Graduate Open Studios, Round Two!

Our Graduate Open Studios day is right around the corner, which means I have to keep making art at full speed, but I also have to get some business cards and make a website and look presentable!  It seems like a nice Sunday to have some visitors, but the truth is most of us are freaking out a little.  See last year's coverage on Artists and Astronauts

Get Ready !

April 10 12-5 pm

Be there or be [ ]

CCA:  1111 Eighth Street, San Francisco, CA 

Artists I Love: Nick Cave

Nick Cave:  "Meet Me at the Center of the Earth" at the Seattle Art Museum through June 5

When I first heard that my favorite musician alive, the Australian Nick Cave, was showing something called "Soundsuits" at San Francisco's Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in 2009, I was surprised but ecstatic.  "Of course he's an artist now", I thought, since Cave the musician is also know as a novelist, soundtrack composer, and screenwriter of the best western of this decade, "The Proposition".

However, upon a little more research I discovered this was not the same Nick Cave, but a visual artist from Missouri who currently directs the graduate fashion program at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. My disappointment did not last long, however, when I headed over to the YBCA to check out his exhibition.  The show was made up of several Soundsuits on mannequins as well as video of the performance aspect of the suits.  These suits are constructed from almost everything- afghan blankets, sticks, sequins, etc to create objects which can be worn, and in turn used with dance and sound elements from the rustling they create.  The creations are beautiful and absurd, and appeal to my fun sensibilities, something I find missing from most art exhibitions.

Cave's show is, of course, over now at the YBCA but the same exhibition, "Meet Me at the Center of the Earth" is now open at the Seattle Art Museum and runs through June 5.
Soundsuit shop

images sourced from google

I passed my final review!

I just passed the last of my grad school reviews, which consists of a panel of judges and a lot of art discussion, and then a deliberation period quite like a reality show.  Thankfully, no one thought I needed a re-review before I graduate, which means now I am free to focus on my MFA exhibition!   Maybe it was because I fed them treats.  Regardless, yay for being done!

My New Favorite Cafe: Tell Tale

Around the corner from CCA I found a cafe inside a great antiques store with a little sandwich board on the sidewalk as it's only signage, called Tell Tale Preserve Co.  Inside, it's rustic and cozy just like its larger home, Big Daddy Antiques, and they brew super premium coffee one cup at a time and keep primo gourmet goodies like sesame ginger scones on hand.  Ok, so the one drawback is that it's a little pricey, but it's nice to have a treat to reward yourself after those particularly brutal days at school.

Tell Tale Preserve Company

17th at Wisconsin, SF

Screen Printing!

My friend, Rachel, and I did some screen-printing the other day, and against all odds, we did OK!  Rachel is actually a pretty skilled printmaker, but I have the experience of one who stayed in the painting room all the time: zero.  I have been trying to figure out some new techniques to make some elaborate headdress paintings faster, so I enlisted Rachel to help me figure some stuff out in the screen printing room.  What I wanted to do ended up being complicated- though it looks so simple- so we kinda just winged it with some tape and a prayer.  I think we made a good start to a new piece thanks to some pretty sweet teamwork.  The two-color, quadruple print is the beginning of a new drawing, and I can't help but think of two major influences that it reminds me of:  punk rock and Andy Warhol.

Rachel knows her stuff

Me, so proud of ourselves

Sex Pistols:  "God Save the Queen"

One of  Warhol's "Marilyn" series

(The bottom two images from google)