Month: September 2009

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Spirits Battle Spirits

The hitch on the trailer has broken, leaving Jon and I broken down on a Northern California winter’s evening. Not much around by way of lodging so we go to one of the few buildings for a night’s stay. Jon immediately goes into a deep, exhausted sleep, while I start feeling uneasy about the house. The house seems to want me dead, trying a few times to end my life. Getting through these attempts, one of the house’s spirits apparates. He’s angry and reminds me I belonged to them since L. tried to kill me there in the past. I refuse to be killed, and with Jon as no help, I leave the building looking for a solution.

I walk to a neighboring property that holds spiritual retreat. They’re closed for the winter, so I try to find the caretaker, hoping that he’ll help me not get killed. I wake him up, and ask him to help me with the problem. He doesn’t want too be bothered, so I begin to think hard about how to escape and not freeze to death. That’ll be hard to do in the country.

Confused spirits begin to show up. They’re looking for their lost loved ones. I ask them if they died in the house I’d fled and they all say yes. I ask them to help me end the spirit’s murderous ways. As they indicate that they want to help, I visualize spirits battling spirits as the only way out of this mess. Excited to deal with this, the spirits gather aroud me. We begin to organize and rally the masses for this one-shot assault.

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Dia del Toro Mural at CELLspace

I am proud to announce a new mural on the Bryant St. facade of CELLspace. Dia del Toro graces the entrance to the ACT prop shop at 2060 Bryant St. and was painted by Dia and Toro.

For years, fading graffiti filled this panel as a a ficus tree grew huge and blocked the street view of this part of the facade. While I facilitated the half panel piece that Dia did for CELLspace earlier this year, I shot the idea to him about taking that panel too. He initially had the idea of painting a sailing ship getting pulled down into a stormy sea, but he used that concept for a gallery piece. Once Dia found time to work with CELL’s miniscule budget and paint the panel for free, he had met Toro and decided to paint a defeated bull as it took its last breaths.

In the first phase of making the panel, Dia and Toro worked on the overall layout. Toro then painted “DIA TORO” in graff letters for placement. Dia then sprayed a white outline of the bull and then painted the details with brushes and black paint. He sprayed a few other details. Finally, Toro came back and did the final graff lettering and details. Blood on the sword punctures and in the mouth of the bull were the final details added to the animal image.

Dia del Toro was the final panel on the Bryant St. facade, following Stencilada and the halved panel by 2048 Bryant. Now that this is done, energy will be focused on the Florida St. Mural project. Currently with no funds to budget the artwork, things move slowly back there. I’m currently working on the RIDE TOO! benefit for next Friday, of which some profits will go towards the Florida St. murals. The Bike Kitchen is still moving forward with their panel back there and will be at the benefit.

Enjoy the photos of the Dia del Toro mural that I took over the course of its completion.

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Precita Eyes Benefit: 19 Sep

SOMArts (South of Market Cultural Center)
934 Brannan Street (near 8th Street)
San Francisco, CA. 94103
6:30-9:30 pm
Admission:  general $35, VIP $50

For more information please visit our website

I’ll have my autograph pen there this Saturday, along with a pile of artists, authors, and photographers in the Mission Muralismo book. Not cheap, but the money goes to a great cause: MURALS!

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On Contemplating Art and Public Space

I spend a lot of time walking/biking around urban landscapes, looking at space and photographing art. If you’ve followed my travels, you’ve notice that this is something that goes beyond hobby. This search isn’t a job either, but I have been paid for my efforts. For me, walking through a living system where humans work, play, eat, sleep, etc. brings rewards beyond a systematic point of reference. It is hard to label it as work, hobby, etc., when the urge to wander and look for art is a deep way of living for me.

This Saturday, I went for a walk, thinking a bit more about space. I reflected on the potential that space has to present art. The way people relay their feelings in more creative ways. And the lost histories that surrounds us in the neighborhoods we live in.

The following photo essay are the images that made me stop, stare, ponder, and snap. We all live in a world full of many colorful possibilities. We also live in a culture that doesn’t tolerate certain opinions, while letting others flourish. These photos touch on all the ideas I carry with a passion, and might help add context to why I constantly “stencil hunt” in the urban wilds of the USA and beyond.

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As the Media Spins

Why do I read the news anymore? Well, why do I read news headlines? I have good sites to go to, but they still spin the schlock people want to read most. The past few days, I’ve been watching how the right-wing spin-mongers have totally wound their panties so tight, that their eyeballs are popping out. I just Googled “obama socialist” and got a pile of hits on this meme. Which makes me laugh since Obama isn’t really anything unless the Democratic corporate backers tell him what he is.

I got angry today when I saw the NY Times spin the Obama school address non-issue on their site. In the lead off paragraph, which is about all anyone reads these days, the Times said that the address “has set off a revolt among conservative parents, who have accused the president of trying to indoctrinate their children with socialist ideas.” Last night, on the Huffington Post, I watched as current media darling Glen Beck connected Obama to the Rockefellers to socialists and fasciscts via all the artwork on the Rockefeller Plaza by way of Van Jones (the current punching bag for the right wing mudslingers). Beck’s main piece of art was a Diego Rivera mural that is no longer in the Plaza, which most Americans have never seen in person. Finally, on the Drudgereport tonight, a link to a local news site stated that elected official U.S. Rep. Paul Broun “told a meeting of the Morgan County Republicans on Wednesday night that Obama already has or will have the three things he needs to make himself a dictator: a national police force, gun control and control over the press.”

Continue reading “As the Media Spins”

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RIDE TOO! Flyer Design

PSPrint has a 50% off deal, so I am going to print a pile of these to pass around….

…feel free to post this jpg up where ever you wanna….

RIDE TOO flyer