Our friend Vic Blue, who just got his masters in photojournalism from Ohio University, sent us a note about his most recent project Almost Out which he worked on for four months, shot a photo essay, made a short documentary, and wrote a 4,500 word piece for Soul of Athens.
After 10 years insided the walls, Doug Starcher prepares for life outside of prison --> Interesting and wonderful images from Vic.
Jeremy Fish has been working his ass off for this show opening up @Joshua Liner Gallery in NYC on June 21st. Check back with Fecal Face later in the week for a studio visit we did with him.
Jeremy Fish's art naturally lends itself to storytelling. In an unabashed celebration of this folk art form, 'Listen and Learn' puts stories and storytellers front and center as Fish demonstrates the enduring appeal of storytelling in popular culture. The exhibition features assorted tales from a wide swath of contemporary life—including from artists, skateboarders, rappers, athletes, a stripper, a cop, and a historian—which Fish has reinterpreted in lovingly realized painted works.
For this impressive project, Fish gathered a selection of friends and acquaintances whose rich lives have engendered no end of interesting tales. Most prominent among them is rapper/producer/actor Snoop Dogg, who recounts a story from childhood. In the tale, Snoop is among a select group of neighborhood kids to be bussed to a brand new, highly touted elementary school. Right off, Snoop gets into trouble when he allegedly exposes himself to a female student in the lunch line. The rapper's account of the principal's reprimand displays his undisputed gift for storytelling and turning naughty content into witty word games with a humorous twist. In 'Pulled Out My Worm', Fish's painted rendition of the tale, these story elements are incorporated into a baroque-style mirror image of two dog silhouettes, adorned with scrolling filigree, cartoon characters from an American childhood, and neighborhood identifiers.
See Fish's complete story this month at Joshua Liner Gallery in NYC. 'Listen and Learn' opens to the public Tuesday June 21st with an opening reception party on Thursday June 23rd from 6-9pm.
Mel Kadel and Travis Millard have put together a new zine for their upcoming show @FFDG opening this Saturday, June 11th (7-10pm). We'll have some available here online next week. In the meantime, enjoy the preview... Also included is a new one from Travis Millard... Give the dude some attitude!
Collaborative zine by Travis Millard and Mel Kadel
5.5" x 8.5"
56 pages, b&w + color insert
2 - color silkscreen cover
edition of 220 $15 for sale here
I'm down in Oaxaca, Mexico right now, and I saw the flyer for Swampy art show on your blog. I shot this photo a few weeks ago. The wall was just above a secluded beach near the Puerto Escondido town. -derekdunfee.com
Thanks for the photo, Derek. Yep, his show opens @Fifty24SF this Saturday, June 11th (7-10pm).
Monday, 06 June 2011 14:12 Written by Bryan Derballa
My first night in New Zealand I walked down to the beach. While sitting in the sand taking arty, self-indulgent photos of crashing waves, I realized how long it had been since I'd seen stars, and that there were so goddamned many. Nine years earlier I had the same realization, also in New Zealand, laying in a field amazed at the infinite nature of the universe. I studied abroad there in 2002, my first trip out of America. Then last March, Huck Magazine sent me back to photograph surfers at New Zealand's first pro contest. I did that but those photos are for another day. These pictures are the result of the week after the contest. A week that I spent trying to relive my first visit to New Zealand. Alone, with little more than my nostalgia, independence, and a $10 sleeping bag, I set off in a rental car looking for swimming holes, skateparks, and that feeling of the unknown, fraught with possibility, that New Zealand will always represent to me. -Bryan Derballa
Got an email from Brooklyn based XAM, a former architecture student and 2009 graduate from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, who creates these awesome contemporary urban bird houses equipped with passive ventilation systems, solar panels, LED porch lights to attract insects and "green roofs". The houses pack flat, assemble like a 3-D puzzle and hang from city signage. They attract Wrens, Swallows, Warblers and many other small birds. We asked him what inspired him to create these awesome little feathered homes.
I am a former architecture student with a history in graffiti and street art. I like the idea of building functional objects to scale that can embody similar rules of that of architecture. I also like the idea of participation in art. The viewer participates on a level that questions morality. The units are illegally placed, but are serving a function that many benefit from. I don't bolt them to the signs I simply hang them and if you feel the units don't belong amongst the clutter of city signage, then take them down. I like to play with the idea that street art is ephemeral and it is up to society to decide the lifespan of the units. Also attached to the back of every unit is a QR code that when scanned lists a number of ways we benefit from birds in the urban environment. I don't promote people taking them down, but I would like them to question their reasoning and see if it goes beyond 'well it's illegal'.
CSD DWELLING UNIT 2.0 - Equipped with a "green roof" system that acts as insulation. The unit also has a birdhouse on one side and a food dispenser on the other. There is an adjoining wall that allows the residents to eat from inside the dwelling rather than flying to the other side to feed. This unit straddles city signs.
Friday, 03 June 2011 15:46 Written by Ashley Taylor
Submission by Trav Walker (Minneapolis, MN)
It's going to rain this weekend here in San Francisco... Like record breaking amounts of rain. What's up with that shit?! It hasn't rained this much since like 1864 or something.
And we had the whole weekend off to play as well. That's rare. We normally have to work on Saturdays, but because we're between shows, it's a 2 day weekend but you know what? We're just going to work... Well, at least on Saturday. Maybe the rain will break on Sunday... That's the goal.
Tonight, we're going to put on rain gear, grab a bottle of wine and walk around San Francisco and pretend we're on vacation in Alaska. -Trippe
The ghosts featured in this video were created, molded and cast in plastic by Travis Millard. The edition will be on display at Travis and Mel Kadel's show at FFDG on June 11th, 2011. For more info on the show check out FFDG.net
Los Angeles based artist Derek Albeck’s recent solo show at POVevolving Gallery in LA’s Chinatown entitled, “Mysterious Strangers” is that of nostalgia and personal history. Known for his photorealistic graphite drawings and flannel mask installations, Albeck’s representations are flawless. His use of mirrors, both broken and whole, are there to add an entirely different world of color, and a sense of identity, to his otherwise black and white pieces. The stories behind them add even more.
Several of the characters displayed in “Mysterious Strangers” are just that, relatives in Albeck’s life that he barely knew. “The narrative aspect of the work is romantic, in a sense, because I’m trying to re-appropriate these things that happened in my life. For me, it’s all about forming an identity, recreating these pasts to make sense of the present,” says Albeck.
This was my first time to Japan, we were the guests of Zac Pac who we had designed a set of Be@rbricks with. Our host Kazuhiro showed us a great time, fed us well and had a busy schedule for Maxx and I. It was a wonderful trip.
Moving apartments- a wonderful time for finding old rolls of film. The digital age leans itself to so much but this small moment lingers on. Blown out grain of your life's past. A week before I married the love of my life whiskey was heavily comsumed with BBguns fired in some man-cabin high in the Sierras. Missing was the golf "experiment" and whatever else blurred over with groshong's towel hike illuminated... Cake farts, anyone?
Might spy some of this around Barcelona these days. The project has just began and here are a few shots, but you'll see much more here in the future. Great idea and soooooo creepy.
I don't think at this point it needs to be written since the last update to Fecal Face was a long time ago, but...
I, John Trippe, have put this baby Fecal Face to bed. I'm now focusing my efforts on running ECommerce at DLX which I'm very excited about... I guess you can't take skateboarding out of a skateboarder.
It was a great 15 years, and most of that effort can still be found within the site. Click around. There's a lot of content to explore.
Hit me up if you have any ECommerce related questions. - trippe.io
I'm not sure how many people are lucky enough to have The San Francisco Giants 3 World Series trophies put on display at their work for the company's employees to enjoy during their lunch break, but that's what happened the other day at Deluxe. So great.
SF skateboarding icons Jake Phelps, Mickey Reyes, and Tommy Guerrero with the 3 SF Giants World Series Trophies
When works of art become commodities and nothing else, when every endeavor becomes “creative” and everybody “a creative,” then art sinks back to craft and artists back to artisans—a word that, in its adjectival form, at least, is newly popular again. Artisanal pickles, artisanal poems: what’s the difference, after all? So “art” itself may disappear: art as Art, that old high thing. Which—unless, like me, you think we need a vessel for our inner life—is nothing much to mourn.
Hard-working artisan, solitary genius, credentialed professional—the image of the artist has changed radically over the centuries. What if the latest model to emerge means the end of art as we have known it? --continue reading
"Six Degrees" opens tonight, Friday Jan 16th (7-10pm) at FFDG in San Francisco. ~Group show featuring: Brett Amory, John Felix Arnold III, Mario Ayala, Mariel Bayona, Ryan Beavers, Jud Bergeron, Chris Burch, Ryan De La Hoz, Martin Machado, Jess Mudgett, Meryl Pataky, Lucien Shapiro, Mike Shine, Minka Sicklinger, Nicomi Nix Turner, and Alex Ziv.
"[Satire] is important because it brings out the flaws we all have and throws them up on the screen of another person," said Turner. “How they react sort of shows how important that really is.” Later, he added, "Charlie took a hit for everybody." -read on
As we work on our changes, we're leaving Squarespace and coming back to the old server. Updates are en route.
The content that was on the site between May '14 and today is history... Whatever, wasn't interesting anyway. All the good stuff from the last 10 years is here anyway.
Opening tonight, Friday May 23rd (7-10pm) at Park Life in the Inner Richmond (220 Clement St) is Again Home Again featuring works from the duo Jacob Mcgraw-Mikelson & Rachell Sumpter who split time living in Sacramento and a tiny island at the top of Pudget Sound with their children.
Jacob Magraw will be showing embroidery pieces on cloth along with painted, gouache works on paper --- Rachell Sumpter paints scenes of colored splendor dropped into scenes of desolate wilderness. ~show details
NYC --- A new graffiti abatement program put forth by the police commissioner has beat cops carrying cans of spray paint to fill in and cover graffiti artists work in an effort to clean up the city --> Many cops are thinking it's a waste of resources, but we're waiting to see someone make a project of it. Maybe instructions for the cops on where to fill-in?
The NYPD is arming its cops with cans of spray paint and giving them art-class-style lessons to tackle the scourge of urban graffiti, The Post has learned.
Shootings are on the rise across the city, but the directive from Police Headquarters is to hunt down street art and cover it with black, red and white spray paint, sources said... READ ON
Los Angeles based Alison Blickle who showed here in San Francisco at Eleanor Harwood last year (PHOTOS) recently showed new paintings in New York at Kravets Wehby Gallery. Lovely works.
We haven't been featuring many interviews as of late. Let's change that up as we check in with a few local San Francisco artists like Kevin Earl Taylor here whom we studio visited back in 2009 (PHOTOS & VIDEO). It's been awhile, Kevin...
If you like guns and boobs, head on over to the Shooting Gallery; just don't expect the work to be all cheap ploys and hot chicks. With Make Stuff by Peter Gronquist (Portland) in the main space and Morgan Slade's Snake in the Eagle's Shadow in the project space, there is plenty spectacle to be had, but if you look just beyond it, you might actually get something out of the shows.
Fifty24SF opened Street Anatomy, a new solo show by Austrian artist Nychos a week ago last Friday night. He's been steadily filling our city with murals over the last year, with one downtown on Geary St. last summer, and new ones both in the Haight and in Oakland within the last few weeks, but it was really great to see his work up close and in such detail.
Nate Milton emailed over this great short Gator Skater which is a follow-up to his Dog Skateboard he emailed to us back in 2011... Any relation to this Gator Skater?
Congrats on our buddies at Needles and Pens on being open and rad for 11 years now. Mission Local did this little short video featuring Breezy giving a little heads up on what Needles and Pens is all about.
In a filmmaker's thinking, we wish more videos were done in this style. Too much editing and music with a lacking in actual content. Just because you can doesn't mean you should.
Matt Wagner recently emailed over some photos from The Hellion Gallery in Tokyo, who recently put together a show with AJ Fosik (Portland) called Beast From a Foreign Land. The gallery gave twelve of Fosik's sculptures to twelve Japanese artists (including Hiro Kurata who is currently showing in our group show Salt the Skies) to paint, burn, or build upon.
FFDG is pleased to announce an exclusive online show with San Francisco based Ferris Plock opening on Friday, April 25th (12pm Pacific Time) featuring 5 new medium sized acrylic paintings on wood.
Backwoods Gallery in Melbourne played host to a huge group exhibition a couple of weeks back, with "Gold Blood, Magic Weirdos" Curated by Melbourne artist Sean Morris. Gold Blood brought together 25 talented painters, illustrators and comic artists from Australia, the US, Singapore, England, France and Spain - and marked the end of the Magic Weirdos trilogy, following shows in Perth in 2012 and London in 2013.
San Francisco based Fecal Pal Jeremy Fish opened his latest solo show Hunting Trophies at LA's Mark Moore Gallery last week to massive crowds and cabin walls lined with imagery pertaining to modern conquest and obsession.
Well, John Felix Arnold III is at it again. This time, he and Carolyn LeBourgios packed an entire show into the back of a Prius and drove across the country to install it at Superchief Gallery in NYC. I met with him last week as he told me about the trip over delicious burritos at Taqueria Cancun (which is right across the street from FFDG and serves what I think is the best burrito in the city) as the self proclaimed "Only overweight artist in the game" spilled all the details.
Ever Gold opened a new solo show by NYC based Henry Gunderson a couple Saturday nights ago and it was literally packed. So packed I couldn't actually see most of the art - but a big crowd doesn't seem like a problem. I got a good laugh at what I would call the 'cock climbing wall' as it was one of the few pieces I could see over the crowd. I haven't gotten a chance to go back and check it all out again, but I'm definitely going to as the paintings that I could get a peek at were really high quality and intruiguing. You should do the same.
The paintings in the show are each influenced by a musician, ranging from Freddy Mercury, to Madonna, to A Tribe Called Quest and they are so stylistically consistent with each musician's persona that they read as a cohesive body of work with incredible variation. If you told me they were each painted by a different person, I would not hesitate to believe you and it's really great to see a solo show with so much variety. The show is fun, poppy, very well done, and absolutely worth a look and maybe even a listen.
With rising rent in SF and knowing mostly other young artists without capitol, I desired a way to live rent free, have a space to do my craft, and get to see more of the world. Inspired by the many historical artists who have longed similar longings I discovered the beauty of artist residencies. Lilo runs Adhoc Collective in Vienna which not only has a fully equipped artists creative studio, but an indoor halfpipe, and private artist quarters. It was like a modern day castle or skate cathedral. It exists in almost a utopic state, totally free to those that apply and come with a real passion for both art and skateboarding
I just wanted to share with you a piece I recently finished which took me 4 years to complete. Titled "How To Lose Yourself Completely (The September Issue)", it consists of a copy of the September 2007 issue of Vogue magazine (the issue they made the documentary about) with all faces masked with a sharpie, and everything else entirely whited out. 840 pages of fun. -Bryan Schnelle
While walking our way across San Francisco on Saturday we swung through the opening receptions for Kirk Maxson and Alexis Mackenzie at Eleanor Harwood Gallery in the Mission.
Jeremy Fish opens Hunting Trophies tonight, Saturday April 5th, at the Los Angeles based Mark Moore Gallery. The show features new work from Fish inside the "hunting lodge" where viewers climb inside the head of the hunter and explore the history of all the animals he's killed.
Beautiful piece entitled "The Albatross and the Shipping Container", Ink on Paper, Mounted to Panel, 47" Diameter, by San Francisco based Martin Machado now on display at FFDG. Stop in Saturday (1-6pm) to view the group show "Salt the Skies" now running through April 19th. 2277 Mission St. at 19th.
For some reason I thought it would be a good idea to quit my job, move out of my house, leave everything and travel again. So on August 21, 2013 I pushed a canoe packed full of gear into the headwaters of the Mississippi River in Lake Itasca, Minnesota, along with four of my best friends. Exactly 100 days later, I arrived at a marina near the Gulf of Mexico in a sailboat.
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