Tag: Creations

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14 Feb: Seattle’s First Crankie Festival!

Seattle’s First Crankie Festival!

Thursday, Feb 14th, 2013 – 7:30 PM

at the Northwest Puppet Center, 9123 15th Ave NE, Seattle

Tickets: $15.00 http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/320636

or call 800-838-3006 info@nwpuppet.org www.nwpuppet.org

wondering what a crankie is? Look HERE.

Anna and Elizabeth
Anna Roberts-Gevalt and Elizabeth LaPrelle are two young master
musicians living in Virginia. Together they perform the music of the
Appalachian Mountains, from the ancient ballads to the barn-burning fiddle
and banjo tunes. They’ve also developed a marvelous art form they call
“Crankies.” These are hand-sewn rolls of felt that tell a story through
shadows as they are unrolled. Much like an old-fashioned movie, Anna &
Elizabeth sing, play and tell the story of each Crankie as it unfurls. These
handmade works of art transport the viewers back to an earlier time.

Dejah Leger – French Canadian song and crankies
Singer, traditional musician, and graphic designer: Dejah Léger has taken
these three passions and united them in her work building crankies. Her
crankies bring together intricate paper cut art (similar to Nikki McLure) and
old songs from American and French-Canadian traditions.

Sue Truman and Skye Richendrfer – Cape Breton stye Seattle fiddler and folk art artist Sue Truman will bring together some of her new crankies based on Scottish themes. Featuring bagpiping and crankies about topics such as whisky, seagulls and sheep! Masterful piping and story telling by Skye Richendrfer.

It’s going to be a very special, magical evening, on Valentine’s Day no less! If you are in the area, I hope you can make it.

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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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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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See if it Sticks, Feb. 25

see-if-it-sticks-feb-25-flyer

Back in December, I started cutting circles. Dozens and dozens of tiny circles that made up half tone images of money. I cut out the easy one first: Tom Jefferson off of the $2 bill. I took the other two to South Carolina and managed to cut out the buffalo off of the buffalo nickle. My sister and niece helped cut a few dozen of the circles out. The last piece proved to test my bounds of sanity as well as a cramped index finger. I finally cut out the liberty head half dollar a few weeks ago.

All the while Todd Hanson has been holed up in his rotting Noe Valley bungalow madly cutting anything that comes to mind. He’s only been cutting stencils for a year or so but has already become a master at it. He practices on magazine ads but has begun to really just cut what he imagines. So he has developed a truly unique style that I like very much.

Sabrina Enrique from Density on Valencia St. emailed me months ago asking about my having a show at her store. She started selling my book too. I had to include Todd. We met Sabrina at her store and talked about the Mission, art, and stencils. She had a great Michael Kushner show up when we stopped by. After agreeing to set up an exhibit, Todd and I both kept asking Scott Williams, the SF king of cut paper, to be part of the show. He finally relented. So as the show loomed, I had to think up a name that wasn’t a lame stencil cliche.

Todd and I began to throw ideas around. We started to meet up and stencil USPS stickers and would try to think up title ideas in between wearing respirators. Ana came over one day and worked on her Love Aqui hearts. None of the title ideas really worked that day. On the second sticker jam, as I was getting on my bike, I threw out some more title ideas to Todd. “Well, I guess we’ll see if any of them stick.” I paused, and let that last word hang in my brain. “Hmm, how about ‘see if it sticks?'” It sort of connected with Todd, who now had a 25th title idea to mull over.

Over the week, I kept mentioning “see if it sticks” to friends. It consistently got chuckles and smiles. I wrote out some punish sentences about sticking stencils and sticky art. Then I realized that Todd and I had made stickers to give away at the show.

So…. “See If It Sticks” will open Feb. 25 at Density. Still working out the time. You’ll probably find the time on FaceBook anyway! I think we might serve peanut butter and lemon squares. Or possibly honey and crackers. Might as well run the idea in the ground. Oh… the initials of the show – SIIS – sound like a the propelling pigment of a spraypaint can.

Nice!

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Wrote an Essay for Upcoming Blek le Rat book

Blek le Rat, the “godfather” of stencil graffiti commemorates 30 years creating art on the streets with the launch of new retrospective from Art Publishing, Ltd.

http://www.artpublishingltd.com/new/

http://www.artpublishingltd.com/bleklerat.html

This retrospective features the artist’s private family photos, point and shoot images of his graffiti artwork from around the world, and full-color reproductions of his gallery pieces. The book is separated into two distinct sections: “Street Art” and “Fine Art,” both of which are augmented by the writing of celebrated scholars, critics, experts in relevant fields, fellow artists, journalists, collectors and gallerists. Lavishly illustrated with more than 200 images, “Blek le Rat,” the 30 year anniversary retrospective offers the first full history of this seminal artist’s tradition and legacy, featuring:
Continue reading “Wrote an Essay for Upcoming Blek le Rat book”

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Sign Painting now in business

Spent the past week down on Folsom St., in the fog up on a ladder, painting a sign with Chris Benfield. Justin Fraser just changed his business name from digipop to Mission Web Works. We finished the first sign on the Folsom St. facade today, so I took some photos of the work. Chris and I already have another job lead. Justin asked me “what’s your sign business name?” hmm. After several hours of brainstorming while up ladders, Chris and I were still undecided. Two women walked by and one looked up at us and said “You sure do have steady hands!”

So Steady Hands it is. Ready to stencil and pounce our way through the Bay.

[u] well, Chris googled Steady Hands and a guy in Walnut Creek has that name. So we’re still working on a name. Stay tuned….

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Al’s Comics Logo

Was hanging out with Al and Antonio last Saturday for what ended up being a random, spontaneous night of laughter. Antonio started asking Al about content for his website and we then brainstormed some animation ideas about the logo. Al’s calling his site “VirtuAL’S” which was why we laughed so much. Anyway, I had an idea for making a “money” logo for Al, especially since money is what keeps kicking his ass all around Market Street.

Got the urge tonight, probably since I was painting stencils earlier today, to make the logo. It’s fun!

Al's Comics Money Logo
Al's Comics Money Logo

I put it in that square for Al’s Facebook usage. I Googled “color of money” and got the CMYK mix for this green. The font is “United States” which is kinda like the dollar bill font. The bubbly font is from a San Diego Comicon font site. Or a geek comics font site. I just deleted all the links so just feel like guessing. 🙂