Lower Haight Street Fair 2006, San Francisco

Sundays = Sun-dazed. That's how I felt post-Saturday partying when I attended the Lower Haight Street Fair. Not to be confused with the Haight Street Fair further up the street. This one is still in it's infancy so it's more community bbq, than beer garden porta-potty.

Some nice music, art, crafts, local merchants, stoop watching and exotic pets! There was even a kiddy breakdancing circle that was the cutest thing.

[ART] Mescalito show - MARS-1, Damon Soule, Oliver Vernon

Mescalito - MARS-1, Oliver Vernon & Damon Soule
Oct 14 - Nov 4, 2006

White Walls Gallery
Tenderloin, San Francisco
whitewallssf.com

*more pics on my Flickr Mescalito set

Mars-1: www.mars-1.com





Oliver Vernon: www.oliververnon.com



Damon Soule: www.damonsoule.com






Opening night peeps

Art at the Dump

Art at the Dump with Sirron Norris and Nomi Talisman (opening night)

Artists Sirron Norris and Nomi Talisman showcase their work made of found materials at Sunset Scavenger aka the dump. The show had good energy, and the scope of the artists' work was interesting. I wish I had better pics of Sirron's painted objects, but alas the flash was iffy. It is what it is.




Painting on found wood with recycled paint by Sirron Norris.



Found photo slide piece by Nomi Talisman. I loved many of Nomi's pieces, but this affected me the most that night.



Mars shows Sirron a sneak preview of his upcoming book Convergence.



Leo's good vibe is infectuous.

Hello Hello

Peter mentioned an interesting sculpture in the window of ATA (Artists' Television Access). We did the Valencia stroll and I made a point to check this out. A towering feat of toothpicks & glue, all the while it rains paperclips.

Artists: Krishna Khalsa, Emily Sevier, Charlene Tan

ChiaNi - recent wow

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Originally uploaded by ChiaNi.


I recently came across the work of ChiaNi, a fellow Flickr-ite based in Chicago. She does amazing paintings in Photoshop sans pen or tablet, and only with a mouse! Her work is a great example of making up for the lack of tools with a ton of technique and creativity. The detail of her work stuns me.

ChiaNi's self-portrait set is comprised of digitally painted works of her image in famous paintings. All done with a mouse & mirror. As a fan of Klimt, I loved these two, in particular.

In The Street 2005, San Francisco

Tenderloin Children's Playground, Oct 8, 2005

The Luggage Store Gallery puts on In The Street, a non-vendor festival celebrating creativity, music and performance in the Tenderloin.

I missed out on Friday night's events, but Saturday had several daytime performances, including the Reconstruction project, a central event to the day's activities, put on by the energetic Miss Velvet Cream. The concept of Reconstructon was to bring an article of clothing, or choose from a pile, find a designer of your choice, and watch them make something new of it on the fly. Refreshed life breathed into a former lifeless garment.

I also caught some freestylin by rap crew, Who’s Rhyme is it Anyway?, an amazing jam session by Tussle, took Lindy Hop dance lessons, and watched older folks stretch out to a closing performance by The Broun Fellinis. All in all, quite a superb day with an interesting mix of creative folks.



Fillmore Rocks Crew - Urban, West Coast b-girl stylin at it's finest.



Polo prepped out navy/green sweater, carved earrings/plugs, burmese textile bag and lavender kicks? Hell ya!



Rockin satin drawstring pants and self-made scarf. He reminded me of a butterfly inside his cocoon ready to emerge transformed.



Mikas attempts to reconstruct Josh



Velvet gives me some booty and spirit, as my slow ass camera captures her mid-pose. Between her expression and the guy in the back's energy, this is a pretty good summary of the day.



Bunny Seren helps Mikas at the Reconstruction table, sporting her handmade floppy hat, and customized kitty-kat makeup.

Fantabulous! Fuko Ueda

illustration by Fuko Ueda

Several months ago, Roy showed me a number of beautiful illustrations posted on his LiveJournal community. He thought I knew the artist, but unfortunately I did not. This drove me into an internet search tailspin where I spent an hour of surfing to find out who the artist was. I came up with some references to the same images, but alas no name. Well, mystery solved! The awesome Fecal Face posted some thumbs of the artist with her name and a linky to her site.

Fuko Ueda is a young illustrator showing much of her work in Japan, thus far. If I can liken her style to my own experiences, her work reminds me of children's book illustrations from the 70's. There is also a translucent, light quality in her style that is similar to the illustrated Japanese stationery that was quite popular in the 80's. I don't draw these comparisions to discount her work in any way, but these memories are what pulled me to her illustrations in the first place.

Ueda's pieces involve characters of human, animal and surreal form in sparse environments. Her work is fine and delicate, but innocence is not a word I would use to describe her subject matter. There's an underlying current of sinister, sex, rebellion and dominance; but somehow this comes across in a curious, young and almost naive way. Not unlike one's outlook during those peculiar tween years.

Street leaves

There was a gas station on the corner of Valencia & 20th that closed a few months ago. As soon as the business shut down, the city writers came out to throw up some very nice burns on the storefront. I remember Shepard Fairey was in town for his show at The Shooting Gallery, and lo & behold a big-ass OBEY wheatpaste plastered the gas pump pillars. Those street artists were swift on their feet.

The Mission has a high concentration of the best urban art I've seen in SF. The graffiti comes in all manner of wheatpaste, stencils, stickers, tags, etc.... Coupled with the classic Mission murals, street expression is alive and very well. I woke up one morning, took a stroll down Valencia to my local pho joint and found the fence surrounding the closed gas station beautifully decorated with autumn leaves. A natural, creative foreground to the graffiti unseen behind the gate. This piece makes me smile.

FWAK!

December has been a whirl of events. I started the month by attending the Curious Creatures show, curated by my friend/toy sculptor/dj/BBQ master, Brin Berliner. Everyone had a grand time. I danced till the wee hours and slept for a whole day afterwards *yawn*.

Prior to the show, I hung out with Australian-by-way-of-LA animator, Lili Chin. Lili is the co-creator of Mucha Lucha on Cartoon Network, but more importantly is a fellow food-lover and fan of the luscious kow yuk and kang kong sauteed in garlic. Unfortunately we discovered these parallels after our tummies were filled with dry noodles from New Hai Ky on Irving Street. Next time.....

When Lili isn't Mucha Lucha-ing, she runs the FWAK! blog. It's an eclectic mix of lucha libre info, cool toys, audio robots and electronica by Eddie.

Low Gallery opening 11.20.04 - The Mission

Been trying to get around to posting pics of some of the art at the Low Gallery opening. This happened the same night as my Saturday night art crawl (previous post). It was a major people crush that night. The gallery was quite cozy with all the local Fecal Face fans and Mission ruffians alike. A 40 in a paper bag was the accessory du jour.

In the comfort of elbows and knees, I managed to snap a few pics:


This painting is by Chris Duncan, one of my new favorite artists. He has a vibrant, yet quiet, color palette and and I love his use of organic and linear forms.


SF has this movement of photography pushing forth via Hamburger Eyes www.hamburgereyes.com. It's cynical, clever, ironic and sometimes pointless. Very much about life. I think this photograph is a good example of this -- and the saturated, red blood is enticing in a corporate-marketing manner.


Todd Bratrud's "Snake Fart in a Jar." It says it all....


B & B (bananers and breasts) photo by Ray Potes (aka Hamburger Eyes). This makes me hungry....

Low Gallery - Mission District
487 14th St.
San Francisco, CA 94103
www.lowgallery.com

Sat nite art crawl - The Mission

photos by "the undercover brother"





I did the round of art shows in The Mission: Low Gallery opening, Needles & Pens, Pond gallery, Adobe Bookshop and Complex Ion's Hyper Mechanism @ The LAB. It was a tight squeeze with a lot of social elbowing. I'll have to go back on a quiet day and take better pics.

I must have been attracted to shiny, white things as evidenced by the suspended, doll-like sculpture and the mesmerizing white boots of The Disappointment's lead singer, Ann. Both objects were in full force at The Lab, which made me take mental note to check out both, the venue and the band, more often.

When my friend J asked me how the band was, I told him their name was "The Disappointment" so there wasn't much to live up to. Now if they were named "The Fantastics".... they'd better deliver. After hearing them play that night, I must say they are light years away from disappointing. The Disappoinment are, in fact, FANTASTIC! Heavy, lush guitars, a rockin' drummer and a vocal sound w/a Smiths/Cardigans/EBTG bent. Not to make much on comparisons, but they float in that realm. Lucky for me, they play at The Makeout Room tonight so I may fill my ears with more non-disappointing sounds.

The LAB is a sizeable gallery on the corner of 16th St & Capp, in The Mission. It's an interesting corner next to the Bart station, bustling w/blue collar workers, artists, God-fearing soapbox evangelists, hookers, junkies and their dealers. Despite this edgy backdrop, I've always felt comfortable on this street and make sure to have my wits about me. After years of living in tropical island paradise, I'm not adverse to this urban landscape. Besides, it being The Mission, you can count on a slew of trendy restuarants, shops and venues only a block away. The LAB and it's location are no exception -- Ti Couz, the Kilowatt, Otsu Vegan, Urban Forage and some of the best taquerias, only steps away. So I sound a beacon to the SF peeps, please check out Hyper Mechanism at The LAB before it goes away.

Hyper Mechanism
The LAB - Mission District
2948 16th Street
San Francisco, CA 94103
www.thelab.org

The Disappointment
www.shelflife.com

Get Lucky @ Merry Karnowsky Gallery, LA

Artist friends, Friends With You, will open their show "Get Lucky" @ the Merry Karnowsky Gallery this Saturday. You must, you must, you must increase your bust...err, I mean attend the show LA peoples. Okay? Go have fun and watch out for calf-biting artists and tricky plush.

Get Lucky
Merry Karnowsky Gallery
170 South La Brea Avenue
Los Angeles, California

End Capitalism

Roy & I trekked to Rainbow Grocery for crunchy, granola toothpaste that wouldn't make me gag. I love Rainbow for the great bulk items (honey, shampoo, nori... you name it), cheeses and row upon row of natural beauty products. I often spend way too much time deciding on a special granola/nut mix. I'm still working that one out.

After my long, drawn out (yet wise) consumerism, we leave the worker-owned coop and find this stencil art on the sidewalk. This ices my cake of coop grocery stores and bouts of Frontline.

Location: in front of Rainbow Grocery
1745 Folsom Street @ Division
Mission District, SF

made things

I started a new blog for craft & fashion projects: made things. You can find it here www.madethings.blogspot.com . This is my Prozac.