Something To Do Tonight

If you are in the Carrboro, NC area (which I now am), there is something that looks like it will be fun and toy/art related going on tonight. Tonight is the re-opening of Wootini at their new gallery space (not in Carr Mill Mall anymore) along with the opening of the Wootini Gallery Roadshow, featuring works of art by the likes of Steff Bomb, Fish McGill, CHema Skandal (apparently the "H" is capitalized, this is not a typo), Mike Ski, Evoker, Shawnimals, and other people with equally ridiculous names. There will probably be music, possibly by Family, and maybe even some beer or wine or other drinkies for the folkies. And of course, they got toys! Anne is going to a wine tasting, but I prefer an art opening, so this is where I will be. Maybe not from 7-11pm, but at some point.

But I Never Win!

This past Saturday night was the Rotobox Vinyl Anatomica Ganmetall Celsius Custom Show at the Toy Art Gallery right here in LA and for some reason I didn't know about it! How can something like this happen where I live and I don't know about it? Rhetorical question, but I will answer it anyway. It is because LA is huge and there is just no way to know about everything that is going on. Of course, being in general contact with the toy community at large and toy customizer and participant-in-this-event Tony Nakanari specifically, I should have known about this. Somewhere in the bottomless pit that is my e-mail inbox there is probably an invitation or two to this show. But I didn't know all that. Nope, I was completely oblivious. Until I walked past the show on the way to see one of my roommate's friends perform improv at the Comedy Sportz Theatre which is right next door to the Toy Art Gallery. There was a Kogi-ripoff Korean BBQ taco truck parked right outside, and my roommate and I both wondered to ourselves what it was doing there. We noticed the throng of people gathered around and as we walked past I peeked into the gallery window and to my delight saw several customized art toys. I convinced my roommate to venture into the gallery with me because we were quite early for the improv show. As we entered, we were both handed raffle tickets for prizes that would be drawn later that night. I really didn't think much of it, I didn't think we would be back at ten o'clock that night for the drawing. I didn't think the improv show would go on that long. But it did, and as we were waiting for my roommate's friend to change clothes after his performance and meet us to see what we were going to do, we went back to the gallery for the raffle drawing. To my amazed surprise, bemusement, thrill, and shock I was the first raffle ticket picked for a prize. I won a pre-release Ganmetall Celcius figure, Overheat, which I guess will be released sometime later this year. I'm not sure, there isn't any information about it on Rotobox's website other than that there is just one of them and it was the raffle prize. The new Jadon G.I.D. Exclusive Debametall Fahrenheit figure, which was released for public consumption at the show, was the other raffle prize that was given away. Spencer Ong of Rotobox even signed the feet of my prize Overheat Celsius figure for me! It was pretty sweet! And I normally never win anything! You can see pictures of most of the customs here. You can see the two that were given away below.
This is the one that I won.
This is the other one that was given away.

I ♥ NC!

This is why I love North Carolina. I have to get back sometime in July for these!

[via Anne via The Consumerist]

Who?

Alright, there is a street artist in LA going around using my name on his paste-ups! I just wanted to let people know, now, so that I don't get in trouble for it, that this is not my work. I kind of wish it was, because it is really nice and the kind of thing that I might do. But this other Alec thought of it first. Damn you, other Alec! The image below is even from the building that the art studio/gallery that I worked in used to be. Also, I never even thought of using my actual name as my tag, I thought it would be better to remain anonymous. I guess this other Alec doesn't agree. Anyway, you can check out Alec Monopoly's website and his work on his Flickr page here.

WTF?!

Alright, WTF Apple?! I am really pissed! No iOS 4 for first gen iPod touch users?! Loyal users who were early adopters get screwed again! This is total BS! Well, FU Apple! See if I buy an iPhone now, you a-holes!

Wild Style

I just "found" the coolest little graffiti tools for the iPhone/iPod touch and computer. They are called DustTag and Graffiti Analysis and they are so much fun to play around with. They use GML (Graffiti Markup Language) to create animated 3D renderings of graffiti tags. DustTag is an iPhone/iPod touch app that allows you to write tags on the screen and control them by dragging and pinching or rotating the device. You can also upload your tags to the 000000book.com website, then download the GML files to your computer so that they can be further manipulated with the Graffiti Analysis software, for results like the image above. It sounds complicated, but once you watch the videos on the Graffiti Analysis website, it is pretty fun and time consuming to mess around with. You can check out some of my tags on the 000000book.com website here.

Also, happy 25th anniversary, Wild Style! Only three years late! What?

Art March Again

My artwork will be featured at an exhibit at Gallery Godo in Glendale, CA starting next Friday, March 26th. There will be a reception from 7pm until midnight and the exhibit will be up until April 2nd. I have a couple of new paintings that I just completed that I will be showing. So come check it out if you are in the LA area.

Update: Unfortunately, I didn't sell anything at that exhibit, but you can still take a look at pictures from the gallery opening night here. I now have three of my paintings in an ongoing group exhibit at Artisan Venice in Venice Beach, CA. If you are in the area, you can check it out. It is located at 80A Windward Ave.

Most. Beautiful. Toys. Ever.

I am speechless after seeing these amazingly beautiful and ridiculously expensive Limited Ed. artisan toys from Ducobi. They are all 100% hand-made black lacquer with mother-of-pearl inlay. I can't imagine the amount of time that went into creating these. They are definitely more art than toy. They are actually very traditional in style and remind me of some of the work that I saw recently at the Japanese pavilion at LACMA. There is an entire room of hand-carved, miniature, polished wooden toys from the 17th-19th century. They also have a really nice lacquered stationary box that also features mother-of-pearl inlay. So it is no wonder that the prices on these artisan toys range from $750-$1,440! My favorites are Koi - Special Edition [pictured right], which has some beautiful pink mother-of-pearl inlay and Guardian of Organ [pictured center], which features some really nice iridescent mother-of-pearl inlay. If I were a rich man, yaidal-deedal-didle-dum! My birthday is coming up, maybe one of my rich friends will get me one of these. Yeah, right! Anyway, back to the job hunt.

Toy Version Of Me

Yep, they have finally done it. They have created a toy version of me. Just look at the picture. I have that exact outfit. And I skate. And my hair often looks crazy like that. I guess CoolRain must have seen me around somewhere. Or I just wear the same shit they sell over at Kasina, the street-wear retailer who commissioned this toy line from CoolRain. I'm not sure if these toys are available anywhere, I can't seem to navigate either of the above websites, but if anyone knows, let me know, cuz THEY MADE A TOY VERSION OF ME!!!

Something, Something, Something, Dark Side

Holy crap! New Adidas x Star Wars kicks! The Superstar 2 Star Wars, Game Mid Princess Leia (for my sister Leia), and Superstar 2 Darth Vader are my favorites. I also really like the Stormtrooper Hooded Flock Track Top. Alright, I want them all. Well, maybe just the more subtle designs. I know I'm a huge nerd, whatever. A better colab, there has never been.