Polysics, getting me through the day

OMFG!!! This is what is getting me through work right now. That girl owns that bass guitar!

A little poster work on the side for El Jefe

I've been doing quite a bit of screen printing for clients lately. One of the more interesting designers I've been printing for is Jeffery Everett, aka El Jefe. He makes rock posters mostly for bands playing in DC, but occasionally he'll do a Richmond show. He also has a thing for Luchadores. He keeps popping up on this blog.

Here's two of his designs that recently I had the pleasure of swiping onto posters for him:



Yes, this one does feature a different Mexican Wrestler for every letter of the alphabet. I have to admit, the semi-transparent yellow layer that I laid down over the green layer had me worried that it was too opaque, but I guess Jeff was happy with it.
And here's an alternate version:



This next one Jeff designed for a Blitzen Trapper show at the Black Cat. That is gold ink and it really, really wanted to stop up my screen. Near the end of the run I was swiping three times over to get good coverage. But I was very proud of my precise trapping on this one.



I believe these, as well as many other of El Jefe's great posters, are available on his site eljefedesign.com. And with any luck, I'll be printing a lot more of his upcoming work.

-Spencer

Italian Film & Food Festival 2008

Okay, this past weekend was a busy one and I'm not talking about that hockey game or whatever it was they had on the TV. One of the highlights of the weekend by far was the Italian Film & Food Festival. It went down Saturday at Plant Zero, RVA.

Carra and I made it to the first of their four showings at 11am, just in time for breakfast. We walked into Plant Zero's event hall and after getting some coffee, we were directed to the buffet tables at the back of the room. Edo's Squid, Mama' Zu, and 8½ (all of the very best, no frills, local Italian restaurants) had catered the event. The food was awesome and I think well worth the ticket value on its own. I had some kind of very lean pork sausage in tomato sauce with peppers, a lentil stew and a chicken stock soup, salmon with cream cheese and capers on a toasted baguette, fruit salad, and a weird little chewy desert pastry spiraled around a cheesy danish-like center. Following food was the screening of Antony and Cleopatra, a 1913 silent film. This was accompanied by a live performance of the original score by pianist Dr. James Doering. We sat right behind the piano, so we had a good view of what he was doing while we watched the film. Seeing that footage from almost a hundred years ago with real live accompaniment was a surreal experience. I spent most of the film thinking about how different film making and viewing film and other art forms must have been back then. Most things are so accessible and instantaneous now. Every things just a push of the button and broadcasted and you-tubed and podcasted and streaming downloads.

I missed the next two films, but I met up with Kelly Alder and we made it to the fourth. Again, we were served amazing Italian food by Edo's Squid, Mama' Zu, and 8½. Then the lights went down and we watched the Orange Thief directed by Boogie Dean, Vinnie Angel, Artie Wilinski. They made this movie from scratch in just a couple months in a foreign language, with Italian and Sicilian non-actors, as first time directors. They actually spent the first month just learning how to use the cameras, how to act, how to write, and how to direct. One of the directors, Vinnie Angel, was present and took questions after the film. This movie was my favorite of the day. I even rented it from Video Fan the next day to show to a few friends over pizza.


All in all the festival was a fun break from the usual. A good excuse to get out of the house in the frigid winter months and eat some good food with some good people and watch some good films I would have missed otherwise.

-Spencer

Something interesting I found.

Found this book at a antique shop in Petersburg. I thought the type on the cover and the illustrations were interesting. There are no copyright notes to show when the book was made.

El Jefe Poster for The Raveonettes

My good friend and fellow illustrator Bob Scott invited me to join him to see the Raveonettes this past Saturday at the Black Cat in DC. Being a big fan of the band it didn't take much convincing and to make it even sweeter Bob said he'd do the driving. When I went to the Black Cat's website to see about getting my ticket I was pleasantly surprised to see that another pal of mine, Rockville MD graphic designer, illustrator and all around great guy El Jefe (aka Jeffery Wright) had done the poster for the show. I promptly emailed him to see if he'd be attending the show and he responded that yes, he and his lovely wife Kelly would see us there and he'd have a little surprise for me. As I had hoped the surprise was a copy of the poster he'd done for the show and to make it even cooler it was signed by Sharin and Sune of The Raveonettes. Note to self, go to more shows that El Jefe does the poster for and ask him to meet me at said show.

Oh yeah, the band, they tore the house down.

Alejandro Chavetta: SKull = Astronaut

After viewing Noah's "Skull a Day" project, I thought that many of you would interested in this guy's work. His name is Alejandro Chavetta and he works as the art director for San Francisco Magazine. Check out the rest of the images he did in this body of work and maybe some of his other stuff here. It's good...

Barry

Our 44th President in Print

To Honor this exciting bit of history, here are a few of the many screen printed posters and shirts that were inspired during this past campaign:


The above was an offering by OBEYGIANT. This screenprint was 24 X 36, three colors and printed as an edition of 350. The proceeds went to fund a larger Obama poster campaign. I particularly love the OBAMA/OBEY logo on Obama's lapel.



This one above was by artist David Choe and later screen printed by Burlesque of Minneapolis as an eight color screen print at 19 x 24. Check out here for some amazing shots of the print process.



Above, this print by Half and Half is a five color screen print on 19x25 Cougar Natural. It features an interesting collage method.



This limited edition print can be found at the etsy store of misterpeach Dimensions are 15" wide by 21" tall. All prints are signed and numbered. The edition has been limited to 30 prints. 10% of the proceeds from this print will go to benefit the Obama campaign.



This one or "That One" rather was by Justin Hampton. A five color print in various shades of metallic silver ink on 100 lb acid free paper stock measuring 24"x24". Signed and numbered edition of only 200 copies.



This was a print by Leia Bell. 12x17 inches / 5-color screenprint / Edition of 120 / 2008



And our friend El Jefe

The following were all commissioned by Upper Playground as part of an amazing collaborative campaign linking artists with Burlesque to screen these amazing posters. The above David Choe print was part of this project.



This is by Cody Hudson.



This one is by Burlesque themselves.



This one is by Sam Flores.



This one is by Alex Pardee.

There's tons more out there but blogging doesn't pay the bills so I'm out.

OMG Posters!

Just found this blog chock full of sweet sweet silk screened art and other stuff. Check it out:

http://omgposters.com/

..

Teleological Art

I came across this book in a used bookstore last week.  I can't find any further information about the paintings that it mentions, but it's pretty amazing.  Does anyone out there know more about this?

Excerpted from “Teleological Art,” by Ferraro Strauss.  Published by Elenchus House, 1989.

Pg. 112

“While an executive order demanding that all religious idols be stricken from the home and replaced with images of the leader himself may seem outlandish to us today, in Stalinist Russia this was official policy.  Any who dared to disobey would be branded a traitor and an undesirable, and face exile or death. 

But some Russian Christians, perhaps more afraid of an eternity in hell then a life of false idols, took extraordinary steps to circumvent and undermine this law.

Recently, researchers have uncovered proof that a secret cabal existed, one devoted to producing otherwise state approved works of art that secretly included coded Christian messages and hidden Christian symbols.   These works often relied on elaborate puns or images so steeped in symbolism that an almost scholarly understanding of Christianity would be needed to pick them out. 

One of the artists who risked his life to produce these works was Guiseppe Nekenbruli, an Italian painter who emigrated to Stalinist Russia with the express purpose of producing Stalinist Christian works.  It is unclear how many works Nekenbruli produced.  His reliance on pseudonyms, as well as the imperative to hide these Christian images as well as possible, made cataloguing his work nearly impossible.  It is known that in 1979 he donated one piece, titled [untranslatable] to the Vatican Museum.  This work is notable for the fact that Nekenbruli hid images of Jesus Christ in Stalin’s very own mustache.  In fact, when viewed under a microscope, it is revealed that each hair in the mustache hides an image of Christ, over 200 hundred in all.  The fact that Nekenbruli was able to pull of such an audacious stunt in nothing less then amazing.”

ART

There's a lot of talk about 'art' these days.  What does it mean, what should it mean, how does it make me feel, does it drive people to kill...am I the only one who's just plain sick of it all?

We've been dealing with art for a long time, and it's about time that someone took a stand and said 'enough.'  

It's the 21st century, gangsters.  Do we still really need this stuff?  I can see how 600 years ago some cave folk thought it was pretty keen to scratch a crude drawing of a dog on the wall.  What a talking point that must have been.  "Everyone, come quick!  See what Skyler made on the wall!"

You know who wasn't too thrilled?  The other cave people that lived in that cave.  Suddenly they had all these strangers coming in and messing the place up.   And then right away all the other cave people were like, man I can do that.  Thus forever ruining a bunch of formerly pristine caves.

You want to know how long it took for the first name to be dropped after the first 'art' was made?  About a pico second.  These cave people were all like "yeah, Skyler and I were out clubbing stuff and he suddenly saw this tree and was like, I gotta etch that." 

And let's face it, things haven't changed that much.  Does  it really take a visionary to look at a tree and think that they should capture that in crayon?

If art is ever going to be good, it's time that we branch out.  Maybe start jiggling around with the human genome, make a dude with horns or something.  Now that would be neat.  Or maybe if someone could come up with a painting that inspired not awe or tears or whatever, but inspired someone to go out and build a car.  Not that I want to do that.  But let's get practical.