this morning

marked a new start. the drive was especially wonderful today. it looked like the mountain to the east was a volcano because the clouds matched the colors of the shadows perfectly; the powerful, unmoving rocks of deep gray-blue melded with the constantly shifting vapors in the sky and the pale gold of the sun peeked through in an ever-changing dance of dawn. there was just the slightest hint of pink hanging on the edges of the sky. subtle twinkles on the bay to my right, and as i turned to face the sun the heavy hanging clouds over mexico moved to the side to make room for the crisp morning. it was the perfect start to a new day, which in itself is a new start.

Joe's Inn

I took this off Google Maps. I miss this place!

Souther Salazar and Megan Whitmarsh

First of all, I LOVE studio tours. It's such a great glimpse into the reality of the working artist. Fecal Face is really good about updating them on the reg, and the latest one was the LA studio of Souther Salazar and Megan Whitmarsh. I think collaborations or even shared spaces is an excellent idea, because even though the personal space is affected, the bouncing and sharing of ideas is a fabulous marriage. One day I would love to have a seperate studio from home; I kind of got a taste of that in the Honors Studio at VCU and it gave me the bug. I won't even bother posting images of their actual work (you can go to their websites for that) but I love the following things about their studio:
1) Exposed brick walls
2) Lots of weird nooks and corners
3) FLAT FILES. SO AMAZING.
4) Lots of light
5) Tons of books and other reference materials
6) An influx of neon. Superb.

Anyway, here's the studio. Maybe the next time I'm in LA I'll be a creep and lurk outside.

Los Angeles Festival of Books!

UCLA is hosting a weekend-long book festival at the end of the month that is FREE!!! Nothing in LA is free, but somehow this is (however, parking is not). The Los Angeles Festival of Books will take place Saturday and Sunday, April 25-26 on the UCLA campus in West LA. There will be book readings, signings, and local authors on hand peddling their wares. Click the link above to get more information on what's happening and who will be attending. Tickets are free but required to enter some of the events and panel discussions.

Pritned Matter NYC

Nieves
An Exhibition
April 4 – May 23, 2009

Opening Reception
Saturday, April 4, 2009, 5:00 – 7:00 PM

Printed Matter is pleased to announce an exhibition with the legendary Swiss publisher Nieves. The exhibition will feature a full retrospective of Nieve's zine program since 2004 as well as a selection of the books published by the press since its founding in 2001. The opening reception will also serve as a book launch for new titles by Henry Roy, Katerina Christidi, Harmony Korine as well as the compilation Zine Box 2008. The exhibition will open on April 4, 2009 from 5:00 to 7:00 PM at Printed Matter, which is located at 195 Tenth Avenue (between 21st and 22nd Street) in New York City.

Nieves was founded in 2001 by Benjamin Sommerhalder, following the demise of his short-lived magazine Zoo. From the start, Nieves has published critically acclaimed, yet diverse, publications from a who's who of visual delinquents: Rita Ackermann, Linus Bill, Robin Cameron, Larry Clark, Marcel Dzama, Chris Johanson, Kim Godon, Spike Jonze, Harmony Korine, Ari Marcopoulos, Mike Mills, Rick Myers, Aaron Rose, Ed Templeton, and Andrew Jeffrey Wright to name but a few. The publications have taken on a variety of forms, from limited edition, photocopied zines, to more-formally recognized hardcover, perfect-bound and offset books. In the last eight years, Nieves has become one of the most talked about names in European publishing and Sommerhalder recently won the Jan Tschichold award, a prestigious award given annually on the occasion of “The Most Beautiful Swiss Books” competition.

Although I have collected artists' books for several decades, this is the first time that I have trusted a publisher's tastes and program to intersect so completely with my own. Perhaps this is because Benjamin Sommerhalder, who is Nieves itself, is not so much a publisher as someone taking pleasure in artists' zines and in the act of publishing.

AA Bronson
“Nieves”, The Most Beautiful Swiss Books, 2009



The exhibition will feature over 100 zines published by Nieves since 2004, making them available for reading and perusing. Also on view will be a broad selection of books published by the press since 2001. Nieves authors Rick Myers and Tim Barber will be on hand to sign their publications at the opening reception, which will also serve as the launch for four publications:

Henry Roy's new zine August is about cinematic and dreamy vision of Ibiza, where he spent his last summer holidays (and has been visiting many times since the late eighties). August is saddle stitched, black and white, and 20 pages. It retails for $8 and can be purchased at Printed Matter's storefront in New York City or online at www.printedmatter.org.

Katerina Christidi's C'est pas angoissant is a combination of charcoal drawings drawn from her large scale works and her series One Year Drawings. The figurative work creates tension as the artist describes “between the anxiety of existential discomfort and it's comical response evoked by human figures.” C'est pas angoissant is saddle stitched, black and white, and 20 pages. It retails for $8 and can be purchased at Printed Matter's storefront in New York City or online at www.printedmatter.org.

Harmony Korine's Devils and Babies is as the title suggests, drawings of devils and babies in the artist's characteristic brut style. Devils and Babies is saddle stitched, black and white, and 20 pages. It retails for $8 and can be purchased at Printed Matter's storefront in New York City or online at www.printedmatter.org.

The Nieves Zine Box 2008 is produced in an extremely limited edition of 20 and contains a complete set of the zines that produced in 2008. The authors include Keegan McHargue, Beau LaBute, Mari Eastman, Geoff McFetridge, Frédéric Fleury, Reala / Körner Union, Eddie Martinez, Susan Gianciolo, Anthony Record, Tal R, Jonas Delaborde, Beni Bischof, Himaa, Rick Myers and Stefan Marx. The Nieves Zine Box 2008 retails for $250 and can be purchased at Printed Matter's storefront in New York City or online at www.printedmatter.org.

For more information, please contact AA Bronson at aabronson @ printedmatter.org.

Printed Matter, Inc. is an independent 501(c)(3) non-profit organization founded in 1976 by artists and art workers with the mission to foster the appreciation, dissemination, and understanding of artists' books and other artists' publications.

Printed Matter, Inc. has received support, in part, through grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York State Council on the Arts, the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, Altria Group Inc, the Milton & Sally Avery Arts Foundation, The Cowles Charitable Trust, the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, The Gesso Foundation, The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation, the Schoenstadt Family Foundation, The Roy and Niuta Titus Foundation, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, and individuals worldwide.

Even though this is an "art" blog, I think that I have a) enough freedom to take a break and write about something personal, and b) not enough readers to make a difference anyway! Lately, for a variety of reasons, I've had to re-think how my current life has been affected by my past. For years I have blocked out significant amounts of memories and experiences, which unavoidably have helped shape me into the person I am today. I have as much cynicism and jading as I do nostalgia and happiness, and while I have chosen to focus more on the present and future, I have to come to grips with things in my past to be able to successfully move ahead. For years I struggled with an enormous amount of self-doubt and thus overcompensation in mentally unhealthy ways, none of which ultimately damaged me as a person, but I believe as a defense mechanism I was able to block out much of my negative experiences. This self-induced amnesia only works to an extent, and I believe that I need to re-visit many of these experiences and resulting emotions to move forward. While generally I subscribe to the notion that focusing on the positive is better than drowning in the negative, sometimes coming to grips with the past means examining the unpleasant experiences and emotions. I guess it's just thinking about "growing up" and kind of outlining how even terrible, horrible, soul-crushing emotions have helped me to become a better, stronger person. I am very happy with my life today, and I wouldn't change anything in the past, but there's no way to separate the person I am today without thinking about how I got here. The relationships I built and lost, the accomplishments I made, the interaction with my family and resulting present ties, my observations of relationships and how they have shaped mine, the choices I made, big experiences and firsts, my reactions in love, hate, jealousy, compassion, forgiveness, judgment, and reality. How people and "scenes" shaped me. How family has shaped me. How love has shaped me. How friends have shaped me. How people judging me has shaped me. How me judging people has shaped me. How loss has shaped me. Basically outlining the last (almost) 24 years as my life and trying to make sense of it all. Seems like a tall order...

UGH NO FAIR

Kidrobot LA is JUST far enough away to make me a crazy person for driving up there just to shop. Still, they have so many ridiculously cool events that my sanity is often tested by my desire to go up there and blow my life savings on toys. Tonight Frank Kozik is kicking off his summer apparel series with a signing and pre-release of the new 1984 Labbit from 6-8. All the details can be viewed here and also below.


Is it bad I would move to LA just to be a hobo outside the store?

Kill Pixie

Mondays are sometimes difficult for me, and today was no exception. Getting up early has never been an easy task, especially over a long period of time. Just ask Momma D- I assure you that even the mention of the phrase "morning person" around her will ignite her into such a frenzy of explanation about how I am simply NOT ONE OF THOSE PEOPLE that your ears will literally bleed at the montage. Still, somehow after our debaucherous weekend filled with cooking spaghetti and re-planting our herb garden I managed to ooze my way out of bed this morning to get to work by 7 sharp. It takes me longer than usual to get into my normal work mode on Mondays after actively atrophy-ing my brain into mush over the weekend, so I was perusing some of my personal emails and came across Fecal Face's Kill Pixie interview. I'm sure that at one time or another I've come across his work, but the vivid colors really struck a chord with my addled brain cells not quite functioning on 100%. Also I am very jealous of his LA pad. I would hate to live in LA for any other reason besides art, but I think I would thrive there as an artist. Then again, that's what everyone says.

Regardless, here's some of his drool-inspiring work.




These are all taken directly from Fecal Face. He's got a few shows coming up, one in LA and one currently in Australia. Some life, right?!?

Ryan McClennan

Ryan McClennan is an artist from Richmond who's making big strides in the art world today. The first exposure I had to his work was his cover of RVAMag a year or so ago when he was promoting an in-town show, but now he's moved on past lil' ol' RVA! He's been featured on Tiny Showcase a few times already, and who knows what else he's got his fingers in. His intricate illustrations of nature beautifies the violence and intensity in a world we can't fully immerse ourselves in.

Check out his site and tinyshowcase to see more of his work.

Stuart Kolakovic

Every once in a while I get really bored with whatever my current desktop image happens to be, but it's not always the simplest task finding a new one. You don't really realize how much you actually look at it, and if it's just not quiiiiite right, it will bother me until I find The Perfect Image. Usually my go-to's are FecalFace and Tiny Showcase, and today proved no exception. I scanned through the archives of Tiny Showcase to come across the work of Stuart Kolakovic, a UK artist that I could only find a little information about, but his work speaks for itself. Folk art, cubism, and retro color theory are all explored through his works. He's worked as a comic artist and illustrator with a pretty impressive clientele. Check out his site and especially his comics.

And FYI, here's the image I have as my background now:

Worship Something, Tiny Showcase

Here's just one that I especially like (the geometric patterns in nature is a concept that I've explored for years. I actually based my AP portfolio on it in high school):

Arctic Chilling, personal work