Lowbrow art, flying kites-especially at night (it's unholy), lemurs, urban vinyl, travel, Bollywood, Greek & Egyptian mythology, Buster Keaton, Masters of the Universe, documentaries, graffiti, 1970's leisure & sharkskin suits, old Cadillacs, atomic age design, the Marx Brothers, 3 3/4" G.I. Joe crap, hearses.
Television:
I'm all over the damn map on this one. Several of them are looooong gone.
Newsradio, Undeclared, Frontline, Blackadder, Shipmates, Arrested Development, Nature, Batman-The Animated Series, Geetmala, Hawaii Five-O, King of the Hill, Freaks & Geeks, American Experience, Cheaters, Smallville, Mr. Bean, Futurama, Charlie Rose, Wonder Showzen, Venture Brothers, Antiques Roadshow, Reno 911, Home Movies, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Starsky & Hutch, Family Guy, Late Night with Conan O'Brien, This Old House, Friends, Nova, Law & Order, American Dad, The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, The Office, The Twilight Zone (original series), South Park, Action!, Millenium, The Industry (U.S. title. aka "Made in Canada"), Jeopardy, The Daily Show,
Blind Date, BBC World News, Related, 21 Jump Street, Secrets of the Dead, 60 Minutes, American Masters
Heroes:
Heros? P'sha! The hell with that. I'm using this spot to promote upcoming shows & whatnot. Like this...
Minneapolis, MN June 20th, 2008 6-9pm Draw Too
So as you may have guessed, I have indeed been absent from most of the arty shindigs & whim-whammery for the past few months. Aside from my normal inherent nature of being somewhat of a social malcontent, there has been another reason why I’ve been squirreled away at home while the rest of the world enjoyed things like “being with loved ones†under a beaming yellow-orange ball in the sky & here it is…
I’ve been invited to exhibit at Soo Visual Art Center in their Draw Too show . It’s a follow up to the highly successful original Draw from 2004 which featured over 70 artists with their take on the medium of drawing. This time around it’s been trimmed down to 14 artists who will explore how to express four meanings of the word “draw†by the act of drawing, both intangible and concrete illustrations derived fromthese concepts: Draw as an art form, draw a breath, draw a gun and a draw in sports. I almost decided to put in a commission piece I’ve been working on of a sexy girly pillow fight but at over 9 feet long, space was a huge issue second only to the fact that it’s nowhere close to complete & in a likelihood will be what causes my demise.
Instead I’m going with that “draw a gun†concept with a slew of G.I. Joe heads in my Conventioneers’ Disease series.
You may be asking yourself, “what exactly do a bunch of heads of your incredibly nerdly interests have to do with that theme?†Well you’ve got a lot of goddamn nerve judging me! Did I ever belittle you when you blew your nose in that sweater at the Sears in Rosedale Mall? That’s right, “noâ€. Or to put it another way, I approached it more in the vein of Andy Warhol’s film Blow Job in which the camera only focuses in a man’s face while he’s being fellated. While the viewer suspects what’s occurring, there’s still an element of speculation as to the goings on & as semi-informed spectators, we can only mentally fill in the blanks as to the intimate details.
The Conventioneers’ Disease series operates in much in the same way (albeit much more PG rated.) All the characters were bad guys that came with various collector’s sets that were originally sold exclusively at the 2004 G.I. Joe Convention in New Orleans. Given both the fact that they were the criminal protagonists & the inherent nature of the product line it’s not surprising that they all came with a vast array of weaponry. Instead of showing them brandishing their gear, I thought it’d be better to subtly imply that they would use some sort of deadly implement in their day-to-day mischief. Besides, how many ways can artists show the obvious literally interpretation of drawing a gun before it gets old. I’m guessing not many.
Now for fun, I’ll letcha in on another secret to my working process. For all these heads, I used an actual living person as a design base to start from. Like Zanzibar (the 2 image up towards the top of the article) was based on a mustachioed Colin Farrell. Other celebrities included Zach Braff, John Cena, Larry King & Kevin Federline. It’s mainly a look that I’m going for when interpreting the characters but sometimes the personality matches up nicely. Like when I needed someone that had a real white trash, inbred, dipshit thug vibe, well there was really no reason to look any farther than Mr. K-fed.
Given that the denizens of the Twin Cities historically haven’t been the best when it comes to actually buying art, I figure that it may be a good time to give it the old college try & see if I can’t hustle up some bidniss. I was able to shoot the entire series & you can see them all here . I’m pricing them at $250 retail, which in the grand scheme of things, is chicken feed. (That is if it’s a pretty decent amount of regular feed or possibly some really fancy gourmet stuff that free of growth hormones & the ground up remains of other chickens.) And yes, they can indeed ship to other states/internationally so no need to worry Dubai.
I did a little checking to back this up & ran into a problem because I don’t know of many other artists who do something similar. The closest I got was Colin Christian , who makes these absolutely gorgeous sculptures like this one of Snackcake’s Cthulhu Head I bought earlier this year.
This would be a good time for any potential future live-in girlfriends/wives of mine to take note. This is just tip of the iceberg of the seemingly endless array of stuff I’ve acquired over the years that will indeed be displayed on the walls of our home & no, it won’t be coming down when your parents come over.
Back to the main point. As great as Colin’s Cthulhu is, it’s not really a very good gauge against mine because,
A, Mine are life size & relatively flat Masonite that was cut to shape while Colin’s pieces like the one I bought are over 3 feet tall & are in relief.
B, So much, much better from any technical standpoint than mine. Seriously, he kicks my ass up & down the block when it come to craftsmanship which in turn segues into
C, His pieces cost thousands of dollars. Mine-not so much.
That particular comparison ended up being kind of a bust so I decided to take a much needed personal break from working ever-so-hard here at the Amphetamine Reptile office & expand the search. It really is great that I’m able to have the flexibility to do stuff like researching stuff for my personal use here. It’s not so loose over at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts which limits this kind of chicanery. Another bit of somewhat negative weirdity is that that there’s one co-worker who is very nice but since she’s the I see first person I normally see in the morning… well her name reminds me of a particular song so for nearly every day the last year & a half I’ve had the refrain endlessly stuck in my head.
At any rate, I’ve spent the a few hours now looking up what the current market rate in the Minneapolis/St. Paul metro area is for head & it looks like $300-$400 seems the average & that’s merely for an hour! Well that’s a fine how-do-you do! I know it’s probably different from the product I’m offering but this was as close as I could get. A lot of the people on there blurred out their faces so you don’t even know what you’re getting.
From what you can clearly see, everything seems like it’s on the up-and-up but who knows what’s underneath the blur! Is it going to be a Gina Gershon look-alike showing up at your door or will it be “Curse of the Dog-Faced Girlâ€? That’s the kind of thing you’d probably like to know beforehand & although there were some that didn’t edit their photos & were quite pretty there were others that would illicit a response of “Humph. Yukkersâ€. I’d post a photo of one of them but I figure if you’re already a homely prostitute you probably don’t need some bastard in Minnesota adding to your self-esteem issues. But see, this is where getting one of my pieces makes perfect sense since you know exactly what you’re signing up for. Yes indeedy, this here is much better.
Let’s say you luck out & get one of the pretty ones. Let’s see if everything is all peachy keen when you’ve got urinating fire a month from now. After that, you’d probably would’ve welcomed some advance warning in the form of a scabulous map of Lake Minnetonka on her face in herpes & weeping meth sores so unpleasant that Apollonia would’ve thought long & hard before she ever disrobed & metaphorically jumped into that.
The one thing these other ladies seem to be able to offer that I can’t is something called a “GFEâ€. Can’t say I’m familiar with that term but I’d assume it’s an abbreviation for “giraffeâ€. Not even sure how that would work exactly but one has to guess it involves one’s neck & possibly a ladder. I’m admittedly ignorant on this but whatever “giraffing†is, it seems like it’d be overly complicated & not worth it in the time or effort. Besides, it’d really be pretty easy to hang my work at the top of a wall by the ceiling cornice if that’s what really boils your noodles. Unfortunately, during a logo stealing jaunt on Google Images, I also learned this ugly sentiment that at least one giraffe feels.
One could hope that this is just an individual giraffe’s personal feelings & not indicative of the whole species but it makes you wonder.
Well there you have it, a couple of damn good arguments on why buying my art is a much better choice over hookers which I’ve somehow made into the next logical choice on how people would spend their money. The guvvymint also just sent you a bunch of dough to help with the crappy economy. If you were sent $600 that would be enough for 2 Dreadnok heads AND 112 Cheesy Double Beef Burritos from Taco Bell. Man that’s the sweet life! Plus I’ve been cooped up in the house for like 2 months getting these done, so if anyone needs some stimulating, it’s me. And unlike on whores, you’re like 85% less likely to contract gonorrhea from my work.
Draw Too
Featuring Works by:
Isaac Arvold | Eric Carlson | Adam Carstens | Caleb Coppock | Craig Hill | Bethany Kalk | Katrina Lamb | John Largaespada | Rob McBroom | Michael McConnell | Kurtis Skaife | Scott Stulen | Sarah Thibault | Megan Vossler
Soo Visual Art Center
Opening night: Friday, June 20th, 2008 6-9pm (Show runs June 20th-August 16th, 2008)
2640 Lyndale Ave. S
Minneapolis, MN 55408
(at the corner of 27th & Lyndale across from Bob’s Java Hut/Uptown Tattoo, just down the street from the C.C. Club
612-871-2263
Hours: Wed. 12-6, Thurs. 12-8, Fri. 12-6 & Sat. 12-4 or by appointment.
Also opening that night at THE TOOMER GALLERY @ SooVAC:
Through the Looking Glass: New Paintings by Jennifer Davis
BEE THERE!
Minneapolis, MN January 12th, 2008 7-10 pm Get Lucky-Off to the Races
Get Lucky this weekend & pick yourself up some glistening pink!
Ah, always with the crass euphemisms, it just wouldn’t be one of my bulletins without ‘em. As you’ll soon see, it’s right on the money though. Soo Visual Art Center is holding their annual Get Lucky fundraiser this Saturday & this year’s them is “Off to the Racesâ€. I’ve decided to donate another Betty-Boopsian bee head after the success of last year’s Sno-Bee that doubled it’s listed value after an evening of fierce bidding. Wasn’t expecting that, but it was quite flattering nonetheless.
I’m a-thinkin' that the bee series will end up being a trilogy when all is said & done. To be honest, I really wasn’t feeling this one at first when I started on it. The overall color scheme seemed cool in theory with it’s Valentine-y colors but about midway through the pink face looked way too mammalian for my taste. This isn’t widely known , but fleshy pink animals that aren’t supposed to be that way are one of my aesthetic pet peeves so this could’ve been a problem. I also hate dopey simpleton eyes on cartoon characters like this stupid mouse from Germany called Diddl. That extra tidbit doesn’t have anything to do with the show but I just got to thinking about that goddamn little rodent bastard & now I got the blood all angried up. Jesus H. Crackers, that stupid slapped–ass face bugs me so much! I can’t understand why that piece of horse crap is so popular! Wake up! He’s worthless people! Anyone who bitches about Mickey Mouse should thank their lucky stars that they don’t have to live with this piece of shit every day!!!
…but I digress. The good news is I think I salvaged it splendidly & the Luv-Bee should be a crowd pleaser. In comparative trilogy terms, I turned a potential American Pie 2 into an Empire Strikes Back. It’s now on par with Sno-Bee & won’t be like, “oh it’s sorta OK, I guess but it’s too bad it wasn’t as we didn’t to see Shannon Elizabeth’s spectacular tits again because they left such an impression the first time around that we drove around after the film let out to several adult bookstores until 1am when we found a single copy the Playboy with her pictorial at Lickety Split.â€
What? That totally didn’t happen even if it seems extremely specific in detail. Anyhoo, Luv-Bee is most bitchin’ like Empire with it’s Darth Vader dad secret revealed & the smooth charisma of Billy Dee Williams.
Will lightning strike twice & again be the evening’s hot item? I haven’t a clue but history has taught me, probably not. Then again people do like sparkly stuff as well as pink things. I’m always seeing the ladies wearing those Victoria’s secret sweatpants with “PINK†written across the tush though I can’t help but feel they have them on backwards if what my “research†on the internets is indeed accurate.
This is probably going to be it for showing new work for a while since I’ve got nuthin’ planned until May. I’m also L.A. bound in about a week you Twin Citians so you won’t have me around to entertain you anymore…for a week. Yep, that’s right, after working every single bloody day for over a year now I’m taking a vacation. I’ll mix in a little gallery business but it’s mainly going to be Good Time Robbie & I’ll again be bringing some of that tasty Nortog jerky that I got a good many OX-OP artists hooked on. Get ready SoCal; cases of “meat-mouth†will be spreading around like…well…â€wildfire†seems in bad taste given the troubles not so long ago. Ooh, it’ll be like being infected by tuberculosis of deliciousness. Yeah, that’s much better.
Sadly LorDu can’t come (that’s right, I’ve TMZ-ified her name & no, she’s far from sold on it.) She’ll be off with her Palabristas chums that night so I’ll be limiting myself to a glass or 2 of wine probably keeping the mouthy sassback to a minimum. There is one artist who should be there that really busted my balls over an open letter to the press that Haze sent out when he announced OX-OP's closing & took a few parting shots to the mainstream contemporary art world that she took great umbrage to. If there is a round two it could get interesting.
If you can make it out to Get Lucky, then do. It’s one night only & tickets are just $25. Lots of fantastic artists like Kozyndan, Kii Arens, Jennifer Davis, Kate Iverson, 27 & Keiko Yagishita have donated work as well as local businesses (the full list is on Soo VAC’s site ..
Valentine’s Day is also around the corner & you gotta admit, Luv-Bee makes a great present for your main squeeze. A bit of advice though, don’t screw up & transpose the dates of V-Day & V-J Day. Believe me, showing up to her place with a Tojo caricature will just come across as both obscure & racist & won’t have the intended effect. In all likelihood, you’ll instead be ending the evening with a certain dog-eared periodical you didn’t buy one hot August night in 1999.
Get Lucky @ Soo Visual Art Center
SATURDAY, JANUARY 12, 2008
7pm-11pm
2640 Lyndale Avenue South
Minneapolis, MN 55408
Tickets are $25. You can either call 612-871-2263 or purchase them online.
All proceeds from the evening will benefit Soo Visual Arts Center, one of the Twin Cities’ key nonprofit exhibition spaces. Founded in 2001, SooVAC has made a name for itself as one of a few forward-thinking local art galleries dedicated to showing cutting-edge art from emerging and mid career artists, with a focus on local and regional arts.
Eau Claire, WI November 8th-December 2nd, 2007-Rome is Burning/The New SchoolAnyone who has ever read one of these bulletins before almost instantly knows that I do like to go on & every single one of these things are like a goddamn novella & packed with the funny. My personal emails are no different but what happens then is the response time is often shitty at best between the actual time it takes to write them (I hunt & peck) & thinking up new entertaining material. Lately it’s gotten much much worse but that should all be changing soon thanks to a very special project that reaches its fruition this Thursday night. I should begin though with how it all came down.
About a year ago, I received an email at OX-OP from Scott Robertson from the University of Wisconsin about whether or not we’d be interested in curating a show for them at the Foster Gallery. Haze wasn’t too interested since he had kind of checked out on the art end of things with the close of the 2006 Juxtapoz show we hosted & was in the middle of the A Purge of Dissidents project & semi-reviving Amphetamine Reptile Records with some new Halo of Flies & Melvins singles (amongst some other stuff that’s still to come.) Anyhoo, I got the green light from him if I wanted to take the lead on this & curate the bastard myself & I figured what the hell. What I came up with was Rome is Burning/The New School. A small sampling of which will be peppered in with this bulletin as a sneak peek like this swank Chris Mars piece.
To be honest, I blew it off until May & since then this has pretty much consumed my very being. At the time I was working part time for AmRep & hadn’t really anticipated that all that free time would soon be at an end but then the need for a second job reared it’s skanky head & overnight I went from working 20 hours to 60 a week plus all the other hoo-haw. (I know everyone is assuming that mainly involves the actual “making of art†but in reality it’s more like sitting in a chair watching TV while eating a whole raw cabbage over the course of 3 ½ hours. True story.) Damn you skanky-headed 2nd job luring me with your stupid money & dental plan!
The trade off has been far fewer email responses but the tradeoff is that I’ve been able to put together one freakin’ helluva show for the Foster that opens this Thursday night (November 8th) which I’ll be going to even though that means I’ll be recording a 2 hour block of Smallville/The Office/Scrubs showing that my priorities are completely fucked up even if that TV business seems pretty sad when I see it all typed out like this. ?
I’m also under no delusions that the fact that this show was only possible because of the OX-OP cache’ coupled with my personal relationship with a good portion of the artists involved but still, we got some big names involved like Dalek, Gary Taxali, Shepard Fairey, Liz McGrath, Coop, Niagara, Gary Baseman…you know what? There’s to many to list right here. Just scroll on down to the end for the full line up of all 3 dozens artists.
So this Thursday night (November 8th), Eau Claire, Wisconsin will oddly be the happenin’ place for art. I myself will be heading out a bit early for a little last minute set up stuff if needed & to check into the hotel, by myself I might add since somebody who’ll remain nameless, doesn’t find a small college town in western Wisconsin a big enough draw to skip out on her brand new job for a couple of days. Apparently if we were talking Spain, then that’s a different story. I’m still not convinced. Take a look at them side by side & maybe it’s me but I say they look equally fun. She must be crazy or something!
There is another reason to go out early as well & I encourage everyone to follow suit with this idea. Stop by one of the many fireworks stores along I-94 & load up on the loudest, most irritating ones you can find. Get a lot too since you don’t want to have to drive all the way out again because you forgot something. Now if your neighborhood is anything like mine, you probably spent the entire summer having to put up with other peoples Black Cats & Whistling Moon Travelers going off ALL FUCKING NIGHT for months straight & not just on the weekends either by crappy kids & their permissive loser parents. Days when you had to get up early for work & you just wanted to strangle the bejeezus out of everyone.
Well now’s your time to shine my friend because you take those fireworks & wait for nearly 2 more months. Don’t light off a single one since that will only draw suspicion when you do strike. No you wait until Christmas Eve when all the kids are tucked away waiting for Santy Clause & at about 2 am take one of those chains of firecrackers that last for several minutes & you light it & throw that shit down one of the storm drains by the gutter in the street. The noise is so much more amplified because of the metal lining…I’m almost at a loss for words it makes me so giddy. Oh, another good day to do that is the night after Labor Day when the kids are going back to school.
How your neighborhood probably different from mine is that you most likely don’t live next door to a pimp. I feel like I was greatly misled by the quirky charm of Huggy Bear since this guys is nothing like that what with the 7 am kicking & choking followed by a 10 minute rampage of the young lady repeated ramming her car into his for retaliation as was the case last Thursday. (I would’ve liked to have gotten a better shot but chose to stay inside so as not draw the ire of those Brainiacs towards my own vehicle that was just across the street.)
That said, you should really think about going to the Rome is Burning show if you’re in the Madison or Twin Cities area. It turned out extremely well & it’s only about 90 minutes from Minneapolis so even if you stay til it closes at 9:00 you’ll still be able to be in bed by 11:00. C’mon, it’s even close enough so that most of the radio stations on your preset still come in meaning you can leave it on KQRS & not have to tune around the dial in order to rock out to that Golden Earring’s Twilight Zone. I didn’t want to say anything but people are starting to talk. They’re all like, “do you know them?†& I say, “yeah, they seem pretty cool†but then they’re like “I dunno, lately they sorta seem to suck†& then I say, “nah, they’re good people.†I’d like to use you going as an example otherwise who knows, I may be forced to confirm their suspicion with a “true dat†& I don’t think anyone wants that kind of jazz to go down. Yep, more Huggy Bear, less real-life next-door-neighbor pimps.
OK, OK whether or not you can go to the physical show there will still be a chance to sample the visual deliciousness on the web. We‘ll be putting the entire show on OX-OP’s site shortly as soon as I get a couple of more pix. Though this next part is a little low key & won‘t be apparent at the Foster, about 2/3 of the show will be available for sale via OX-OP (I myself will most likely be purchasing the sweet Oksana Badrak piece below.) The remaining 1/3 are either borrowed from private collections or else the artist want to hang on to their art.
So there you have it, another swell OX-OP show that’s probably second in scope to last year’s huge Juxtapoz event. It runs until December 2nd so there’s plenty of time to see it. I’ll be speaking there the following day & we’ve arranged for Anthony Ausgang & Gary Baseman to come out later in the month as well. That’s all in the details below.
Rome is Burning/The New School
Opening Reception November 8th 7:30-9pm
The Foster Gallery @ The Haas Fine Arts Center
University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire
121 Water Street
Eau Claire, WI 54703
FEATURING
Aesthetic Apparatus
Kii Arens
Attaboy
Anthony Ausgang
Oksana Badrak
Gary Baseman
Sunny Buick
Ray Caesar
Colin Christian
Sas Christian
Coop
Dalek
Jennifer Davis
Shepard Fairey
Naoto Hattori
Haze XXL
Derek Hess
Aaron Horkey
John John Jesse
Nathan Jurevicius
Charles Krafft
Chris Mars
Angie Mason
Rob McBroom
Liz McGrath
Mark Mothersbaugh
Heiko Müller
Niagara
Martin Ontiveros
Chris Ryniak
Isabel Samaras
Shag
Bwana Spoons
Gary Taxali
27
Dennis Worden
Special Gallery talks:
November 9th @11 am-Rob McBroom
November 16th @ 11 am- Anthony Ausgang
November 30th @ 11 am-Gary Baseman
Gallery Hours:
Monday through Friday: 10 am - 4:30 pm
Saturday & Sunday: 1:00 pm - 4:30 pm
Thursday evening: 6:00 pm-8:00 pm
No admission charged
Sanibel, FL September 24th-October 20th, 2007-Time to whip out my duck!
Yes, yes. I know that was a fairly tired play on words & an obvious choice, second only to using “duck†as a substitute for the notorious F-bomb, but it got you looking at this, didn’t it? Besides, if those obvious puns are good enough for City Pages, then by golly, it’s good enough for me!
Waterfowl as genitalia euphemisms aside, it’s September so that means it’s time for me to go a-stampin’. For those who haven’t heard, I’ve been entering the Federal Duck Stamp Contest since 2000 (that would be a pic of my very first entry as referenced in that City Pages quip above.)
The federal duck stamp program started in 1934 was the brainchild of Jay Norwood “Ding†Darling & was the designer of the very first stamp. With help from a group of industrialists who provided the funds, Darling organized the various sportsmen groups of North America into the National Wildlife Federation and promoted the annual observance of National Wildlife Week. He hoped to use the Federation as a conservation organization which would bring together concerned citizens across the nation. The world-famous wildlife conservation stamps were devised and produced by the Federation. Darling was also able to obtain agreement from every arms and ammunition supplier in the country to contribute ten percent of their gross receipts to federal conservation programs. To date, the sales of Federal Duck Stamps have generated more than $670 million, which has been used to help purchase or lease over 5.2 million acres of waterfowl habitat in the U.S. These lands are now protected in the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service’s National Wildlife Refuge System..
Above is Ding’s original 1934 stamp design. To be honest, I haven’t seen a many of his illustrations but those that I did have a slight Mark Trail -sian quality to it minus the shady real estate developers/bootlegging/Andy the dog.
By some quirk of fate, me sending in a new design every year is also the project for what I’ve become most known for even though I had been coming in dead last in the rankings the first few years. I say that because now I’m not even showing up on the official results. Here’s last year’s & I don’t know about you, but I’m not seeing any “McBroom†in there.
Have to say I am a little ticked about not being included in the stats. Not only did I pay the $125 entry fee (why for that kind of money I could rent a parasite-free couch for a solid 2 months!) I’m also bringing awareness to the duck stamp program to a plethora of people who probably would otherwise never hear about it. Granted it is overwhelmingly the MySpace crowd who insist on pluralizing nouns with the letter “zâ€.
It all made sense though when I was on the Ducks Unlimited website & stumbled upon this…
See that judging going on? That’s all done in front of the general public. I’m going to hazard a guess & say that 5 years of projecting my entry to the crowd filled with disgruntled murmurs & the occasional “disgraceful†have taken their collective toll & that was the end of me up on the big screen. The funny thing is I’d suspect Ding’s original 1934 design would survive the scrutiny of the judging standards nowadays & be lucky if it made it out of the first round.
Now to this year’s entry, the harlequin duck. The background is really simplified this time around. I’ve got a 1 layer of spray glitter & 1 of flat white spray paint over the acrylic base. The J'adore perfume sample card had some gold embossing that reacted badly with the glitter spray & ate away the acrylic around the gold lettering. That fuck-up dictated a lot of the design that followed but I’m happy with how things went.
I also get asked with some frequency about what logos are used in an individual piece so I thought I’d make a little “Where’s Waldo†game of corporate logos for you. Below are the 9 logos used in this year’s entry in their original colors. They are, in alphabetical order, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, CAE, ClubDanni.com, Convergence, Guangzhou Motors, The Laser Center, North Central Airlines, Outboard Marine Corporation & Song Airlines. How many can you find? Are you having a wild hunting hootenanny now? Do you even care about doing this at all? Me neither, let’s go get some fried chicken at Popeye’s.
2007 also marks the 75th duck stamp & to honor the man who started the program, the competition is being held at the J.N. "Ding" Darling National Wildlife Refuge in Sanibel, FL. So not going to this. In fact, I’d go as far as to emphatically use the term “hell(z) noâ€. Even with the prospect of visiting the beautiful Miss Heather in Clearwater that still doesn’t balance out the overwhelming amount of “cons†in going there, the chief one being this…
Remember these people from the show in Memphis? Well they’ll be back along with a whole lot more thanks to the added cache of this being the 75th stamp & from experience, most don’t think what I do is at all cute. Truth be told, after seeing how the entries are displayed, I’m surprised mine comes back in 1 piece & isn’t covered in pee. Let’s say I did go & got out of there without a major altercation, what’s to say I wouldn’t be recognized later at a Ft. Myers Cracker Barrel & be stabbed to death with forks from a gaggle of miffed philatelists. I always imaged the newspaper headline of my bludgeoning to be followed by the words “by lover's estranged husband†rather than “angry wildlife stamp enthusiastsâ€. Nope, keeping my demise out of news of Chuck Shepherd’s News of the Weird is fine by me. It sucks having people remember your death more than any of your accomplishments. Just ask Lupe Velez.
Think that’s a pretty unlikely scenario? Maybe a bit, but bizarre things do happen to me with alarming frequency. Like the time I was at an exotic animal & petting zoo & a curious baby camel swung his head around to see what I was up to & out noggins kabonked. Even though his head glanced off mine a wee bit, it was still hard enough to knock me to the ground & the evening of merriment came to a screeching halt. The rest of the night was spent at home nursing a decent concussion with a can of frozen orange juice concentrate. Oh, I should also mention this all took place on a first date & while the petting zoo would be categorized as “ancillary fun†, the main attraction at the site was Sever's Corn Maze . So in a nutshell, first date at a corn maze, cut short because I got hit in the head by a baby camel.
And for you city kids who aren’t sure what a corn maze is, well it’s EXACTLY what it sounds like.
There you have it, a real bitchload of duck stamp information that took a few minutes out of your life. It did have a bunch of pictures though & I made sure I threw in an obligatory one of a pretty lady plus there was a crappy game to play, sooooo, yeah. Duck it (har har), I’m done.
75th Federal Duck Stamp Competition
J.N. "Ding" Darling National Wildlife Refuge
BIG ARTS
900 Dunlop Road
Sanibel, FL
Exhibit of Artist Entries:
September 24th-October 20th, 2007
1-4 pm Monday-Saturday
October 12th:
Opening Ceremonies & Round 1 Judging 2-7 pm
October 13th:
Round 2 Judging-9 am
The Top 25 & Selection of the 75th Federal Duck Stamp Artist-11:30 am
For a complete schedule of events, visit www.fws.gov/duckstamp75 or contact 239-472-1100
Amsterdam, Netherlands-August 10th, 2007 6-10PM
Last year, I had a nice mix of art shows both in the Twin Cities & around the world & it would be somewhat natural to have 2007 pale in comparison. Shows like Hit the Deck & my LemuRU-486 have helped stave off that notion & now I can add another notch on the plus side. Opening this Friday night is the Baby Qee Expo at Outland in Amsterdam.
I’ve contributed 2 pieces for the show. The first is Pink Eye. Honestly, it’s a pretty straightforward design without a whole helluva lot of hidden meaning to it. I did cover it in this sandy stuff that normally is used as a base for the reflective crap that they use on road signs. I thought it’s a little funny since anyone who’s traveled with me to the Quizno’s off East River Road can attest to the fact that every spring it looks like that grisly scene from Gone with the Wind but the massive amounts of dead Confederate soldiers has been replaced with smooshed raccoons & bunnies.
The second is Vliem Bee & this certainly has a big amount of unnecessary back story. After the rollercoaster of kookiness stuff of last year, I was feeling reflective about my past & it’s been coming out a little in my artwork, particularly in the stuff involving the queen bee. Years ago I had a girlfriend named Katie who was always a lot of fun & I actually enjoyed being with her a lot. One day we were walking by one of those claw machines & there was a Betty Boopsian queen bee in the there that I really got a kick out of. After about $6.00 of tries I was able to attain my treasured pie-eyed apoidea.
There was a cute thing Katie would do in that if I’d every say something involving the queen bee in her presence, she’d grab the antenna & in a hushed voice say “Shhhh! She can hear you.†I know it’s kind of silly but I found it endearing & it turned into our running joke. As time went on Katie joined a sorority & I tried to play along but it was really hard for me to get jazzed up about going to crap like the Fall Formal event with a bunch of frat-boy wieners at the Golden Valley Country Club. On her end, the novelty of dating a mouthy artist who couldn’t relate to stories about her Alpha Phi “sister’s†horse Chit Chat (or whatever the hell it was called) was wearing thin. Still, things with her were about as drama free as I’ve ever had in dating someone. (Oh, on a side note for all you guys who’ve ever wondered about what X-rated fun goes on in a sorority, I can tell you this. I’m not sure about the other nights, but Thursdays were often spent with a lot of girls in sweatpants & their hair pulled back watching E.R. & discussing how “SO good†the movie Varsity Blues looked & how they should all see it when it opened the following day. Maybe Tuesdays were “Sexy Tickle Night†but I can tell you none of that was happening on NBC’s “Must See†Thursdays. I can also tell you with some certainty that Ms. Larter’s stunt, while enticing, caused many expected yeast infections around the globe.)
Things fizzled out with Katie after about a year but we never really were jerky to each other but there were a couple of awkward encounters over the years. Eventually she moved to California & I lost touch with her but even after all that we had been through, I still had a soft spot for her that came out in the queen bee stuff over the years & I was always hesitant to corrupt the image too badly. That is until recently & you can thank Myspace. I found her a couple of months ago on here & we became “friends†on here. I quickly learned that those college days were not behind her as there were pix of her doing a keg stand those same frat boy types. OK, that’s her thing & it’s not my prerogative to say anything about it although I’m thinking “ickâ€. The kicker to the story is that she got offended by some of the stuff I had written & promptly deleted me. Turns out she was none too impressed by what I had become either. There wasn’t a big tell-off or anything, just a relayed message through a third party in true Minnesotan passive-aggressive fashion. The funny thing is, I don’t care & am in truth relieved that this person from my past is 100% out of the picture. What really did it was how not fun she was anymore. The Katie I was with is gone & with that, queen bee can at last receive the same ruthless distortion that all my other subjects get. So you’re looking at the beginning of the free-for-all with Queen Bee & in case you’re wondering, those wings are indeed what’s commonly referred to as “sitting ladies†that are found on many a mudflap.
The show looks like it’ll be a lot of fun. While I’ve never been to Amsterdam myself, everyone I know who has always had a swell ol’ time. Now doesn’t this look lovely?
Since most people aren’t able to hop on a plane with 2 days notice for a toy exhibition, the folks at Outland have you covered. About 15 minutes before the start of the show, they’ll begin their live webcast of the opening night. I’ve done some math & they are 7 hours ahead of Central Standard Time so it runs roughly from 11am-2pm CST. Chances are you’re already goofing off at work so you may as well watch.
And for those of you who think that’s OK but not as good as being there, well you couldn’t be more wrong. Since working at the museum I can tell you without a doubt that looking at a monitor FAR outshines seeing the object in person (even if their 20 feet apart.) “Kids! Look over there, that’s an actual 3000 year old Egyptian mummy!†Screw that mom & dad! We can just as well see it on this interactive station plus we get the added benefit of clicking a mouse! So see, the webcast is so much more superior plus you can fulfill your voyeuristic fantasies about watching Dutch people without the cops showing up to your house later.
At this point in the post I was hoping to add my 2 cents to a tired old joke but as I was looking for appropriate images on a Google search, well…let’s just say things didn’t go according to plan & stopped my quest quickly. This also showed up much more frequently that I would’ve thought.
It’s too bad about that since I had already prepared a whole spiel about it & found some stuff to go along with it. By the time I gave in to the inevitable I had already resized & uploaded this onto Photobucket. I’m not keen on wasting my time so I’m using it anyway. I think you can ascertain where I was going with it.
There isn’t a snowball’s chance in Hades that I can get to go to this myself & it’s mainly because my plate is already full & I keep piling on more. Let’s see there’s plans to visit friends in L.A. & Chicago, a lesbian “wedding†in the UK & curating an OX-OP show for a museum in Wisconsin & this is all supposed to be done by November. Too much! Not to worry though, once things settle down there have been negotiations with a ladyfriend about a possible trip to Barcelona. In addition to all the normal nude funtime spectacular, there is a very good chance of “Naughty Batgirl†making her debut appearance., a feat I’ve been angling for longer than I’d care to mention.
So if you can check it out, please do so. At some point all the Qees are going up on eBay & I’ll post another (& far shorter) bulletin when I find out when. Outland has also fittingly dedicated the show to Wesley Groenewoud (LIV3R), who passed away recently.
Baby Qee Expo @ Outland Records
Opening Night: Friday, August 10th, 2007 6-10pm
Zeedijk 22
Amsterdam
The Netherlands
1012 AZ
+31(0)20-6387576
[email protected]
p.s. Nude
Minneapolis MN May 17th, 2007, 6-8pm
One of the great things about our pal science is that because of it we now have the ability to record our favorite TV shows that we like to watch AND still be go out & do various other hoo-haw at the very same time. Shows like say…the season finale of The Office that be on this Thursday night.
“So let me get this straight, Rob. I can go out this very Thursday evening and still see my favorite NBC comedies thanks to some mystical “video recording device’ when I get back home? Why if that’s true then a whole new world would open up for me! I guess the real question is, what could I possibly do this Thursday night with all that extra free time?â€Glad you asked & have I the very solution for your predicament. Why not come to the release party for OX-OP Gallery’s Series 3 Qees at ROBOTlove from 6-8pm. As a bonus the 4 designers from Minnesota will also be there to sign the clear window artist editions of their respective Qees. I’ll be there with my Magnum, p.i. themed lemur Qee along with Aaron Horkey of Burlesque of North America , design super-team Dan Ibarra & Michael Byzewski of Aesthetic Apparatus & Amphetamine Reptile / OX-OP impresario Haze XXL.
Oh thanks you science, once again you’ve made our lives a little brighter with your television recording abilities & bag of unicorn smiles (well maybe not that “unicorn†part.) Hooray! Now I don’t have to sit around a skirted folding table for two lonely hours like a douche listening to crickets chirp outside.
Oh no, you live in another city & can’t make it to the release party for hot lemur signing action?
