Ok, phew, man, I need to get caught up here!

So, about a friggin month ago now. No... more than that! My buddy Patrick Leger, who was in the MFA program at UNCG while I was doing undergrad, contacted me about screenprinting some of his illustrations. So we went back and forth about what he wanted to do, settled the details, arrived at a price, and I set to work.

And ooooooh MAN they came out SO GOOD! Check these bad boys out! It's a 4-color image, and an edition of 50. It's entitled After the Heist. It was really cool to work with Patrick on it, and both of us were really happy with the finished product :)



He wants to do editions of 3 other illustrations, once he sells a few of these to recoop the printing cost. So if you like this and would like to purchase one, please, go to his website and send him an email! Patrick Leger Illustration!

Sadly, that Star Trek illustration on the main page *isn't* one of the ones he wants to get done. But I want to do that one so bad I may offer to do it at cost, hahaha, just so I can have one, lol.

So, I've always HATED mixing ink. It's just always been sort of nightmarish, and until recently it's taken me lots of time and wasting ink to get close to what I want. But my friends, lend me your ears and HEAR me, for I have found THE GODDAMNED LIGHT!!! Print and paint shops often use the PMS system (or Pantone Matching System). It's basically a book of color samples with formulas for mixing those colors, from a stock of standardized pigments. You mix the ingredients by weight, so there's no guess work. My shop mixes ink this way all the time, but I'd never had the ability to use it for one of my own projects until now. HOLY CRAP. Seriously, a color that would have taken an hour to mix took me mere minutes and was perfect on the first try. I am SOLD.

More in a bit! Getting caught up here. It'll prolly be a few posts before I get to halloween!
-P.

So, I'm home sick from work today. Dunno what I've got but I know it blows goats. Going to the doctor in an hour or so.

But, in the meantime, I wanted to post about those shows, and plug some really awesome people, who really deserve to get plugged (pun may or may not be intended).

ButterBean Arts Market, Huntersville, NC
So, this show was over a month ago already, yeesh. It was held at a small, local, organic grocery grocery, and there was a $20 entry fee. There was a great artist turnout.... and a really puny customer turnout, unfortunately. The general consensus among us artist types was that they probably made more off our entry fees than they did selling produce that day.

Now, charging a fee for vendor space is standard operating procedure for this kind of event, but generally, the events which charge for space are established enough that a certain level of traffic is guaranteed. I don't know this for sure, but I gather this was both a new arts market and a new store in general, so perhaps they simply haven't built up their client base yet. Maybe in a few months it'll be better. So, didn't make any money, and neither did anybody else, but I'd be flat out lying if I called the day a wash, because I met some AAAAAAWESOME people.

Right next to me was a young couple Hannah and her husband Mark, and Hannah's sister Amy. Hannah had some fucking INCREDIBLE work, haha. Seriously, she had these AWESOME construction paper cut-outs diarama things that looked like stills from old macabre horror flicks or novellas. She also had severed limbs, roadkill animals, sugar skulls and organs in jars--ALL made out of felt and cloth. Seriously, you have to check her work out on etsy: The Friendly Misanthrope. I traded her a woodcut and a plush toy for one of her plush toy sugarskulls and a papercut. The papercut I gave to *my* Hana, though the next time I see her I'm totally trading for another one, haha.

Her sister Amy had really awesome paintings, sort of a little touch of folk art, with a little touch of the decorative. I really liked them, and the detail she puts into them I could stare at for hours! Check her out!

Next up was Eric Huskins of Electric Blanket Art. He had a bunch of really rad, short and sweet acrylic paintings, totally graphic, totally funny, totally man-of-my-own-heart kinda stuff. I traded him a Blinky print for a painting of a blue piggy bank pig with flames on the side, AWESOME.

Aaaand let's see, I also met this rad dude, Mike, who is also a screenprinter, and makes his living basically just selling his own quick 'n dirty designs on ebay. Not exactly what I wanna be doing, it was really really good talking some shop with him and getting some ideas on ways to bring in extra money with this whole printing thing. He was there supporting his girlfriend who had some stuff yall might like. Check him out here, and her out there!

So yeah, what the day lacked in monetary return, it made up for 100 fold in contacts, trades and good times. It also became clear that if I was to continue doing shows outside, I would *have* to invest in a canopy--I was the only artist there without one--also the only artist to end the day with a sunburned neck, heh. More on that in a bit, though.

I guess... maybe I'll try the ButterBean show out again in a few months, but for now I don't have any immediate plans to go back.

Ok, that's more than enough info for this post. I'll post about the Tate St Festival in a second.

Also....

I will bring my camera with me to art shows.
I will bring my camera with me to art shows.
I will bring my camera with me to art shows.
I will bring my camera with me to art shows.
I will bring my camera with me to art shows.
I will bring my camera with me to art shows.

-P.

Heh, haven't seen one of those from me in a while!

So dig this. Someone at work (I think it may have been Bossman himself), described his job as like having a bunch of little baby birds cheeping at him all day. My buddy at work Jeff thought that was pretty funny and decided to illustrate it.

I'd been wanting to experiment with plushie thingies for a while now, so I came up with the idea of making a little plush thing out of it.

So I got Jeff to scan it in and do color separations for it, and I printed it up on some old soft white jersey cotton, I made a back for it, and tonight I sewed it up, stuffed it, and sewed the corner shut!

It's super cool and was WAY fun to do. The craftsmanship is CRAP (except for the printing, which is pretty spot on), hehehe. It's misshapen and lumpy as fuck. My sewing, it needs work, and I need to learn to stuff these things and not have them be full of lumps.

Now, to sew the thing closed, and not have a big, obvious spot where it was sewn shut, I had to learn how to do an "invisible" or "ladder" stitch. Now, I'd looked around for a good tutorial on how to do this for a while now, but couldn't find one. In fact, the ones I found were impressively shitty. But then I found this one, and all was well with the world. It really laid it all out, cearly and comprehensibly.

So lemme know your thoughts, cuz I definitely see a lot more of this on the horizon! And check out the flickr page for more photos of the cushion!

-P.

FAITH NO MORE IS BACK!!!!!!!!!

"Faith No More has always stood out as some sort of unique beast; part dog, part cat—its music almost as schizophrenic as the personalities of its members. When it all worked, it worked really well, even if the chemistry was always volatile. Throughout our 17years of existence, the mental and physical energy required to sustain this creature was considerable and relentless. Though amicable enough, when we finally split, we all followed paths seemingly destined to opposite ends of the universe.

Yet during the entire 10 years that have passed since our decision to break up we've experienced constant rumors and requests from fans and promoters alike. Nevertheless, for whatever reason, none of us kept in regular touch, much less to discuss any possibilities of getting together.

What's changed is that this year, for the first time, we've all decided to sit down together and talk about it. And what we've discovered is that time has afforded us enough distance to look back on our years together through a clearer lens and made us realize that through all the hard work, the music still sounds good, and we are beginning to appreciate the fact that we might have actually done something right.

Meanwhile we find ourselves at a moment in time with zero label obligations, still young and strong enough to deliver a kickass set, with enthusiasm to not only revisit our past but possibly add something to the present. And so with this we've decided to hold our collective breaths and jump off this cliff....
BACK, GOD FORBID, INTO THE MONKEY CAGE!!!

We can only hope that the experience of playing together again will yield results erratic and unpredictable enough to live up to the legacy of FNM.
Who know where this will end or what it will bring up...only the future knows. But we are about to find out!

FAITH NO MORE are:
Mike Bordin, Roddy Bottum, Bill Gould, Jon Hudson and Mike Patton"



I.... might actually be able to see the beast, the men, the legend, live, in concert. Oh sweet monkey jesus. It's almost too much to bear.

I think twitter is pretty stupid, however, Fazed.org posted a link today to Nick Nolte's twitter account. Within 10 posts, I was laughing so hard tears were streaming down my face, my lungs were burning, and I could neither breathe nor speak. Please, enjoy responsibly.

Humor like this makes the world a better place.

Gary Busey's is pretty funny, too.

Enjoy,
-P.

So, been looking through my art bookmarks for some fresh inspiration and found that one of my favorite artists, Damarak the Destroyer has updated her site with new work. And oh my sweet christ on a cracker she blows my mind over and over and over again. Check her work out, and enjoy.


Thank god the weekend is here. More later,

-P.

[Edit: Oooh! And she has a blog, which you can now add to your friends list: damkdestroyer]

I found this site through Jennpac (BLESSINGS BE UPON YOUR CRUSTY HEAD, CHILD!!!!) and I think that everyone, everywhere, ever, should know about it.

Muxtape!! It's a site where people upload mp3 'mixtapes.' When you go to the site, you'll see a big colorful list of names. Each one is a mixtape. Click it to view the list. Click the first song to start playing. I'm not positive, but I think the color represents the general gist of genres (ha!) contained in the mix. So far hot pink seems to do the trick for me.

The site is just fantastic! Great, new music you might not have otherwise heard, put together by people who seem to know what they're doing, heh. So far djshipley is one I keep going back to. And... um, Aubrey, could this be you? Seems like maybe your kind of tunes?


Anyway, jump in! Enjoy! There's no way a site like this can last (and be free) forever.

-P.

So, the internet has been a really fantastic place today. These links are provided mostly by BoingBoing I think. All safe for work :)

Round - German song sung in the round, with flash.... expression? It's neat.

You are Beautiful - Somebody finally starts spreading the real good news :)

You Are I Am - Little messages from people :)

We Feel Fine - Not from BoingBoing, just a site I really really love. Want to get an overview of how people are feeling in your city? Check it out.

Post Secret - Most of you have probably seen this. People send in anonymous postcards with secrets on them.

I Found Your Camera - A digital orphanage for lost photos. Really cool project.

All these sites are like a cup of tea for me. Calming and rejuvinating :) Anyway, I do have real things to post about, but, I don't think I'm going to tonight.

Later,
-P.

Just found an interview with a street artist named Elbow Toe. Cool work, he integrates woodcuts into his paste-ups. The links in the article are WELL worth checking out, too.

Also, Banksy installs his own works into several major museums. AAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!

-P.

Printmaking Workshops!!!
Remember the JD Art Center I mentioned two posts back? Well, while we were at the festival, I asked if they offer printmaking courses. They said they'd like to, but never have anyone to teach them.

Me: O RLY!!1!?/?

So, I asked what their requirements for teachers were. They said a thorough knowledge of the material, and a heartbeat.

Me: R U SRS!1/1??!!
Them: LOL YA!!!!1!one!!!

So, I wasn't sure I was totally qualified, but I decided to step up, and volunteered! This spring, I'm going to be teaching 2, full day printmaking workshops at the JD Art Center in Auburn! How fucking cool is that!? What a great way to keep myself involved in printmaking, meet some fellow artists and to keep the fires lit!?

The workshops will go from about 9:30am till about 4:30pm with a break for lunch. In the first one, I'm going to teach do an intro to relief printing, working with linoleum and wood. If it's possible, I'd like for everyone to make one print of their block for everyone in the class, so we can do an exchange, but we'll see how many people sign up, and how much time there is once everyone gets started printing.

In the second workshop, we're going to get a bit more advanced--I want to cover multi-block colour printing, colour reductions, and some basic collagraph techniques. :)

So how fucking cool is that! I'm stoked! The first workshop isn't until late march or early april, so I've got time to get everything good and planned out. I'm going to call the Fickster one of these days and see if I can get some ideas for fun activities, so it's not just work work work during the whole thing.


Full Court PRESS
In related news, I may have a way to gain access to the Auburn art department's printing presses. My part-time coworker Lindsey graduated from Auburn a few years ago. After she graduated, she TAed for the printmaking instructor, meaning that she came in a few hours a week, cleaned the studio, and in return got access to the presses. So, I'm gonna see if I can do that this spring. I've already contacted the professor, and am waiting to hear back.


Etc -- Etsy
At work, we've started making one of a kind items, like t-shirts, bags, and notebooks. What we do is we Scott and Mike print several random images, in different colour combinations over each other to create a neat kind of one-of-a-kind print-collage. Scott had been trying to come up with an efficient way to list and sell them online. He'd heart about Etsy.com, and asked me to check it out, so I did. I created an account, and listed two old etchings from school, figuring they'd never sell, but it'd introduce me to the workings of the site. Then, much to my surprise, I got an email saying I'd made a sale on Etsy! And not just one, but BOTH the prints I listed had been sold!! To a random stranger in California no less! I had seen printedfaces be very successful on Etsy, but never figured my own work would sell. This was really encouraging, so I'm going to list more and hopefully sell all these excess prints I've got lying around from school :)

Here are the two that sold:


Phew, I've been blogging all evening, and I desperately need a break. It's been really cathartic to start getting all this stuff out, but I'm only about half done. I've got at least 3 more BIG posts to write, and they're the ones that contain the heavier emotional stuff.

Anyway, thanks for reading, and I'd love to hear comments on any or all of what I've posted about tonight.

For now, be well. You are loved,
-P.

This place is really amazing. I'm not making much art (and that's ok), but I'm having such a great time down here and meeting so many new people.

About once a month, my boss throws these shindigs out at Standard Deluxe. We have two or three bands come in and play, we set up an area to sell shirts and posters, sometimes there will be an art exhibit, and there's always Dan Neal, aka Papa D with his big old grill set up, cooking up some good southern food. Hehe, here's a great little video of Dan talking about the event and rocking out, making a balloon animal. He's an awesome dude.

These events are wonderful, really a high point in the month for me. We had one last weekend, and although I had planned to go to New Orleans last weekend to visit Sarahpolyksena, when I found out we were having a shindig, I told her she had to come up here. It's out in the country, the Waverly locals come out (they're wonderful folks), there's great food, music and I get to have a few cold ones and talk to people all night.

So far I've been around for two of these. The first one, in August, we held the event in the actual print shop itself. We had two bands come out and play, the Buckrabbits from Birmingham and Roof Rabbit, some local boys. I've made friends with the bassists of each, though they're all great guys. Here's another video from the August shindig, of Roof Rabbit playing in the shop. Incidentally I got to see Roof Rabbits more fully last night--they were playing at my favourite bar. It was a great show.

This past weekend we had another one, up at the store this time, with some really cool paintings by local artist Andy Cost, a Papa D special fish fry, and music by the Alabama Gravy Soppers, Fall Line Frailers, and the Mafs (who I can't find a website for). The picture above is--I believe--the Fall Line Frailers, but I could be wrong.

More pics!

Like Papa D says, these events are about good music, fellowship and good food. They're beautiful things, and if any of you are thinking about visiting me here in the Heart of Dixie, these are really the weekends to do it.

-P.

Hey ed_dirt Congrats, man!!!! I just saw the news in my inbox, hahah.

Matt turned me on to a language learning service called Bitesized Languages. You sign up and they send you a little daily blurb in a language of your choice to help you brush up on it. Apparently they had a cartoon contest with a prize and he won. I just saw the announcement in an email they sent out.

Matt has some experience in these matters. You should click that link, and read, because it's awesome. Though not necessarily safe for work.

-P.

PS - I should not help drink three bottles of wine and two beers, and stay up till nearly 2am on a night before I have to work, even if the three women I'm hanging out with are awesome.

Hey, just a quick post.

These are some links I've seen in Rosemier's journal (ed_dirt) that I've been meaning to repost for a while.

The first, well, I don't think I can put it any better than he did: "Proof positive that we are all more alike than not."

A cool photography project about average american gun owners: Armed America.

This one I found on my own; I saw his work at the NC Museum of Art while I was in Raleigh with camp a few weeks ago. This guy's a really amazing photographer, some of the coolest [photo] work I've seen in a long time: Chris Jordan.

More soon.
-P.

What... you mean like a puma?

Also, ahhhhh the joys of parenting.

-P.

This is, BAR NONE, the geekiest thing on THE ENTIRE INTERWEBZ!!!!!!!

I think it needs an O RLY owl at the end, tho.

-P.

This essay on religion, Religion Poisons Everything, sent to me by Cameron. Nothing new to me, but some points spoken very well.

Pretty amazing juggling video.

Another even more amazing video, set to the same audio track, heh.

Also, SJ, I looked up contact juggling. Bwahaha, you Labyrinth dork ;) Actually that looks pretty freaking sweet. Maybe one day.

-P.

Your mom. SFW.

-P.

OMG. the creation of a tara mcpherson screenprint--exc point-- check it out

http://www.juxtapoz.com/jux/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=834&Itemid=121

total eyecandy. oh, yeah, tara is pretty hot, too. god i'm a printmaking dork, lol.


'net life is bland without shift keys. --sad face--
-p.

Been going back and looking at the kinds of things that used to get me really inspired (like tattoos). Here are a few sites I found. This is more a reference for me than for any of you, but who knows, some of you might dig it.

Tattoo Confidential -- why people get their tattoos
Jime Litwalk -- badass tattoos
InkedBlog -- similar to the first one
Russ Abbott -- more awesome tattoos

I' expin why my text i uce up ter. or now, enoy thi http://www.kodama.hc.uec.ac.jp/spiral/