Art

San Francisco Open Studios at Art Explosion

San Francisco Open Studios has been going on all of October. I have live tweeting from my various studio visits each weekend using the hashtag #SFOS. But as both the month and Open Studios draws to a close, we look back and my own experience on the first weekend, showing my photography at Art Explosion and in the showcase at SOMArts.

The works were mostly drawn from the same set that I featured in the solo show at The Parts Room in Oakland in early September, include the “triptych” of the large red, blue and yellow pieces.

The show in Oakland was a great experience, the best visual arts show to date. And I learned a lot about hanging which I put to use for Open Studios. This was most true for the showcase at SOMArts, where I showed up fully equipped to have my piece perfectly centered and mounted in the allotted space. The tools and meticulous measuring and drilling of holes seemed to impress the staff at ArtSpan.

And the work paid off with the end result (though the camera distorts the leveling a bit).

During the preview party, I received numerous positive responses from visitors and various people in the arts community.

The response at the studio itself was also positive. There weren’t always a lot of people visiting, it came in waves throughout the weekend, but those who did come were quite engaged.


[Photo from Art Explosion Studios Facebook page.]

I received both positive and constructive feedback over the weekend. One thing that is clear is the strongest works are those, like the “triptych” that focus on details of the urban landscape, a particular shape or pattern or color. Those are also among the most rewarding to work on, so I will likely focus more on this in the future. I will probably continue to have humorous pieces as well. People of course loved the big orange cat. The doll was a lot more polarizing (see the most recent Wordless Wednesday for an example), with some people really liking it and others hating it.

In balance it was a good experience – it was also great to share it with the other artists in the studio. It was also nice to get it out of the way during the first week, and spend the rest of the month as a viewer rather than presenter. But I am left with a sense of “OK, what next?” in terms my visual-art work…

Weekend Cat Blogging #333: Works of Art

Luna contemplates the sculpture Pierced Screen by Joshua-Tree-based artist J Michael Smiley.

She has a good sense for how to contrast her natural shape against stark geometric lines. Actually, given our art and decor, she doesn’t have much choice in the matter.

I bring the outdoor sculptures inside every winter. This month has been rather volatile, ranging from a heatwave to violent rainstorms and now to more typical crisp autumn weather. We were caught completely by surprise with the storms, with both heavy rain and winds. A particularly strong gust of wind one of the outdoor sculptures crashing to the ground.

Fortunately, it was not damaged, perhaps a few scratches but nothing worse than usual wear and tear. I consider the rust sculpture more sensitive to rain, so that one came indoors for storage. Luna has been fascinated by it ever since.

I would like to clean it and fix the rust surface a bit, but I don’t have much expertise in this despite owning multiple rust sculptures.

Our friend Parker of Perfectly Parker has received some very sad news this past week. Our thoughts are with Parker and her family.

Weekend Cat Blogging #333 is hosted by Billy Sweetfeets.

Carnival of the Cats will be up this Sunday at Meowsings of an Opinionated Pussycat

And the Friday Ark is at the modulator.

Weekend Cat Blogging will be here for Hallowe’en next week!

Art Practical Year 3 Launch, with Music and Super-8 film

Today we look back at the launch party for Year 3 of Art Practical, an online magazine that documents and discusses Bay Area visual arts through reviews and analysis. The event took place at Fivepoints Arthouse. Upon entry, we were offered the opportunity to purchase a logo shot glass (which I did). During the evening, it was filled a few “Shotgun Shots” (Shutgun! being the title of their first issue for the year).

However, the highlight of the evening was in basement of Fivepoints, where artists/musicians Joshua Churchill and John Davis presented live experimental music set against a hand-solarized Super 8 film. It’s pretty rare these days to see actual Super 8 films, but it definitely added something to the piece. They images were purposefully grainy, and even more distorted as a result of the solarization and other treatments of the film – it reminded me of some of the effects on the Hipstamatic (see examples here and here), but on a much larger scale and with a richer depth of intensity and contrast.

Joshua Churchill sat in front of the screen and performed the live with electric guitar and an array of electronic effects. There were echoes, distortions, some elements that sounded like looping, and synthetic sounds from the combination of effects. There was a noisiness and graininess to the music that seemed to reflect the quality of the film. The overall effect was quite beautiful and evocative, and mesmerizing.

Through small slots in the ceiling, light poured in from the main floor gallery, creating a series of light streaks that worked both in concert and contrast with the images from the film and heightened the overall presentation. Even though the space was quite crowded, I found myself completely immersed in the visuals and sounds of the piece.

The piece would have been a great event to see on its own even without the party, but I am happy it was there otherwise I might have missed it. All in all, a great evening. And now Art Practical is already on its third issue of Year 3.

September Photography Show at The Parts Room, Oakland

As I prepare for tonight’s opening at Art Explosion Open Studios in San Francisco, I look back at the opening just two weeks ago at The Parts Room in Oakland.

The Parts Room is located in Classic Cars West in Oakland, a venue that, as the name implies, primarily deals in classic cars. Many of these cars are themselves works of art.

In the above picture, we see two of the cars in display with large-scale artworks by GETBIZI. I thought his pieces would particularly well in conjunction with the cars, sharing the brought colors, clean lines, and including California-style landscape that is synonymous with car culture. I also found the pieces by Optimist, which featured a combination of industrial elements such as shipping contains with modern Asian signage and imagery, fit well with the environment and with my own work.

The overall show in the main gallery was titled “Mechanic Arts”, with many of the artist relating to the “mechanical” or “industrial” theme in different ways. Mark Schroeder’s sculptures combined new and old technologies with wood, metal and light generators were sprinkled throughout the main room, sometimes on top of old barrels. Similarly, Nicole Bommarito’s constructions with Polaroid emulsions combine various vintage technologies. John Paul Marcelo and MoE were also featured with painting and large installations, respectively. The work of these artists shared a weathered look of older industrial products and processes, which fit well with the space but were in sharp contrast to clean and streamlined quality of the cars, and of the large panels from GETBIZI.

The Parts Room itself is a long and narrow space, which made for great opportunities to display both the large pieces as well as some of my iPhone Hipstamatic prints.


[click images to enlarge]

We actually spent quite a bit of time meticulously lining everything up to make use of the space. In addition to just getting everything straight, I wanted to emphasize the lines, geometry and industrial elements on the pieces, as well as the prominence in one color in several of the pieces.



[click images to enlarge]

Overall, the response to the show was quite positive, and it was great to see so many people come through and show an interest, particularly on the Oakland Art Murmur night.

Overall, this was undoubtedly my best visual art show to date. It was well attended, and I received lots of positive feedback. It was great to have such support from Rebecca Kerlin to make this show happen, and to have the time and space to put in the effort to make it come out well. I also learned a lot about how to be precise in hanging and presenting work – something which I plan to bring forward with me in future shows.

It was sad to have to dismantle the show after only a couple of weeks, but I needed many of them for Open Studios. I did try and re-create the triptych of the red, blue and yellow pieces, although with less space. We will see how it goes.

Back Door! and Romanowski at Fabric8

Two concurrent shows at Fabric8 in the Mission District of San Francisco touched upon topics that frequently come up here at CatSynth, highways/transportation and modern geometric design. They also followed two artistic styles that I associate with contemporary urban art: cartoonish humor and street art, and geometric architectural elements.

In Back Door! at Fabric8, artist Andy Stattmiller “visually expounds on the subject that San Franciscans love to hate: the MUNI transportation system”. And it is true, we do have a rather strained relationship with transit system we depend on in the city – there have been numerous times I have opted to walk because I felt is was more reliable. On the other hand, MUNI is a place where the colorful residents of the city cross paths and sometimes get squished together, and where one can observe the contrasts among neighborhoods and streets.

[Andy Stattmiller. 14 Mission.  Image courtesy of Fabric8.]

Stattmiller’s canvases featured individual lines from the MUNI system, mostly busses, which he populated brightly colored cartoon-like figures that simultaneously seem like real denizens of the city and creatures from other planets. The larger heads on the bus drivers were particularly fun. The busses themselves and the surrounding space take on different character of the lines and the neighborhoods that the serve. There is even a triangular canvas representing one of many steep inclines.

[Andy Stattmiller. 67 Bernal Heights.  Image courtesy of Fabric8.]

This was very much an show for locals, who could identify, and identify with, the individual busses and metro lines featured. People did seem to enjoy finding the piece that featured the lines they often use, whether part of their daily routine, or a particularly memorable misadventure. I did find a couple that I have frequented.

In contrast to the chaos and humor of Back Door!, Romanowski’s pieces in the concurrent show Bees and Things and Flowers had a very serious and ordered quality, and was quite calming.

[Romanowski. Le Roy. Image courtesy of Fabric8.]

Although several of the pieces are assemblages of found objects, they give the appearance of abstract sculpture or even painting. Indeed, one can see similarities in the patterns of the found-object pieces and his Installation of stencil on paper.

[Romanowski. Installation (stencil on paper, framed). Image courtesy of Fabric8.]

 

Some of the more intricate pieces, such as Le Roy, remind me a bit of Lousie Nevelson’s sculptures. However, while the abstract geometric designs feel modern, the use of mostly wooden found objects gives them an older feel. And as such, they seem to get in touch with the older architecture in many parts of the city.

Bees and Things and Flowers closed yesterday (September 5). However, Back Door! remains open at Fabric8 until September 12.