We Disagree

Charmingwall Show June 4th

I'll be showing these wee little paintings at Charmingwall Gallery on June 4th, a Friday. It's on West 4th Street. It's a cool concept called the 6x6 Project, the participating artists buy canvas from the gallery and they're hung together in a salon style grid. There's a wine reception and the work stays up for a month in the gallery and 3 months on their website. If a piece is sold you get an 80/20 split, which means you have a decent chance of getting your initial investment returned. Stop by the gallery and go for it, the openings are always a blast and it's cool to be in a show with so many talented artists. Plus it's in the West Village and not Red Hook so your friends from Jersey will totally come.

Ok?

I haven't gotten alot of sleep lately but I have been really lucky to get work done and see many inspiring friends. I wish I could work on these a bit longer, it was a rush to get these done in less than a week. This project made me realize I haven't painted (especially on canvas) in a super long time, and the gouache was not into the surface at all, it kept beading because I added too much water.  But a fun time indeed!

Arty Things

There's a new post up on Diderot's Photo Blog with some really interesting guerrilla art involving a wonderful mash-up of past and present social issues. It's really worth checking out. I felt a little self conscious about the Oil Spill comic I just posted, I am never sure about making work about things I feel passionately about, I don't want to risk losing narrative credibility by being overly emotional. So it was really great to be in such good company. In an age where people fall back on automated 100 word status updates to express themselves and contribute to a cultural dialogue it's nice to see people turning upsetting situations into something more constructive.
Tonight I went to see Daniel Clowes speak at a local independent bookstore and he was really great. He said something to the effect of that the images he makes are ideas that immediately embarrass him when he first thinks them up. I think that's a good art-making policy.
His new book, Wilson is a haunting collection of existential one-liners merging sweetness with weirdness. I love it but it makes me want to read Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron again, because it's longer and even weirder.

So check out that blog and read some Dan Clowes, ok?

(Cover via Amazon.com)

Sketch + Oil Spill Comic

I am really sad about the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. It's washing ashore in my hometown and killing off the wonderful local shrimping and oyster industry. After the hurricane there wasn't much to come home to, now what do we have left? Two handfuls of nothing, and the hope and promise that tomorrow will be better.

Swampy pt. 2

Almost there....need some bigger black parts, esp. behind the birds.
They're imaginary birds so they don't really look like anything, though in the next piece I want to make a page full of White Ibises, I found out they like swamps, they are SO AWESOME.

There may be a color version of this in the future but right now I'm working on just getting a bunch of stuff inked for the residency. Eeep!

Swampy

I am making a series of drawings for a comic book residency, here is the first one, it's not finished yet but I wanted to preserve this stage/show it off because I am pretty excited about it. The brush pen was drying out and the paper is a nice soft texture with a heavier weight so I got some cool brushy things happening. I basically picked a bunch of stuff I wanted to draw and put it all together for fun. I had an idea for a story but I'm a crappy writer so I thought this would help me get past the dread of not being witty or cool enough to make it in the first place.
Also my friend Suzan told me about this embroidery thing, Hoopla, it looks pretty cool and it's FREE to enter/no limit on submissions. Get stitching everyone!

Low Self-Esteem

Busy Day

Go see Eric White's paintings at Jonathan Levine Gallery. Go. I'm not kidding. The best most beautiful paintings I have seen in forever. I haven't gotten out much lately but still. Please do yourself a favor and go see them.

People I met at MOCCA:

This girl, Helen, does really awesome mini comics detailing the perils of subway riding and careless lovers. She's also a singer, check her out.

Another guy I met likes to cast things in resin and text on his iPhone. He was very nice and traded me a resin army tank for my mini.

J.T. Yost is a talented pet portrait painter but also a great comic maker. I recommend checking out his Snoop Doggy Dogg comic.

Esther Pearl Watson is the nicest person. And you already know she is insanely talented, go get all of her books from the library.

Rosa Colon and Carla Rodriguez came all the way from Puerto Rico and gave us a ton of cute itty bitty books for a trade! The nicest girls at MOCCA.

Eroyn Franklin is super nice and told me all about her Xeric grant experience. What a nice gal. And her books are so pretty--she hand prints the dust jackets and there are some really fancy cut away things going on. I can't describe it go see!

Dudes at thegoodproduct.com holding it down as usual. Great great stuff.

Joan Reilly is working on a cool feminist comic, I love her drawings!

This lady Jess Harold did an amazing comic about Aretha Franklin's Inauguration Day Hat. I can't find her website though. She had a jellyfish tattoo! Go see her at Sunnyside Tattoo!


Ulises gave me an amazing/pretty book for trade.

There are other people I met but can't remember now, but thanks to everyone who stopped to chat, it was nice to see you.

What the Heck Man

woo hoo!

Mini finished! See you at Mocca!

Thank you Dom, Kip, Richard, Stephanie and Victor! You guys are the best!

Followed by Otis

Printmaking is Hard

I'm working on a mini-comic and hope to finish it before Saturday, just in time for MOCCA! I went to the printshop to silkscreen the cover and it look me 3 hours to get one color. I forgot that printmaking is hard!