is a concept simple enough for a small child to understand, yet it took me hours to put these together.   Among many other things, something I never realized is hardwood is hard–I learned that the…difficult way.

The art floats flush with the surface and I like how the gap calls attention to the rough edges.  Now all I need is a wood shop, enough flooring to cover a small room, and roughly twenty-four more of these.

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

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.

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

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.

Hey, I inaugurated my newly assembled work space by completing an edition of 55 screen prints on old cardboard and then practically giving them away that night at CELLspace’s Spacecraft First Thursday show.

That was fun.  Thanks if you bought one.

Now I am going away for five weeks. See you soon!