feather2pixels

Here is a sneak peak of noted gluten artist Ben Hill‘s Toasted Puns, installed at Root Division for our language-art show, Character Profile. This has to be seen in person to believed!

Here are some more photos from some Character Profile projects.

Ben’s Hill‘s Toasted Puns how have a title bun.  This was my first experience screenprinting baked goods and I must say I hope I have a reason to do it again soon.

America, you requested it and I am giving to you:  American Fistfight, is a multi-projector screenprinted slideshow controlled by a boxing robot.  It looks like a huge mess, but it’s coming along.

Ben Hill‘s toasted puns are coming in from our eight lettering artists. I toasted, shrink-wrapped, and tagged the first set yesterday and they are looking delicious.

Displayed artists: Amy Bryan and Astrid Kaemmerling

Character Profile opens July 10 2013 at Root Division. (Opening Reception: Saturday July 13 7-10PM)

Know anyone who wants to help me and Ben create a wall of Toasted Puns?  Please pass on this link ASAP.

“Character Profile: New Works in Language, Text, and Wordplay”
Curated by Jon Fischer
Opening Reception Saturday July 13 7-10PM (one block from tacos!)
Exhibition Dates: July 10-27
Root Division
3175 17th Street at South Van Ness, San Francisco
free

About eighteen months ago in Golden Gate Park, I had a sudden flash of inspiration in the form of a succession of twenty-eight free associative phrases that I quite immediately knew I wanted to develop into a substantial art piece.

I was associated with Root Division through some teaching work, and decided to go even further and pitch them an entire language based show through their curatorial submission program. Over the course of four of five months of back and forth I refined the concept, got three or four trusted collaborators involved, and the proposal was accepted as the July 2013 show at Root Division! This group show is going to feature the language-based visual artwork of 27 artists including my beloved Ben Hill, Nowell Valeri, and Erin Bregman. I think it’s going to be a really fun, multifaceted show featuring but not limited to:

• A wall of Toasted Puns.
• An interactive sound installation in which visitors can manipulate Presidential speeches with obscene gangta rap with old TV commercials, to create their own postmodern soundtrack the way God intended.
• Flip Books.
• A New York Times vs USA Today death match.
• eBooks (a humongous “e” made out of books).
• And lots of other engaging, interactive work dedicated to a spirit of play.

Bring your kids!

My project, “American Fistfight” evokes the early era of cinema with rudimentary moving image sequences produced entirely with screen printed 35mm slides. Several vintage projectors connected with a fabricated control panel will allow visitors to maneuver image sequences for themselves while the results are displayed on the gallery wall.

From the curatorial desk:
Character Profile is a visual arts exhibition featuring projects that explore intersections between the forms, mechanisms and meanings of language. Drawing from a cross disciplinary group of twenty-six collaborators from across the country including writers, visual artists, and craftspeople, Character Profile investigates novel functions of language through a broad range of materials, media and approaches. Many of these works are dedicated to a spirit of engagement and play. The exhibition highlights art designed for direct interaction with visitors and work that provokes expanded meanings and alternative associations. These artists present language as both a medium and a subject, and deftly maneuver words to both convey and critique meaning.

I am starting a project that involves making and projecting 35mm slides from scratch.

I figured my first step should be to test my found projector with some found slides. To my delight, it worked great.

[iframe src=”http://player.vimeo.com/video/62141608″ width=”500″ height=”281″ frameborder=”0″ webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen]

Soundtrack thanks: Ben, Joe, Nowell, Shal

A few recent gifts (that I have pictures of):

Game

Watercolor

Needlepoint

Rap Video

[iframe src=”http://player.vimeo.com/video/53496463?badge=0″ width=”500″ height=”281″ frameborder=”0″ webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen></iframe> <p><a href=”http://vimeo.com/53496463″>Fischer and Erin Wedding Card (Rap Video) Version 2.0</a> from <a href=”http://vimeo.com/user4805707″>Nowell Valeri</a> on <a href=”http://vimeo.com”>Vimeo</a>.</p>]

My just-completed voyage to the US easternlands resulted in some interesting artifact finds at home, as well as the creation of some new ones. Now I am back.

Some pictures of note:

And finally, a video of me and Danny dominating The Looper at Knoebels in Elysburg:

[flv:knoebels.flv 600 400]

This Saturday saw the completion of a rare printmaking collaboration between myself and the extended Bregman family.

The project involved the production of one edition of prints that modestly explored the concept of Kindred.  Ziggy (aka Zmom aka Zig_Poet@gmail aka Erin’s Mom), an accomplished Santa Cruz print maker, started things out with a woodcut she described as “invoking the family tree:”

[flv:zmom_print.flv 480 360]

After that, I compiled a primary source motherlode of old letters, journals, report cards, and telegrams found in the Bregman family archive and also one of the world’s great junk shops (thank you, Ben Hill).  With the help of Erin and my letter-writing typewriter, I constructed the words into an extra special, one-layer silver screenprint:

Today in my San Francisco studio it all came together:

What a cool little project. So now I guess if someone I don’t know likes it, it’s off to Australia. Or something.

Welcome to 2012. It was an exciting end of year season here around feather2pixel headquarters, with several visits from far flung colleagues and several more travels to distant shores. In the interests of moving things right along, here’s some artifacts and photos to recap.

Okay let’s get back to work.

I just finished a commission for a new print.

…On metal!

In what could be described as a compressed period of time, the entire feather2pixel operation has been thrust into the Bronze age, though The Raw Steel age might be more accurate as bronze actually turns out to be too expensive.

Like many recent decisions, I accepted this challenge without a good understanding of what it entailed. Like many recent consequences, my ignorance was punished.

For example, I thought quarter inch-thick  steel seemed reasonable for this project.

Funny, I never realized that you can’t return one hundred and fifty-four cubic inches of machined metal just because you didn’t realize it would make an absurdly heavy art piece before you bought it.  Metal is heavy.

After I obtained a more reasonable slab of steel on my second try, I was introduced to enamel screen printing inks, which are toxic, extremely flammable, and are known to to cause cancer in California residents.  These inks, which resemble nail polish, are what you use to print on basically any non-pourous material.  My studiomates loved it.

The project depicts the home of the commissioner, on the aptly named Hill Street.  Here’s what happened:

(Hill Street on Steel on f2p Objects page)

On location at the Fox Theater:

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Recent photobooth activity:

People sometimes tell me that Nowell and I are looking more alike these days.

Is that what happens to friends in older age?  And if so, what does it mean that Ben and Joe sent me the exact same package last week?