CCA Spring Fair

If you are like me and enjoy collecting art but have an annual budget of about $20 for your collection, your options can be limited to thrift store finds, things found on the street, or some art trades if you are lucky to have anyone who wants to trade with you. (I have actually scored some great art by trading drawings with talented artists like Hilary Pecis). However, I have also landed some awesome finds at CCA's Spring and Fall Fairs, where current students and alumni invite the public to peruse their wares amid the lush greenery of the Oakland campus on Broadway and College Ave. This weekend I spent a lovely afternoon looking for a couple prints to add to my home gallery of art I practically robbed from students.

The scene.
Some jazz tunes.
I found these cool terrariums by Martha; check out her blog.
So pretty! Prices ranged from $10ish-20ish.
I fell in love with this "Foster Monster Orphanage"; check out their website.
I was totally on the fence about buying this painting in the middle for $20. I mean, the landscape-turned ice monster is great enough, but it also had sequins! So awesome, but would it go with my IKEA-themed apartment? I got the info in case I felt I needed it later.
Some jewelry and baked goods.
Baklava!
Nathan Ring ceramics. These bowls were labeled $2-3! Those are the deals I'm talking about.


I was talking to Mick Farrell and totally forgot to take some pics of his awesome prints. I found Mick and Sam (below) on CCA's Printmaking gallery pages here.
Sam Handleman's prints were great and the perfect price for me.
Some of Sam's prints.
I knew I had seen this one somewhere- it was in a show at the Pretty Penny and I liked it then. I was so happy to be able to buy it for $10! Steal!
I also got this nice one on grey paper for $5. A crime. My taste is so predictable- something dark, figurative, and beautiful and I'll be happy. My collection just got a little bigger. Thanks Sam!

Artists I Love: Alice Neel

The NY Times featured a good article today on the legacy of artist, Alice Neel (1900-1984), and her influence on other contemporary figure painters like Elizabeth Peyton and Marlene Dumas. See it here. I love her very particular style of painting. It feels emotional, psychological, and personal. She chooses when to render details and when to leave things alone. Her line is most important, as it shows the decisions of her hand, at times truly realistic and others child-like and completely individual. And, of course she is a bad ass for doing portraits in the height of the anti-figure days of Modernism. (image sources: Google, NY Times, and Netflix)

Richard (her eldest son)
Priscilla Johnson
The Family
Todd Dominey
I got this documentary on Alice Neel from 2008 on Netflix. It was pretty illuminating. She had a very troubled early life, and her bickering family left behind were characters in themselves.

New Photos: My Urban Outfitters Mockalog

In my new photographic project I am re-posing all the photos in the latest Urban Outfitters catalog. I don't know where it's going to go, but it is fun. Special thanks to Chrissie Bradley, Courtney Johnson, (in order of appearance), for their modeling skills. Also, thanks to the head of the CCA Grad Dept., Ted Purves, for lending his straw hat to the cause.

Favorites: The Golden Lotus

Golden Lotus in the only reason to go to downtown Oakland. There, I said it. I know some people are going to get all bent out of shape about that, but it's true. Oakland had a lot of bustling new apartment buildings going up, new restaurants planting themselves, and a lot of hope until just a year or two ago when everything went bust with the economy. Now there are lots of empty buildings and a defunct old Sears and, OK, probably still places worth venturing into, but the Golden Lotus is the only place where I keep wanting to come back.

Located on the corner of 13th and Franklin, this all-veggie Vietnamese spot will make you crazy for fake meat! When's the last time you wanted to go where your vegan friends wanted to go? Pictured here is the spicy "beef" noodle soup. I also recommend the pot stickers with ginger sauce. The tea is also great. All around the menu, you can't go wrong.

Inspiration

This is one "artwork" of many in my family's vacation house, which has become the lucky dumpster for all the rejected furniture, hand-me-down linens, and forlorn Christmas gifts which no one wanted to keep in their own home. Most of the art is of the same 70's era as this sweet silkscreen, including gigantic sculpted daisies and cartoonish maps of the area. I was really struck by this one, however, because of the mirrored, stylized flower motif. Ignoring that 70's earth palette that makes me want to throw up, (yeah, I know, some people like that stuff these days), I thought this was an unexpected inspiration for a drawing. Like a psychedelic background for one of my portraits. I gotta learn how to silkscreen.

Artsists I Love: Matthew Cerletty

While checking out Hannah Linden's work at Rivington Arms, I was also reminded of how much I like the figurative work of New York-based artist Matthew Cerletty. He does other stuff too, some abstract, some highly rendered still life things like cups of yogurt, but I think these colored pencil and pastel and oil figure pieces are awesome, especially the patterned background ones. I stole all the images from the Rivington Arms website.

The Bath
Le Saucier
The Institution
The Faux Pas

Artists I Love: Hanna Liden

Hanna Liden is a Swedish-born photographer who now works in New York City. She was featured in the 2006 Whitney Biennial and then all my magazines started covering her, which is how I find out about most anything (and by that I mean skewed through a fashion lens.) She was represented by Rivington Arms Gallery in NY but it looks like they recently closed up shop. Out here on the West Coast I don't hear as much about these things. She is having an upcoming show at Half Gallery in NY so don't miss it if you are out there! What I love about her work is that is so fucking spooky but playful at the same time. And beautiful. I have some images like the Sirens photo torn out of Another Magazine, I think, where she collaborated with the magazine and took photos of naked, stark models. They are amazing. (All these images were taken from the Rivington Arms site.)

And Her Shadow Death
Death Gate
Sirens
Vampire Nude

Some Things Never Change

Awesome Friends: Eurydice Manning

Eurydice and I at the opening of my show.

One of the things I admire the most in my friends is determination. I have had the pleasure of seeing them really follow their dreams and it is very inspiring, and also helps keep me motivated. Eurydice is one of those friends with a relentless entrepreneurial spirit, whose budding cupcake enterprise, James and the Giant Cupcake, is really coming along! Her creative flavors like caramel and sea salt are to die for and her decorations really take the cake (hahaha). She even designed golden cupcakes per my request for the reception of my solo show at Triple Base in October to match the gilded installation. You can check out her menu and other info on her blog. (All photos from her blog.)

Golden cupcakes
Cookie Monster cupcakes! So cute.
Bailey's and chocolate cupcakes
Some cookies 'n' cream and vanilla ones for sale at Top Dog in Rockridge.

Assembling My Army

Havin' Fun With Collage

Artist Focus: Courtney Johnson

Courtney is a lovely burst of sunshine in the way of a painter and MFA candidate at CCA from Virginia via Arizona. Her studio is down the way from mine so whenever I am feeling down I can go in there and check out whatever silly thing she's watching on her computer or get my nails done! That's right, there's a nail salon in there, too. Her paintings center around a narrative of girls in feral states amid open skies. They remind me of Egon Schiele in parts and in others 80's cartoons.

Nail Salon and stacks of pre-mixed paints.
A new one. Can't wait to see the others in this series!

CCA's Open Studios

With CCA's Graduate Open Studios quickly approaching, I made my boyfriend help me hand-letter some business cards. I'm like a sweatshop, I know.
Since it was Easter, I got the added bonus of Peeps from my Dad's visit.
Here he is with my "Communicating with a Higher Power" wall in my studio.

Maysha Mohamedi outside her studio.
Katie Dorame in her studio with Cindy Sherman-esque props.
Sarah Thibault's textured painted armchair and paintings.
Noah Krell and a video piece.
Rebecca Najowski's awesome glittery things.
A writer performance and dirtball (by Eric Martin).