The logo stuff is hard for me. I suck at Adobe Illustrator and my sole success in this arena is soon to be obsolete. But I enjoy the challenge so I gave it the old grad school try. Jonathan and Tony wanted something typewritery with a snail–eerily reminiscent of the tried and true feather2pixel regalia.  The final ingredient was some Bernal imagery.  I was a little concerned about churning out a cliche but in the end I got to use not one but two of my beloved typing machines along with a silhouette of San Francisco’s most overlooked radio tower.

My first official physical creation was this screenprinted sandwich board, to be replaced this Fall when the HSC pop-up locks-up its stock-up by taking over all nights with a suitably permanent sign to talk-up.

Anyway it’s a co-op storefront in Oak-land, where the trees are green but the Occupiers are not,  and my first official duty as a member was to screenprint a fistful of signs for some to-be-determined guerrilla advertising.  They came out well I think–a rehash of my go-to sign in one afternoon design–featuring glyphs from my beloved Remington 333 (eternal thanks for that, Kristin Roeder):

And here’s what my inaugural hanging looks like in situ.

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)

It was done by Martin (with a little creative input from Banksy, who fully supports the appropriation), one of nine SF high schoolers in a screen print class I’ve been teaching at the nonprofit arts center Root Division this spring.

It can be hard at first to convince high schoolers that screenprinting in the age of mechanical reproduction is almost by definition not about technical perfection.  But then we get to magic moments like this that make more sense than me talking.  The shirt not only looks great but it maintains the trace of its maker: way cooler than a shirt bought at a store.  Creative high schoolers understand that.

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