Screen Prints

This week in the studio I have been working on printing a large scale reproduction of a collage for English (via Sweden) photorealist artist Howard Brookes [Falling pictured above]. He does amazingly beautiful, ridiculously detailed, magical realist/photorealist paintings. He works on some for as long as a year. He has been working on two in the studio for the last few weeks. Some of the paintings he does of his collages are just insane. And huge! Anyway, it has been really fun working on his images. We set one to print today at 36 inches by 48 inches. We are planning on printing one at 52 inches wide once we get our big Roland printer up and running next week. We are printing them on canvas so that we can stretch them and he can go in and embellish them by hand. He is also going to collage on top of the print to give it even more depth.


    Also, I got e-mail from A Paper Tiger today that they have a new series of screen prints going. They look pretty beautiful. The Freddi C [pictured above, left] and the Travis Millard [above, right] prints are my favorites. They are both three color screen prints on archival fine art paper. I am a b-boy at heart, so I gotta' rep the London street cred of Freddi C and the Travis Millard image reminds me of a cartoon dog fight. Not reminds, it is a cartoon dog fight. And I like cartoons, especially ones where dogs fight. Not real dog fights, though. That's just cruel, Michael Vick.

Speaking of screen prints, you should see some of the prints my boss has done. He has printed one of the largest silk screens ever produced. It is over eight feet on a side and was printed with over two hundred screens. Oh yeah, by the way, my boss is one of the most ridiculous screen printers ever, represent!

Oh yeah, did I mention, we did tequila shots at work this afternoon to celebrate Howard's print, an etching that Moises printed, success and praise on the botanical images we just printed, and a picture of the Rebbe that we printed. I am a little drunk. Don Julio!!!

I'm out.

Yep

I have been inundated with e-mail from various retailers hocking their holiday wares and after wading through it I have a few things to share. First of all, my old haunt Wootini is having a gallery opening this Friday featuring the work of Phil Blank, an established Carrboro artist [artwork pictured above]. Here's what he has to say about his work:

This show = triracial Carolina legends, cornstalks, postethnic Jewish indy rockers, conjure herbs, astral keyboard magician, universal brothel tunes, ancient Mediterranean female mead dance, Chapel Hill bus segregation history, and other INTP ramblings and bookish hi-jinx.

Anyway, those words aside, the opening starts at 7pm East Coast time, is sponsored by SCION and features the music of Uzi and Family.

Also this Friday, 7pm West Coast style, is an opening at the Cerasoli : LeBasse Gallery in Culver City. In Gallery I is an exhibit of new work from Evan B. Harris entitled 'Maritime and Mythology'. Harris's artwork "plays with nostalgia for his sailor grandfather's fantastical yarns, which have haunted the artist's dreams since childhood. Each of Harris's large-scale paintings is, in its own way, a vessel for the subconscious, lent with the eerie power of phantoms and filled with treasures straight out of the artist's youthful fantasies of foreign ports and being lost at sea."

In Gallery II is a group show entitled 'Gifted' featuring small works from over thirty different including Blaine Fontana, Yoskay Yamamoto, Eric Fortune, Hellovon, Jennifer Davis, Scott Belcastro, Justin Gibbens, Meggs, Melissa Haslam, Tessar Lo, Tofer Chin, Jack Long, Edwin Ushiro and more... Jeremiah Kentner's painting "Simple Thought" is pictured above.

Lastly, at Munky King this Thursday night from 7-11pm is the release of Yoskay Yamamoto's new gocco print [pictured above] and "Koibito" vinyl toy. Apparently, it should be pretty insane as his vinyl sold out at ComicCon this summer.

So that's what I will be doing this weekend. Y'all folks in Cackalacka should head over to Wootini for their show. And don't forget, Ryan DeBord's birthday is this Sunday, so if you see him, wish him a happy, scrappy, dappy-do birthday!

Charlie Don't Surf

After stuffing our faces full of turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, gravy, corn souffle, corn bread, biscuits, brownies, and banana pudding and washing it down with a six pack of pumpkin ale at Anne's coworker Sam and his wife Meg's apartment on Thanksgiving, Anne and I decided to get out of town for a little while to let everything settle. So we headed up to Santa Barbara for the weekend.

It was a ton of fun! We went down to Stearns Wharf, went on a pirate cruise around the bay and saw California sea lions and multi-million dollar yachts. We got salt water taffy. We ate at one of the best restaurants in California, a Cajun-Creole-Caribbean restaurant called The Palace Grill where we downed a mess of coconut shrimp, crawfish étouffée, fried soft shell crabs, blackened salmon, and two kinds of bread pudding. It was amazing! We did have to wait for an hour to get in, but it was worth it. There was an authentic Zydeco jug band playing right outside the restaurant and everyone waiting was invited to join in on percussion. Anne played the maracas and I played the washboard.

While in SB, we also checked out the Santa Barbara Museum of Art which had a really good Picasso drawings exhibit and a contemporary photography exhibit. On the way back, it looked like we were driving through crazy smoke from forest fires, but we didn't hear anything about any new fires, and when we got home we found out that it was just some bizarre weather pattern that created very low clouds and fog. I got some great pictures of people surfing in the clouds. It reminded me of that scene from Apocalypse Now where they are surfing through the smoke. You can check out my pictures from the trip here.

Unfortunately, I didn't make it over to the Nike Theater to pick up a pair of Krink Air Force 1's on Saturday. I'm sure they are completely sold out by now. There were only about six people in line when Anne and I drove past on our way out of town, though. Not nearly as crazy as the line for the Kaws' AF1's. Anyway, that was my weekend. I don't have any Limited Ed. stuff to write about right now, but I will try to get on the ball this week.

If I Was In New York

This weekend I would head down to the Alife Rivington Club and pick up a pair of Krink Air Force 1's. These things are fuckin' sweet! I love the drips and the 3M reflective material. Unfortunately, they are not available at the Alife stores in LA... yet. I am a huge fan of Krink's markers and mops. I have been destroying the dumpsters, newspaper dispensers and electric boxes out here with them. Mmmmm... silvery goodness. If only I could do it wearing the matching sneakers! That would be RADICAL!!! Anyway, if you are in NYC this weekend, and are cool, pick up a pair. I'm sure there will be a line. I'm not sure if they will be available anywhere else, but if they are, I'm totally there.

This morning at work, my boss yelled, "SHREDDER!!!"

Also, check out Allen Spector's new pictures of Chinatown. They are pretty sweet like green tea roasted duck. Yum!

Update: I just rode my bike past the Nike Theater on Hollywood and Vine and the Krink AF1's will also be premiering there on Saturday. I will try to brave the lines if I can (if Anne doesn't tie me to the radiator to keep me away).

I Am Dead

But only on the inside. On the outside, I am still going through the motions. Existing, but hardly living. To get any thrill in life, I have been tagging the hell out of Los Angeles. For example, the image above, of a tag I did across the street from the famous Vista Theater. I have decided to take pictures of them all, before they are gone, like the one I did down the street from The Hundreds, Alife, Supreme, Turntable Lab, and Huf on Fairfax Ave. Oh yeah, there is a new Alife store opening on Cahuenga near the corner of Sunset. It is opening right next to Space15Twenty. I was driving past before the Alife crew had gotten all of the butcher paper over the windows and noticed they had a huge Marcel Duchamp urinal in the middle of the space. Fuckin' awesome! I wish I had gotten a picture. Anyway, they haven't sent out an e-mail about the opening yet, so I don't have any info, but I am going to try to get out there for that shit and take some pictures for y'all. Now I gotta' go to dinner at Anne's boss' house.

Black Friday 11.28.08

President Elect Barack Obama!

I am still drunk with happiness today after celebrating Barack Obama's victory as the next President of the United States last night. It was an amazing night, but as Anne said, slightly anti-climactic because it was over so quickly. As soon as California's polls closed, the winner was announced. There was partying in the streets, cars honking their horns. I was in the restroom, where I usually am when important events in world history are going down. The Berlin Wall coming down, I was in the can. The new millennium, I was in the john. My Bar Mitzvah, oy, what a stool.

Sorry, I got a little side tracked there.

Anyway, I was trying to think of a way to show my support for our new President Elect, so I designed the t-shirt above. Until possible (but unlikely) approval by Threadless.com and the general public, you can buy the cheap imitation version of my President Elect Obama t-shirt here.

Update: Well, my design was rejected by both Threadless.com and Cafe Press. Apparently, you can't use an picture of Barack Obama, even if you alter it drastically. What if I drew a picture of him that looked exactly like the image above instead of using Photoshop to alter a photograph, would that work? Or does my version just look too much like Shepard Fairey's image of Obama [pictured below] and that's what the problem is? Or is it just that it is Barack Obama? No celebrity images! But I just want to support our new President Elect.

Best Movie Of The Year

Come out and see the best movie of the year, The Elephant King, in Los Angeles starting today, October 24th at the Laemmle Sunset 5 or if you happen to be in Irvine, you can check it out at the Edwards Westpark 8. This movie will make you want to get off your lazy ass and travel to Thailand to have weird, wonderful adventures with your brother. Or with someone else if your brother isn't available or you don't have one. I love this movie, and not just because my brother directed it and it is based on experiences we had when I visited him in Thailand. It also has a great soundtrack! Come out this weekend. Party, party, party!

Whazzup?!

So I have been asked, "Limited, why so few posts recently?" Several times now, which is weird 'cuz that ain't my real name. Well, it's because my current job is too demanding to try to post while there and at home our furniture has not yet arrived from North Carolina, so my computer is currently sitting on the floor and I am reclining on a bean bag with my keyboard in my lap trying to type this. It is not easy or comfortable. Luckily, our furniture arrives tomorrow morning. Since I have not been spending my evenings satirically pimping various rare goods, I have been going out on a lot of night photo shoots. Here are some pictures I took over the past week. That's a 15 second exposure, above. There was a full moon over the pool at my apartment complex. Also, one of the pictures I took while driving out to Los Angeles from North Carolina at the Farmer's Market in Austin, Texas was chosen to be used on Schmap. You can check it out here. You can also buy the image below by clicking on it.

Hollow Weenies

Man, I am so mature. Anyway, it has been a while since I was really excited about anything Kidrobot was doing, other than a moderate interest in The Simpsons figures and the Adult Swim mini figures, but I do get excited when they put out a new Kidrobot figure, especially one associated with Halloween. I have a few of the early Kidrobot figures and I just might have to add this Kidrobot 15 Kidreaper figure [pictured above] to my collection. I haven't bought any toys since I have been in LA and there are several toy stores here! Creatures in My Head creator Andrew Bell is responsible for this little bit of awesomeness. He will be in New York for its release tomorrow, October 16th, and then in Chicago the next day, signing autographs and living the jet set lifestyle. The figure glows in the dark and apparently there is a chase figure out there for some lucky person. I am going to try to make it out to the LA Kidrobot store tomorrow and pick one up. Just $50. Gotta' keep the economy strong!