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Stupid, Again

Spring time. Cherry blossoms. Nuns in drag. Giants baseball. And St. Stupids Day.

April 1 is always a day to look forward to. Yelling “Jump! Jump! Jump!” up to workers gawking out their windows is worth the bus fare down to join the First Church of the Last Laugh at Justin Herman Plaza. While infill condos continue to rake the skyline across the city (i.e., Dot Com 2.0), some things thankfully never change. Here’s a snap of me at the XXXV St. Stupid’s Day Parade (by Hanna Quevedo for the SFWeekly).

While I’m posting photos, here’s a portrait of me that Garry Bowden took for his Souls of San Francisco project

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23 March: UnEarth-things w. Chris Benfield

Sat., March 23, come on out to Kezar Triangle (in Golden Gate Park) while Chris Benfield and I (aka Lay it on Thick) play with dirt. Gopher dirt!

4pm to 8pm

Where is Kezar Triangle? Just down from the Circus Center: http://goo.gl/maps/cN3Un

Sponsored in part by the Friends of Kezar Triangle

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UnEarth-things uses gopher diggings (the loose piles of soil left from gopher town tunneling) to make iconic, recognizable images that resonate with the history of Kezar Triange, what it is now, and what it may become. The basic concept is to work with what the gophers give us, using a “connect the dots” approach with their upward offerings. Like a sketch book, the images’s positioning, size, and motifs are brought about organically, creating a nurturing, nourishing interspecies collaboration.

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TH 12/13/12 at Spacecraft: The Outsiders

Spacecraft presents “The Outsiders,” a mixed media group-show of artists working with propelled pigment and scavenged objects as alternative materials. This exhibition looks into the artistic symbols of opposition and speaks from the language of accessibility. During this new century, Aerosol media’s techniques and methods are increasingly being incorporated in a wide range of contemporary work. Spacecraft welcomes you to examine these select works by Bay Area artists. We hope to explore this dialogue further. Until then, please join us on Thursday, December 13th at 7 p.m. for Spacecraft’s “The Outsiders” at Inner Mission [formally CELLspace].

Artwork by
– Erick Andino – Michelle Guintu – Cory, aka, C SkwaReD
– Corey Best – Russell Howze – Cy Wagoner
– Roland Blandy – Sam Lewin – Todd Hanson
– Spencer Cunningham – Rye Purvis – And more

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outsidersback4 Continue reading “TH 12/13/12 at Spacecraft: The Outsiders”

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Stencils, Puppets, and Sound Oh My!

You are reading a HappyFeet communique dated April 2, 2002

Topics discussed below:

++HappyFeetTravels.org relaunch April 1, 2002

++StencilArchive.org world premiere launch April 1, 2002

++++++++++++++++++++

Hello digitravelers. You haven’t heard from HappyFeet since Sept. when Yair Dalal performed a San Francisco World Remix concert for Peace in the Middle East. How timely, considering the concert was on Sept. 6th

Here are two amazing announcements from H/F HQ

+++++++++++
https://happyfeettravels.org/ has been redesigned. Phase I of V.02 is
now online and mostly bug-free. Some new items covered on V.02 are:

PUPPETS: the Bay Area Puppet Cluster is alive and well. Check out their goings-on via our new puppet page.

SOUND: no mp3s up yet, but lots of concerts, dj’ing, etc. There will be more performers and more sound added to this page in Phase II.

STENCILS: see message below

++From the old site++

LINKS: all the favorite links, now community-centered. Send a link if you have one to post. More added in Phase II

CREATIONS: Extra art from HappyFeet

POLITICS: the Molotov Lounge is back in business with updated events posted frequently.

++BONUS TIP FOR H/F LIST: click on the HEART image on the homepage and get a treat (a la Brain Tease from old version)

+++++++++++++++

ANNOUNCING THE WORLD PREMIERE OF

www.StencilArchive.org

Since 1995 stencil art has been a HappyFeet obsession. Now the obsession is online for the world to share. Our mission is simple: create a tighter stencil art community and watch it grow. Stencils from around the world are posted on here, and will be added to frequently.

How to/FAQ will be updated frequently as well.

In Phase II, submission pics will be accepted and posted.

So welcome back to HappyFeet. Hope you’ve been thinking peaceful thoughts while we were away. don’t be a stranger.

Love,
The H/F crew

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A Speech: What Else I Learned at SFSU

This is the text of a speech I gave for the SFSU Paralegal Program Certificate Graduation on June 15, 2012. I was one of the two student speakers for the night and I received “Highest Honors” for my GPA level. Only one person out of about 150 knew who Hall McAllister was. One of the teachers had seen the statue. Now they all know who McAllister is!

I would like to take this opportunity to thank Pat Medina, her staff, all the instructors, and guest lecturers for all their hard work with the Paralegal Program. Thank you for asking me to speak today as well. It is an honor to stand before you all, especially my co-graduates, and share a few words. I would especially like to thank my family, who came all the way from South Carolina to hear my speech, for all their patience, love, and support. And I would like to give a special mention to Hall McAllister, California’s first federal judge and a well-respected lawyer.

A year and a half ago, amid struggles as a starving artist, I felt a strong urge to make a change. I woke up early one morning while on a theatrical tour in Los Angeles and registered for my first two paralegal classes. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to be a paralegal, but I had thought about it for a few years prior to signing up. I had looked into the profession, doing my due diligence, and found several keywords about the job that stuck in my mind. One was “research”. Another was “writing”. And a third was “organized”. Continue reading “A Speech: What Else I Learned at SFSU”

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Use as Wallpaper

I think one of the best things I like about my iPhone (well, and my old crappy Blackberry) is snapping a pic and then setting it as the background image (screen saver, wallpaper, etc.). With the iPhone camera, which is good for a phone camera, I have started to take more than just stencil photos (I usually use my camera camera for nature shots). I took the recently-posted empty F train car photo specifically to use as wallpaper on the iPhone.

Here are three more photos I took specifically to frame in a smart phone. They are all vertical. I do take horizontal shots of some things to use on my laptop for a desktop image. Please feel free to grab these images and use for backgrounds on your phone. Just drag/drop and put in your phone’s camera roll to tap/select as wallpaper. Remember that they are all protected by the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike agreement. You can use them but not make $$ off of them!

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$2.55 Half Tone Stencil Series

The stencils I wored on over Dec. Jan. hang at CELL
The stencils I worked on over Dec. Jan. hang at CELL

Obscure (Jeffersonian politics)… Imperfect (Liberty)…. and Obsolete (Extinct buffaloes)

Each large half-tone stencil took about 20 hours to cut (hole after hole after hole)….

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[u] Paz at CELL

Over the past week, Paz de la Calzada brought her charcoal to CELL and drew on the curved green wall in the Main Space. She has been drawing strands and I got to know her down on Market Street at her charcoal piece on The Strand Theater (which was recently purchased by ACT and will become a 300 seat house for shows that are too small for their Geary theater).

Paz was not working these past few weeks, so she gave her talents and vision to CELL for free. This is really the only way I can get art on the walls at Bryant Street. I do it for the love and others seem to be into sharing it for their love as well. Paz did the interior piece in a day. Today, before SpaceCraft, she showed up with a charcoal drawing on paper. I hauled out the tall ladder and she climbed up and pasted it on the wall near 2060 Bryant (ACT’s prop shop). It is small and delicate: tiny strands coming out of the brickwork. It will only be noticed by people who look for art surprises in urban space. Might be you!

UPDATE: Paz came back after a bit of rain and wheat pasted a 3 foot long charcoal strand onto the Bryant St. facade of CELL. Here’s a pic she snapped up, added to the other photos below. (4/15/2012)

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Mendo Folks

Wandered up to Mendocino last month and snapped some pics between rainstorms. The fairy slippers were a nice treat. Got to use my Mucks for the first time. They came in real handy when I had to dig a hole down to some busted pvc piping. And they were also great when the woofer and I dug some tree trunks out of the garden. The blisters on my hands have finally healed. Continue reading “Mendo Folks”

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1999 Lost Photos

My storage space spent the past month under plastic sheets to keep construction debris and dust out. After the workers (flipping an apartment above the storage space…. $2000 / mo. 1 bedroom) vacuumed the space, I took some time to purge some stuff. One item was an old Firewire 400 hard drive that I built about eight years ago. I got it working, so I pulled items off and then erased the disc to possibly give to a thrift store.

Three finds on the old hard drive, named Oblio, were these files of scanned slides from my trip to Israel in 1999. I actually tried to photograph people on this trip which is a rarity for me. The man smoking the water pipe was suspicious of my camera, so this shot was from the hip. The camel ended up being on the World Remix flyer for Yair Dalal’s 2001 concert at CELL. Sometimes I miss using my film camera.

Continue reading “1999 Lost Photos”

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Murals at CELL

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Street comic by Tito Na Rua (Rio, Brazil) at CELL (3/2012)

My mural curating continues in 2012. Late last week I had three meetings about three different murals. I also have been in contact with Dia, the artist who painted the “Liberty” mural (now for sale) as well as the “Dia del Toro” mural over on the ACT shop entrance. Dia is going to paint a new mural at the ACT spot as soon as the weather cooperates.

Last Thursday, I met with Ray Balberan and artist Carlos Gonzalez. Mentioned in an earlier post, several panels from the 1980s RAP mural “Education is Liberation” magically appeared in the back of CELL. I took the panels, contacted the journalist at Mission Loc@l, and Ray finally met with me and Gonzalez to pick up the panels. Ray and Carlos were extremely happy to see the panels. Most of what has been found show gang banger skeletons committing violence. Though the message was education is the way out of the hood, the art is still quite powerful and a historical representation of the Mission District in the 80s.

Carlos Gonzales (R) and Ray Balberan celebrate the return of two lost 1980s mural panels
Carlos Gonzales (R) and Ray Balberan celebrate the return of two lost 1980s mural panels

Then I met with Paz de la Calzada to discuss her painting at a few spots at CELL. She will paint either wisps of hair or roots on the curved wall of the women’s bathroom as well as somewhere on the exterior walls of CELL (possibly the sidewalks). Then I met with Cy Wagoner to discuss the continued concept of the Native American themed wall at the 2048 Bryant entrance. I think we have an idea of how to move forward on this. The mural will possibly incorporate stencil, wheatpasted paper, free spray, and maybe other styles. If the rain ever stops.

Finally, Tito na Rua from Rio, Brazil stayed briefly at 2048. He does great street comics on walls. The Vexta stencil had been defaced by a tag, so I had Tito spray up his characters next to Meggs’s crazy SF monster. Looks great.

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I Display Found Mural for Mission Loc@l Article

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Article and Photos by Noah Arroyo (more photos on their page)

Artist Russell Howze isn’t sure how they got to Cell Space, but five more pieces of a historic mural series appeared at the art collective on Monday and will be turned over to its caretakers.

Howze said that when he arrived at Cell Space, at 2050 Bryant St., the pieces were in a back room. Continue reading “I Display Found Mural for Mission Loc@l Article”