Yesterday was a puppets and stencils day. Spent the afternoon in Chelsea, which has a cluster of art galleries. This means that a good deal of street art is up around there. Found a Swoon piece that she submitted to be published in the book. It was right across the street from EYEBEAM, an arts and technology center where old SF cohort Steve Lambert plies his creative trade. You can’t miss the EYEBEAM space because it has cascading blue paint dripping down its facade (noticed some stencils up on their roof too). Steve’s doing good, and took me on a tour of the facility. He showed me the Lab where his work station is located, the 3D printer (it cuts shapes out of plastic), the laser cutting machine, and I met a few of his coworkers. He then took me around as we headed to the roof door. The roof door was locked, but I did manage to shoot some random stencils around the space. Most of them were made by Graffiti Research Labs. Great things going on there. Got to show Steve the book and talk to him about some promotional ideas for the book. After that, went to a street art show right around the corner from EYEBEAM. The Streets of Europe is up until December 29 at the Jonathan Levine Gallery. Took photos of the Bleck pieces, and enjoyed Blu’s great animation of illustrations he painted on the walls in the room where you watch the video. The moving pictures were in various forms of being painted over on the walls, so the video gives contrast to this buffed state via the story that you see on the screen.
Spent the late afternoon watching “Pippi” at the Swedish Cottage and then spent the evening with friend and puppeteer Kevin White. We ended up eating hot dogs in the Lower East Side at a place called Crif Dogs. There’s a phone booth in this subterranean joint that serves as an entrance to a speakeasy bar! Crif’s bathroom is also hidden behind wood paneling and is unlocked when the counterperson clicks a button.