Ragamuffin cat enjoying a little time at the piano. She looks ready to sing. 😺 🎶
This picture comes to us from Flora Davis, a local artist here in San Francisco whose work hangs on the walls of CatSynth HQ (and whose jewelry occasionally adorns my ears). Read more about her and the piece we commissioned from her in these articles.
Karl Lee Avery’s faithful studio cats return. (Submitted via Facebook.)
The desk passes the fatcat QC
Rosie don’t give a🎺
🔥
😵
🙀
Identification of the synths left as an exercise to the reader.
Today we look back at last weekend’s APAture Book Arts Showcase, hosted by Kearny Street Workshop. You can see a bit of the event, and three of the artists, in our companion video on CatSynth TV.
In the video, we see a reading by featured artist Innosanto Nagara of his recent book A Night at the Planetarium, which introduces readers to the culture and history of Indonesia, and one particularly intense night under Indonesian military rule (while “the general” is clearly Suharto, he is not mentioned by name). It is partly a memoir of the author at a young age and relates the story of a crackdown on his father’s dissident plays. Nagara is although the author of the award-winning and quite delightful A is for Activist (we love the black cat on the cover).
“Book Arts” covers quite a lot of territory in terms of discipline and media. There are formal, published books like Nagara’s, but also other print media like self-published zines. Mixed Rice Zines is the ongoing project of Jess Wu-O, and features voices that are often underrepresented, such as queer voices in the Asian American and mixed-race communities. One edition Queer Azn Musicians particularly spoke to me as a queer musician of South Asian descent.
The zines are self-published, as were many of the other pieces featured in the show. Bridge Ho presented these zines featuring her photography along with words by Michelle Velasquez-Potts. The published pieces are works of art, showing semi-abstract imagery on various printed materials including vellum.
Overall, however, most of the work in the show centered around illustration. Minnie Phan presented a variety of printed illustrations, including on cards, booklets, and her comic book They Call Us Viet Kieu, written after Phan visited Vietnam in 2013. You can hear her talk a bit about the experience in our CatSynth TV episode.
Similarly, we saw a variety of illustrated printed material from Cheez Hayama including these cat cards – each one is hand drawn and slightly different – and California activity book featuring our state bird.
More traditional “comic books” were on display as well, including the Time Fiddler by Ellis Kim. The series, told as detailed and well drawn graphic novels, follows a young woman on an adventure through time travel, space, and romance. And of course, there is a cat.
And with books and graphic novels, we come full circle with This Asian American Life by Katie Quan, featuring the everyday adventures of an Asian-American protagonist. Parts of autobiographical from Quan’s experiences, but also includes shared experiences from friends as well as entirely imagined scenes.
It was a well-attended show with many artists presenting – and selling – their work. We regret not being able to visit or include everyone. Congratulations to KSW and everyone involved on a great event.
Smoke and haze in downtown San Francisco, looking up Ellis Street from a building on Market. You can see what this view looks like under better skies here.
After a couple of relatively good days, the air quality once again took a turn for the worse. As bad as it is, it’s nothing compared to what our friends to the north have gone through with the terrible fires, and our thoughts are with them as they recover.
From this auction, via matrixsynth.
“Hello! Synth works well, and I am a registered builder on the MFOS site as Allen Cox. Case is made out of hardwood that has been stained, painted, and finished. Comes with 12v power supply, wal wart, and two pamona banana patch cables.”
Presumably, cat and lava lamp not included 😸
From HyperbubbleTV on YouTube. Submitted to by Jeff DeCuir (part of the team that made the video).
starring Hyperbubble, with Justin Parr, and introducing Smokey the cat
Directed by Mark and Angela Walley
featuring the title track from “Candy Apple Daydreams”, performed by Hyperbubble. Available on CD and mp3 from Bubblegum Records http://bubblegumrecords.org.uk/, http://itunes.com and http://amazon.comofficial Hyperbubble website: http://www.hyperbubble.net
MySpace: http://www.myspace.com/hyperbubble
Facebook: www.facebook.com/hyperbubble
We think Smokey did an excellent job in this video 😸
Today we look back at last weekend’s opening of Art for the Naked Eye at Far Out Gallery in San Francisco. The show covers twenty years of work by local artist Kasper Rodenborn.
You can see and hear a bit about Rodenborn’s art in his own words in our most recent CatSynth TV episode.
Rodenborn’s work falls into several periods and categories. First, there are the more traditional paintings, with surrealist quality that particularly reminds us of Yves Tanguy.
[Installation view]
Many of the works feature wildstyle, an homage to Rodenborn’s early days as an underground graffiti artist. But he combines this with other elements, including some that project out of the canvas in the sculptural realm, as in the Rauchenberg-esque elements in Aside from Concrete Existence displayed below.
[Kasper Rodenborn, Aside from Concrete Existence. This piece will be hanging in CatSynth HQ after the show!]
Over time, we observe his work to move in the direction of collage and ultimately assemblages, as in these intricate pieces.
The most recent works are a return to flat surfaces. But these flat pieces have depth and motion, as they respond to changing light colors. They were displayed illuminated by rotating-color LED bulbs.
It was a strong exhibition, we are glad to have attended. And Far Out Gallery was an excellent discovery in the Sunset District of San Francisco – we expect to be back for future shows.
By Japhy Riddle. Submitted by Bill Wolter via Facebook.
An improvement (in my opinion) on someone else’s concept. I can only take partial credit for this. All paper cut-outs.
This fits so well visually on CatSynth!
Our friend Maximus is in the studio ready to produce some new tracks. Submitted by Jason D Rodriguez via our Facebook page.
Maximus also likes the bass. (So do we.)
