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.

Mike Mignola Y'all!

I know it has been forever, but whatever, get it while you can.

Anyway, the artwork of Mike Mignola, creator of Hellboy, will be featured tonight, one night only, at Secret Headquarters in Sunset Junction from 8-10pm.


Secret Headquarters will also be offering a limited edition Mignola illustrated letterpress print made specifically for this show. The prints feature never before seen Hellboy artwork by Mike Mignola with color supervision by Dave Stewart. These 3 color letterpress prints have been beautifully made by Aardvark Letterpress of Los Angeles.


Complimentary wine provided by Bear Flag.

Also, Kwong Dynasty: Noodle Fantasy will be parked in front of Secret Headquarters for all of your delicious noodle slurping needs.

Now get off my back about posting stuff, y'all! I needs my beauty sleep!

Much Respect, Collect Comes Correct

I got e-mail from Collect, a newly launched t-shirt label out of London, about their new website featuring their Limited Ed. and finely designed t-shirt line. Collect features three styles of tees for men and women: a plain, single-color tee, which is not limited to a certain number of releases, patterned tees and printed tees, which are each limited to 100 printings of each design. The tees come in three fits: fitted, relaxed and vest (what we here in the states would call a tank-top of wife-beater) for women and slim, regular and relaxed for men. So there are a lot of choices, when you come down to it, but only 100 of each design for the printed and patterned tees.

Now let's see if I can make this any more confusing. If you take the square root of the hypotenuse of the right triangle that is formed by the intersection of the relaxed fit and slim tees in the men's patterned tee style and subtract the circumference of the arm strap of the women's plain vest tee, amazingly, you will come out with your own age! It's just that simple.

Anyway, as you can see from the pictures above, the t-shirts are all real pretty and fancy. The prices range from £20-£45. So not too bad if you live somewhere with a good exchange rate. Hopefully, soon I will be getting a sample t-shirt to do more research on in terms of quality and detail, so that I can add an update to this post with more info. Until then, maybe you might want to go to www.collectlondon.com and check out the shirts yourself. You might even want to buy one. If you do, tell them Limited Ed. sent you. You won't get a discount, but it will make you seem cooler.

Futurama Mama

I know, that title is terrible. I just couldn't think of anything clever to use as a title to better describe the adorably cute and great new Futurama mini-figure set from Kidrobot. I love The Simpsons mini-figs that Kidrobot did. They feature great sculpts and quality and feel really good in your hand. They are very solid and heavy for their size. And I'm guessing the Futurama figures will be the same. I'm not sure what the two chase figures are, but when I got my first Kidrobot Simpsons figure it just happened to be one of the chase figures, Snake, actually one of my favorite characters from The Simpsons. Hopefully the Futurama chase figures are equally as cool. Anyway, back to the job hunt. I got some more stuff to post later, so keep an eye out... literally! Just like Leela would!

Broken Boards

Howdy y'all! It's been a while. Good to see all y'all again. Here I am, back in the saddle.

I know I haven't been around in a while, but I have been skateboarding a lot recently. I think it is a result of my move to Los Angeles, my lack of work, Anne being in DC, an early mid-life crisis, a desire for a fun way to get some exercise and lose weight, and my general anarchic tendencies and lack of respect for authority. I am trying to skate for at least an hour a day, two hours if I get the chance or go to one of the local skate parks around LA. And I don't just cruise around on a long board like an old dude, I am trying to learn new tricks, like pop shove-its and rail slides. And I am an old dog, which means I wear knee pads under my jeans when I go out skating around my apartment, so I don't tear up my knees, and if I go to the skate park I also wear my wrist guards so I don't break another wrist. Instead of breaking bones, I have been breaking boards recently. One that Anne got me, that I broke popping ollies behind our apartment, and another that I had for about ten years, that I broke doing an ollie to board slide down in Venice Beach. The ten year old Powell board had been sitting in my parents' attic for about a year, so it may have gotten brittle and broke just because it was old.

Anyway, I have had to replace two boards in the last few months, so I had to find a good local skate shop that I trusted. There is one down in Venice where Anne got me a board for my birthday, but that is too far away. There was also a shop that I used to drive past on Sunset Blvd. everyday on my way to work when Anne and I were living at Seth's place in Echo Park. It is called Maintain, and is the best shop I have found in the Silverlake area. The first time I was in there, I was a little intimidated by all of the kids in the store, but once I met the owner Alex Rodriguez, I was thoroughly impressed by his skate and graffiti art knowledge. Not to mention, his reasonably priced decks. I have gotten two blank decks from him to replace my broken ones. Two blank decks were cheaper than one graphic deck online, so I won't feel bad if I break one of these. But if I did want a graphic deck, Maintain has a wide selection of them at very reasonable prices. As well as trucks, wheels, bearings, risers, and stickers. They also have a wide selection of spray cans, markers, acrylics, and other art needs. And Alex has some of his amazing art up in the shop. His other art can be seen on the walls around the Silverlake and Echo Park areas. Maintain doesn't have a website yet, but hopefully they will soon. Until then, check them out on their MySpace page or go down to the shop at 3318 W. Sunset Blvd. in LA and tell them Limited Ed. sent you.

Now I just need to get someone to take pictures of me skating so that I can prove once and for all that pigs can fly!

Pimpin' It In 3D

Erick Scarecrow and Pimpit 3D have teamed up to bring you 3D online templates of the Shiitakes and Soopa Coin-Up Bros. vinyl. You can check the links below.

http://www.pimpit3d.com/object/soopa

http://www.pimpit3d.com/object/shiitake

On Pimpit 3D will can download 2D templates via PSD and custom them and upload them online. Using Pimpit 3D is very easy...

1. Download template to your computer.
2. Customize and pimp it.
3. Upload and battle.

Sounds pretty fun to me. Maybe if I ever get some spare time I will check it out.

In Our Neighborhood

It is very dangerous that Kogi Korean BBQ-To-Go has set up shop at Alife in Hollywood, which is easily within walking distance. Every Wednesday night, 6-9 pm. I'm sad I already ate dinner tonight, and guess what? It was Korean BBQ! Well, I know what I am doing next Wednesday night.

Update: Anne and I had dinner there last night. We thought we were getting there early at 7:30, half an hour after they open, but there was already a line halfway down the block. It took about half an hour for us to get our food, and oh boy was it worth it! Anne had a Korean Short Rib taco and a Korean Chicken taco and I had a Korean Spicy Pork burrito. I will be back next week despite the crowd, that's how good it was!