Putting Ads in their place.

Roger and I headed out in the rain to the reception at the Dump last Friday night. The show was very interesting as always but I want to talk about one artist in particular. Donna Anderson Kam produced a series of pastel and or crayon drawings that were interesting in themselves and is her usual work and style- abstract realism with a very strong social content. Her process for these pastel drawings was interesting , she takes a series of photographs of young actors re-enacting a recent news event (she stages these “re-telling’s”), she then collages the photographs along with other street photographs, edits /deletes and creates what she calls a narrative puzzle. The resulting collage becomes the inspiration or study for her drawing in pastel or crayon. BUT what I found most interesting was her use of advertising material, for example, a Budweiser beer vinyl banner. The banner she abstracted by cutting out organic shapes, like fingers or decay reaching into the banner, abstracting the imagery. She used this abstracted banner as a runner along the bottom of her drawing – 1/3 covered. She cut out enough of the banner to abstract the ad but allow the viewer to put together the beer can … very very cool because she managed to defeat the advertising! I have often tried to defeat the ad on cracker boxes by placing bag imagery on top of them using the box ad imagery as a back ground to collage on to. I thought to abstract the advertising by covering up the imagery. However, the advertising imagery – the ad- often took over and I could not escape it/ignore/ or make the back ground effectively talk to the foreground because the back ground (advertising) screamed at me so successfully that the resulting collages often did not work. But an overlay, an abstraction of the advertising imagery itself … brilliant… perhaps the ad will not yell quite as loud due to the abstraction by reduction. Very very cool and a brilliant idea!!!
http://sunsetscavenger.com/AIR/nextshow.htm

thought keys

ART

Instinct- the bags told me or tell me what to do, I see an image and see something else in the image and run with that.

Intent- I decide what to create and use the bags and bag images to do so.

Focus- Along with instinct and intent I also study other paper artists for example, Matisse’s paper cutouts, and other paper art techniques such as papal picado, to create art that tells stories.

Instinct, Focus, and Intent are the keys to life, art, meditation and magic!!!

Tiny

I have some work in the tiny show at the STUDIO Gallery

small pieces under $400
November 3rd - December 23rd, 2011
8th Anniversary Party: Sunday, December 4th, 2-6 pm

STUDIO Gallery1815 Polk Street(between Washington and Jackson)
San Francisco, CA 94109
415.931.3130
Our Hours:Wednesday - Friday, 11am-8pm
Saturday + Sunday, 11am-6pm
Monday + Tuesday by appointment

http://studiogallerysf.com/home.html

BagLand About Edit

BagLand started with the idea of art created from the everyday objects that we throw away, or at best recycle. I set out to create art that explores humanity and humanity’s use of resources centered on an every day accessible object, the paper bag. Paper bags come in a variety of sizes, shapes, colors and are readily available. In fact, paper bags have so many different images and designs printed on them and come in so many colors that I decided to create collages using paper bags as my medium. Collage and the paper bag seemed a natural fit since collage is the art of image and material recycling and re-use. By limiting myself to bags I discovered a bag jargon; a bag lingo. Tomatoes became BagLanders, wine glasses were helmets, bowls are boats, surfboards a rocket, and the end of the world is the bottom of a bag; BagLand was born!

In BagLand I met Fat Rabbit, created a space opera, learned papel picado and you know what, pigs CAN fly!

Tiny, small pieces show

I have some small 6X6 pieces at the Studio Gallery in the tiny, small pieces show; November 3rd - December 23rd. Opening reception: Sunday, Nov 6th, 2-6 pm

STUDIO Gallery1815 Polk Street(between Washington and Jackson)
San Francisco, CA 94109415.931.3130
Our Hours: Wednesday - Friday, 11am-8pm
Saturday + Sunday, 11am-6pm
Monday + Tuesday by appointment.

http://studiogallerysf.com/home.html

Altered Barbie 2011

The 9th Annual San Francisco Altered Barbie Exhibition 2011“In Barbie’s Name: What Would Barbie Do? and Ken too?”www.alteredbarbie.com

Where: Shotwell 50 Inc., 50 Shotwell St. San Francisco, CA
When: October 26 - November 20, 2011
Days and Time: Wednesday - Saturday 1:00pm - 8:00pm, Sunday 1:00pm - 5:00pm

10/28/11Artist Opening Reception 7:00pm - 10:00pm
Come dressed as your favorite Barbie or Ken and tell us what you will do? Meet artists who have resurrected and reinvented Ken and Barbie into art and performance. The evening will include Barbie Films, Barbie Performance, Barbie MC Donna Davis, Gregangelo’s American Icon & Ken, the Jenn Kerr band, SpaceKraft, Roaddawgz homeless youth organization, Cynthia Tom’s A Place Of Her Own: an arts organization fostering the growth and development of women artists in San Francisco and much much more!

10/29/11Make your own Altered Barbie Workshops
10:00am - 1:00pm $25.00 per person + a $5 Barbie fee
In Barbie’s Name Think Barbie out of the box! Alter and recycle your own Barbie and or Ken by embellishing and/or building an environment. Ruby Pearl will lead the workshop. To sign up for classes: Altered Barbie Workshops

11/02/11The Artists Process: A Conversation 6:30pm - 8:30pmThe artists will reveal how and why they alter Barbie. This will be a fun filled eye opening evening into the inner workings of these most creative and fun artists.

11/03/11Dinner and Fashion Show 7:30pm - 10:30pm, $45.00 a personA romantic dinner hosted by Chef Shawn Miller featuring his Altered Edibles. The intimate evening will include a set gluten free dinner, a no-host bar, music, ending with chocolates from xocia. The evening highlights are a fashion show directed by Marque Cornblatt and Hester Michaels. This will be a What Would Altered Barbie Wear Fashion Show. PURCHASE TICKETS HERE

11/09/11Barbie Poetry Night 7:00pm -10:00pmWith Sean Labrador y ManzanoContact: kahilisun@hotmail.com

11/10/11 Film night featuring UCLA’s First Barbie Video Girl Doll Film Festival 7:00pm - 9:00pmAltered Barbie 2011 is proud to present UCLA’s Barbie Video Girl Doll film festival featuring UCLA students who created two-minute films using Barbie about Barbie. Along with this festival other shorts will be shown including, Tifffany Shlain’s The Tribe & Susan Stern’s documentary film Barbie Nation. All films will be shown throughout the exhibition.

11/18/11Closing Artist Reception 7:00pm - 10:00pm
Kitten on the Keys, Ethel Merman Experience and much, much more.**100% of proceeds from sales of all Roaddawgz created Altered Barbies are given back to the youth artist. Exhibition = sculptures, photography, painting, performance, film shows, video installations, fashion, jewelry and poetry.

Underfoot