feather2pixels

I wanted to write more about these mystery tiles.  They are a study for a large series that I am preparing, in which each one of these connected, free associative phrases gets its own treatment.  The so called treatment I am envisioning is a conceptual piece with a lot of working parts not shown here, but the backbone is this succession of wordplay.

(All of this is being prepared in parallel with a wordplay-based exhibition I am planning with a group of collaborators .  If all goes well, it might happen in July 2013. )

For now, this study was a way of giving the phrases a physical manifestation, to see what they looked like on a wall.

I am pretty happy with it.  The phrases are still subject to change and I would welcome any feedback from devoted colleagues.  In particular, I don’t know about “something retarded.”  I was hoping to sort of reclaim the word from it’s more uncomely usages, instead presenting it as the converse to the previous “something to quickly convince someone of something.”  But I don’t know if it plays right.  I need outside impressions, I think.

After sitting around the kitchen counter for the better part of a week developing a rind, my first homemade cheese is waxed.

Remember Michelle Chandra?

She’s the photographer that individually shot all thirty of my screenprints of three cones in the woods at thirty different times of day.

I got the chance to return the favor last Monday by male-modelling for her new project.  She’s been folding butterflies from translucent vellum and theatrically suspending them in a series of portraits she’s shooting at the SF City College studio.

Even though appearing happy and standing on my feet for extended periods are two personal weaknesses, I was happy to endure this four hour light-rigging nightmare freewheeling adventure that Michelle shot on black and white film and will assiduously hand develop.I think they worked out as well as photos of me could probably ever  work out.

Here’s the best one out of sixty. (Erin’s turned out way better)

My Silian Rail posters are complete.  Instead of settling on one way to print all of them, I decided to provide a few options for potential owners to choose from.  In forcing myself to be loose and more flexible (or, more accurately, marginally less inflexible), I felt rewarded by the compelling and vaguely playing card-like effect that flipping the stencil produced in some of these.

All posters are 14×17″.  An edition of 30.

Well I spent some joyful time printing, hand-binding, and editioning a catalog for my latest series of prints on trash.

Then I spent some more, less fun time distributing and photographing the catalog.

Then I spent some possibly-wasted time programming my website to show you the catalog here.

Did I mention I was invited to join a new collective gallery owned and operated by artists?

Did I mention that this gallery is on the same Larkin Street block where I purchase my quasi-legal pharmaceuticals as my favorite Morrocan restaurant?

Did I mention our first show goes up this February?

It is all true and I am planning something exciting, complete with special effects.  Check out the gradient technique:

I bet Andy Warhol never thought of that, welcome to the future,.

Please check in again soon to see what I am making and how this series comes out.  Or even better come to the show.  I would love the moral support:

Gallery 1044 February 2012 Show
1044 Larkin St, San Francisco
Feb 01-Feb 26
Opening Reception: 2nd Thursday (2/9) 6-10pm
(Did I mention I will be offering this absurdly cheap, unique and gallery-enabled series of screenprints)

Look! I completed a 10 day project of retroactively tagging and categorizing all every feather2pixel blog post written in the last 5 years.

Try clicking on one!

That old stuff gets really embarrassing but I stand by it.

Also–Please notice the tag cloud located on the feather2pixel sidebar.

Here’s my next step in the Cowboys and Indians piece:  painting the quilted cowboy comix.  I did this with a mix of Mod Podge, water, and screen printing ink.

Selling it like a decoupage pro:

One of the silk screens burned with geology book data.

I made a run of test prints from my geology book stencils. I thought I would experiment with metallic and glow in the dark inks, with the former more or less working and the latter more or less leaving me with four days of neck pain from pushing down so hard on the squeegee. (There is no glow in the dark ink in the final test prints.)

Because these types test prints often turn out better than my final pieces, I like to mail them.  So I cut down the sheets into  a large edition of postcards and sent them out to the usual suspects last week.   This gesture of goodwill generated a bit of feedback, which expressed various degrees of incredulity.

“This anonymous person who just sent us some art in the mail started to address it to my old apartment, then x’d it out, and then sent it to our current apartment.”

“It had me a bit freaked out.”

“Own up.”

“Thanks, but put my name next time!”

Anyway, you can see the edition of 6 here on my postcard page, where my official goal is 100 postcards by 2013.

I have a few new artists joining my CELLspace screen printing studio this month.  Consequently , I thought it would be nice to set shop up with a proper sign, so I unpacked a piece of very special driftwood I have been saving and set to work ruining it with my art.  I found this wood at Mile Rock Beach in San Francisco five years ago and really, nothing I could print on it could ever improve it in an aesthetic sense.  But that has never stopped me before and I have been saving this for a special occasion so tonight I fired up the old t-shirt press and threw down a simple three layer print.  Then I screwed in on the door.  Took me less than an hour. (Click to enlarge)

The t-shirt press allows one to adjust the height of the screen on the platen.

I secured the wood to the platen with tape during the printing process.

At CELLspace nothing looks junky!

So after a lot of frustration, I finally used brush and ink to design a screen print with all organic elements.  Nothing lifted from any cameras or old textbooks.  The project is a poster for my friend Eric‘s band, Silian Rail, and this morning I experimented with mini mock ups on 8 x 14 inch Bristol paper.

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Check out this special metallic ink I got.

Today my job was to operate a jet engine.  Then I went home and took a nap.
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At one point the city was my best friend. We spent a lot time alone, made each other feel good, and I have many memories of being intoxicated with her beauty. (I think I almost got her pregnant back in the spring of 2004). Now I wake up at five to spend my days in Vallejo and there is the sense that SF and I have drifted apart a little. But it was a sunny weekend of wandering around town around and it felt good to remember that old, mischievous spark.

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And then, while I was wading along Ocean Beach, two tall guys from Amsterdam asked permission to photograph me for their Dutch design magazine. “We take pictures of people in the park,” they said. They had bad teeth. For fifteen minutes I posed.

And then we surprised A-kik-o (trivia team: general knowledge, handicrafts, geography).

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And then Joe and Ana arrived in town for the final leg of their honeymoon.

And then I skipped my open studio show completely because who cares about a bunch of postcards?