Stencils, Shadows, and Death

The Tower of Transformation is an Installation/Interactive portable art piece for the Burning Man 2011 theme-Rites of Passage. Based on a Balinese cremation tower in form and intent, it will be modified for presentation in Black Rock City

In place of traditional Balinese gold leaf designs, the tower will be covered in stencils by contemporary street artists from Bali, Java, the U.S. and Europe. It will also contain a contemporary shadow puppet theater

Participants will be invited to join the Tower in procession around Burning Man, adding their sentiments about the Rites of Passage in their own experience to the piece through writing on or artistic modification to the tower.

CELLtv: Funky Puppet Supper I Video

Back in 2000, Dave X, Charles Gadeken, Skot Kuiper, Jonathan Youtt, and a pile of other artists and volunteers cooked up an idea of video-taping CELLspace events and putting it on a Public Cable channel every week. CELLtv ran for a few years before the project lost steam (these people worked real hard on cranking out the episodes). Skot posted the episodes on his YouTube channel last month.

Here is the episode that aired Jonathan’s Funky Puppet Supper video edit.

I was pulled into this project as a producer, so with no budget and only a few weeks time, I helped an amazing group of artists pull together a show that included circus, puppets, Commedia dellarte, and food! There was little rehearsal, but ringer acts came in and filled the void. Foam master sculptor Ian Greeb showed up and helped craft the huge head and did pre-show walk around. Dan Chumley and Temple Brady educated the commedia actors and fleshed out a sketch of a story line with the other players. Stephen Bass and All Star Stilts added a bit of buffoon to the whole mix. About two dozen people in all made this thing happen, and Jonathan Youtt gets props for even thinking up the idea (based upon a Clown Cafe that happened at CELL some years earlier).

The FPS segment is towards the end of this episode of CELLtv. Here’s the link for FPS via this site (the only archive of the shows).

Mendo Magic in the Rain

Ah… FaceBook sucks all my creative energy. Thus tolls the blog bell. Haven’t posted pics on here lately because of the ease on FB. Share TO the world rather than have them come find it. Spending more time up in Mendocino county on some land that the Noyo River runs through. Rained five inches when I was there a few weeks ago! The land is so alive; the river fast and furious. A bear visits sometimes. Salmon are said to like the Noyo. No industry along this river which cracks out of the hills and heads to the Pacific.

Here are four photos I took this past visit. Morel mushrooms! Yum. Lichen loving a rotting log. A rusting piece of farm equipment in a field in front of second growth redwoods. And the flooded banks of the Noyo.

New Mural on Haight St.

Had a fun time painting this one up on Haight St. this past week. When the weather was sunny, between those rainy days, I painted, met neighbors, chatted with tourists, was documented by photographers and videographers, and had some friends wander by. I also met a few stencils artists wandering by. Good times had by all. What was once an ugly gray fire exit is now a nice, trippy, half-toned stencil mural!

20 Nov. :: Celebrate People’s History Release Party/Exhibit

ONE DAY ONLY

Poster Exhibit – Book Release Party – Artist Panel

CELEBRATE PEOPLE’S HISTORY: the Poster Book of Resistance and Revolution

Edited by Josh MacPhee

Foreword by Rebecca Solnit

Published by the Feminist Press

7pm – Saturday Nov. 20

The Center for Political Education

522 Valencia St, SF

www.politicaleducation.org

Since 1998, Celebrate People’s History posters have documented feminist organizers, indigenous uprisings, civil rights leaders, union struggles, LGBT activism and much more. Bay Area history stands out with posters on Los Siete de la Raza, the 1969 Alcatraz occupation, the International Hotel and the 1966 transgender riot at Compton’s Cafeteria. The Feminist Press has just released over 100 posters in hardback, and the book’s West Coast premiere includes a poster exhibit, book signing and artist panel.

Featured Speakers:

Lincoln Cushing, historian, www.docspopuli.org

Favianna Rodríguez, artist, www.favianna.com

FREE admission. Donations go to MacPhee’s partner, Dara Greenwald, who is battling cancer.

Two Calaverita Poems

There is a Day of the Dead tradition in Mexico where souls who live through the day can write poems killing whomever they wish. A calaverita is limerick-styled writing that usually makes fun of the subject by using their quirks to do them in. I wrote a long poem that I didn’t read at a Day of the Dead Gathering in the Mission District, so am posting it here to share. While people were writing their pieces at the party, hostess Adrianna wanted someone to kill Critical Mass. An idea sprung up which I jotted down. I read that one and then had to repeat it with a beat box dropping beats. So I rapped it the second time, trying hard not to laugh during the performance.

A pile of bikes roll down the street
Having the best time ever
The riders in front fail to see the bait
Some car drivers lead them to the bridge – too drunk the bikes spill over

And here is one where a huge Giant takes revenge upon a group of Texan Kings:

all hail the baseball kings
presiding from texas way
proceeding with banners and pennants asway
expecting to forever reign

invading the City with their weapons drawn
hoping to conquer their frey
their bats seeking to find easy prey
their balls hoping to go long

but the monarchs from the Lone Star state
met a terrible and mighty foe
and quickly their fate was neatly sewn
and their eyes came wide awake

for a ferocious bearded thonged beast
with long hair and snapping glove
soon grabbed those Texans from above
and had a mighty feast

five courses this Giant did gladly eat
with only one spell of woe
four entrees, three where the enemy did go
to make the meal complete

then sitting on a pile of bones
and bats and balls and gloves
the Giant for the City did finger shove
into the crowns that shone

and with a mighty roar he yelled
“Fool kings your kingdom’s is done!”
And took the crowns one by one
and tossed them so they sailed

The Giants shall rule from their foggy realms!
Their people will all agree
the Texans made a great entree
and with a burp, we are the helm

In New Book: Celebrate People’s History

When Josh MacPhee sent a call for art e-mail out about four years ago, he wanted a fresh pile of posters to put in his book project for “Celebrate People’s History” (just released from the Feminist Press). While Josh and I collaborated and crossed over on our stencil projects, he was always making, printing, selling, and giving away CPH posters. Josh always talked about how this project was a labor of love as well as a way to “teach” history that tended to fall through the cracks. Sometimes the posters ended up on public walls. Other times, they would end up framed on private walls. But they always educated and entertained.

With this in mind, I reached out to long-time friend and collaborator Mark Cort with an idea of sharing some of South Carolina’s lost People’s History. Being our home state, the obvious choice was a poorly documented event known as the Stono Rebellion. I found one slim history book that had all the contemporary accounts and I found very little valuable sources online, but nonetheless I wrote a paragraph of text and then had Mark draw a simple illustration for the poster.

The mock-up of the CPH Stono Rebellion poster. Text and stencil by Russell Howze; artwork by Mark Cort; edited by Josh MacPhee
The mock-up of the CPH Stono Rebellion poster. Text and stencil by Russell Howze; artwork by Mark Cort; edited by Josh MacPhee

Continue reading “In New Book: Celebrate People’s History”

My Summer Vacation(s) : Pics

Random NYC Pics

[u] Ground to Cloud to be in REDCAT’s Now Fest

New Original Works Festival 2010

Ground to Cloud will play July 29-31

Follow the link above to purchase tickets online or
call the REDCAT box office at 213-237-2800.

For three weeks REDCAT is a vibrant performance laboratory. Join us as Los Angeles artists gather to push the boundaries of creative expression in new dance, theater, music and multimedia performance works.

CHRISTINE MARIE & ENSEMBLE: GROUND TO CLOUD

(I will be light operator and on stage with all the amazing action)

Seamlessly integrating projected shadows, live actors and an innovative sound score, Christine Marie and her collaborators draw on the history of electric light to manifest a flickering world of natural phenomena and human intervention. Large-scale imagery from simple handheld lights and props takes on mythological proportions as scientific discovery, religious folklore and magical trickery blend into an incandescent work of expressionist theater.

“Christine Marie’s shadow design conjures a literal ocean of surprise.” —Los Angeles Times