LEAF AND SIGNAL

Unhanging

2011-01-26T23:27:00.000-05:00

I've held off on this last post for no real reason other than, I guess, I didn't want to write it - it means the show is over.

So the show was up and was great fun and then it had to come down. I went in on a Saturday night to kill it...

It was Oct. 30, the night before Halloween and some crazy things happened. A cat kept
watching me. There was a dude dressed as a wizard too.

So first, taking down the beautiful art. Sigh.

Abra cadabra!

I drank a sentimental favorite. I was on my own with a loud iPod, which was ok. It seemed
appropriate to do this by myself.

,

,

,

,

,

A cat came to visit.

Then,

,

,

,

The wizard left this weird lizard on the window.

The work down and all safe, I had to start sanding the walls. The wheatpasted art was
going to be just painted over but I needed to sand down the edges so they didn't show too
much.

So sanding and scraping over all the lovely things. Sigh.

I finally got too tired to finish. The next day Greg came in, finished the sanding and
painted the walls. Thanks Greg.

Seeing the space all empty was weird. I spent so much time at the show - more than any
other show I've done or been in.

There's something fitting about a show that champions ephemeral DIY lo-fi art that itself
iss ephemeral, DIY and lo-fi. Sigh.

Next: Adios.

Show visitors

2010-12-10T00:18:00.000-05:00

The show is down but while it was up some people came to visit.

That is Ginger, two-year old dynamo. Her sister Violet was upset she wasn't in the show so she made a drawing:

and put it up herself:

Ginger did too:

My parents came:

They liked the Café Royal wall.

Ginger liked Opuntia Books. The girls remember André Lemos as "Drawing-Man," which is pretty much the greatest compliment ever.

Oh show... I miss you.

Ginger! Where are you going!?!

PS:

Outside some dudes were selling bread.

Next: Unhanging; a cat, a wizard and a Shiner.

more Lemos Victory!

2010-11-23T18:37:00.015-05:00

André has two MORE shows opening this coming weekend:

"Tex not Mex" at Meme Gallery in Denton Texas (curated by Nevada Hill).

"Pterodactyl In a Jar" at Espaço JS em Nisa, Portugal (I think this might be a good link).

VICTORY! Vitória !

Einspruch = VICTORY!

2010-11-18T17:45:00.001-05:00

Franklin's great show "The Talk That Walked" has a reception tonight in Miami:

For this exhibition, artist Franklin Einspruch has created a series of images, drawn in ink on paper, that together create a set of narratives relating to specific excerpts of great poetry. He works in webcomics, in a manner that finds inspiration in the poet-painter tradition of Japan and China, but taking cues from contemporary American life. These sequential images take the form of multi-directional narratives tying lines of poetry to ordinary human stories, eliciting new interpretations of the verses. Drawing excerpts from diverse sources--ancient, contemporary, and in between--the works constitute an installation-scale collection of short stories, told with both pictures and words, that require the movement of the viewer to read. An accompanying website documents the installation and allows viewers off-site to go through the exhibition virtually, view source texts, and see background information behind the installation.

The website he made for the show is grand, as is the work:

On his also grand Journal he recently wrote a bit about and posted some images of Leaf and Signal:

Another image - I recently delivered the piece Newbury Street to the collectors who bought it out of the show:

I added the paper strip. And you can see the edges of a little book Franklan made of the piece in the LaS book. More on that later once it's offically released.

To finish this all-Franklin post I want to mention what a pleasure it was having him visit and stay with my family for a few days. He's a courteous and thoughtful guest and game for most anything my crazy family could come up with. He bought me a book on Zen. He met with some of our pals. He stayed up late talking with me. He played with the kids:

(he's up in the fort with Ginger) and he painted with us:

and he's welcome back anytime.

LaS artists are BUSY with VICTORIES

2010-11-04T17:34:00.000-04:00

André had a show open last week - see images here. VICTORY!

Franklin has an incredible show opening in Miami - see here. VICTORY!

Via the Little Paper Planes blog, Cafe Royal is having a pop-up library show soon - see here. And scroll down the LPP blog to see all that they're up to. MANY VICTORIES!

Plus Geof keeps writing and making and Oliver gets ready for a show he's curating - with Craig and me in it. VICTORY VICTORY VICTORY!

show down, book up

2010-10-30T22:00:00.001-04:00

The show is now down and all the work is safe and snug. Still, sad.

But to commemorate all the victories and show how grateful I am to everyone involved here's a free little downloadable DIY book I drew based on work in the show. Go get it here.

Last day is today

2010-10-30T01:31:00.000-04:00

Sad but true. The show ends at the end of the day today so go see it!

Lemos Show - "Bayonets Replacing Toothpicks" in Porto, Portugal

2010-10-28T18:27:00.011-04:00

André has a solo show opening this Saturday Oct. 30 at Dama Aflita in Porto, Portugal. BAYONETS REPLACING TOOTHPICKS! This show opens the night LaS goes down and I wish I could go see it. The victories continue!

Review of "Leaf and Signal" in C-Ville

2010-10-27T17:55:00.000-04:00

I met with Andrew Cedermark last week and had a great conversation with him about the show. This week he wrote a bit about it in his Feedback column in C-ville, another local weekly magazine:

About-face
Across town this month at The Bridge/PAI, “Leaf and Signal” is a different kind of sea of images. Unlike “Half Life” there is no riptide waiting to pull you under. It is yours to swim in, this placid bay of gorgeous of little mysteries.

Local artist Warren Craghead curated this show, which draws from the (apparently robust) world of D.I.Y. publishing, many of whose denizens are in Europe. “The work is close to their life, but not autobiographical in a dramatic way,” says Craghead, who himself contributes to these handmade, mostly Internet-distributed pamphlets.

One highlight: Oliver East, a Manchester-based artist who makes beautiful booklets about his travels along train tracks. His and many other tiny surprises are wheatpasted to the walls of The Bridge/PAI through the end of the month.

The main bit in his column is about Will May's great show up at PVCC here in Charlottesville - the same Will May who helped with hanging LaS. Victories!

Hang hanged hung pt 3

2010-10-27T00:08:00.001-04:00

Friday Oct. 1 - the day of the opening. After a bit of dayjob work, I headed to Lowe's to get shelves, then to the gallery. For the rest of the morning I hung more Franklin work, finished some Opuntia wheatpasting and just ran around like a crazy person. Greg was calm, that was good.

I decided to make the gallery map, pricelist and didactic all hand-drawn, so I drew them.

It was fun drawing the letters of the words for the work and making a little map of where everything was. It also showed me how much stuff we had crammed into the space - there are a lot of names on the list.

After some cleaning (and heaving heavy bags of wet clay into a trailer) I headed home where I started putting books together. After about 50 I saw Franklin pull up outside, fresh from a plane/car ride from Boston. Franklin and I had only communicated online until then, but we fell in right away and became comrades in this adventure. An hour or so before the opening we headed over.

Some last minute book shuffling and some fun extra wheatpasting (thats Franklin pasting up some Oliver East with Franklin's own work in the background) and then we were ready. The opening started as we were still talking and pasting which was a great thing to start out with - working artists making things and talking big.

The opening itself was great - many many people, too many to list.

My wife and kids came over (two-year-old Ginger took her shoes off and ran in circles and five-year-old Violet helped us wheatpaste) along with many pals and friends. Franklin waded in to the crowd, meeting with a talking to everyone. Thanks to the scholar there who declared one of Franklin's pieces, "The best poem I've ever read," and thanks to the many folks who bought things big and small. People seemed to really enjoy the walls all covered with drawing and all the books to look through.

My favorite part was when I got to talk (the image above is my attempt to take a picture of Franklin while he was talking). I didn't like the spotlight and all the nervousness but I did like doing my bit to evangelize about bookmaking and DIY art publishing. Several people, some really good artists, came up to me with plans forming for books. That was the best. I want to drown in books of good images and words.

After the place finally cleared out Franklin, Greg and I went to Mas for some tapas and beer (and some strange conversation with a man named Darryl). We talked, gave food to nearby people and basked in glory.

Thanks to all the artists, Greg, Zach and all the The Bridge, all who came to the opening, to the volunteers who worked so hard during the opening, to my wife for her help and to Franklin for coming all the way down here. I've got more to write about the whole show, but when I think about the opening I think about how grateful I am for all the people involved, directly and indirectly. Thank you.

Look around

2010-10-26T00:26:00.001-04:00

A panorama of the main room of the show.

Hang hanged hung pt 2

2010-10-20T21:46:00.000-04:00

I went over to the gallery Wednesday the 29th and finished a lot of the hanging of the original work. I also did a lot of finishing on the book and got that to the printer, though the covers were still being done. Things were moving but still scary...

When I went in Thursday to hang stuff I wasn't sure what I was going to do. I had gotten the covers printed earlier that day so I knew that was going well (more on the book later) but I was getting a little scared about all the wheatpasting I had to do. I had never done it on this scale and I didn't have time to mess up. Luckily the rain was all gone...

And luckily I had a helper. The great photographer and artist Will May showed up, unasked, to help for a few hours. He and I figured out the glue-to-water ratio and started glueing, first with Geof Huth's work.

I quickly learned a few things:
1.The glue shouldn't be too runny.
2.You can just coat the back of the paper and then slap it on a cover the top and it will hold without too many wrinkles.
3. Planning composition too much doesn't work well.

So I started using a more thick glue mix and a more freestyle composing technique. Once Will had to leave we were through Huth and on to Café Royal. I'll pause here to, once again, thank Will for his great help both swinging a glue-brush and talking to me about everything. He has a really great show up here in Cville right now - I'll post images soon.

After Will left I kept glueing through Café Royal and then Craig Atkinson. It was a little crazy - I had pages spread out all over and I just grabbed ones I liked and slapped them up. I started with a grid of sorts but that broke down and there were overlaps and weird joints. I deliberately put images near the ground that I thought my kids would like!

Somewhere in the middle of the melee I walked over to Belmont BBQ and got some food. Great BBQ and fries, comfort food. Greasy victory.

Soon I was through Craig and on to André Lemos and Opuntia Books. André's work was all up and rather than take it down I covered it all with garbage bags and kept heaving glue. I tried to keep Opuntia's artists work together more, but it still got all mixed up.

I put some posters at either end of their section and started getting clever with composition, putting some heads at the top and some weird animal/people at the bottom. Mostly I tried to mix up color and BW and make it look interesting and alive.

When I finally passed out Thursday I could see the end - way off, but there. More to hang, a little more to paste, a book to assemble and a thousand other small things to attend to, but the end was in sight.

Next: Books, shelves and a Franklin. Oh, and victory.

Hang hanged hung pt 1.5

2010-10-18T00:30:00.002-04:00

Here's the beautiful drip sound from when we were hanging the show:

drips in the gallery by craghead

Hang hanged hung pt 1

2010-10-15T19:48:00.001-04:00

It's lame that it's taken so long for me to write about the hanging and opening of the show, so here's a start...

The show before us was still leaving Monday, but I was able to look around and figure out where to put stuff. There was some variation in what I wanted from artists and what they were able to send, so I had to make some switches in placement from my original plan.

The biggest change was that instead of tacking up all the books pages, we decided to just wheatpaste glue them up. It was kind of a crazy moment whern Greg and I realized that wheatpasting wasn't going to be just the easiest way to hang the million pages - it was going to be the AWESOMEST way to do it, evoking street art and making an inviting lovely surface to look at and contrast with the original work hanging up.

Oh, and it was raining like CRAZY and the roof was leaking. Drips! I recorded them and I'll post that sound soon.

So Monday and Tuesday nights were spent figuring out where to hang stuff and then starting to put stuff up. I had tape-tabbed all the art sent to me earlier, so I had to do some math to even things out and started putting it up. First Craig, then Oliver, then André, then some of Franklin's. It was a little weird because I had to guess where the wheatpasting was going to go, but I drew and drew and figured it out, I hoped. When I went to bed Tuesday night I really wasn't sure how this thing was going to turn out...

Next, wheatpaste, a helper and bar-b-q.

Review of "Leaf and Signal" in The Hook

2010-10-13T18:01:00.000-04:00

We got a great review by art critic Laura Parsons in The Hook, a weekly news, arts and culture magazine here in Charlottesville. I gave Laura a tour one afternoon last week and both Franklin and I talked to her at the opening. Here's the text:

The public option: Craghead opens the books
by Laura Parsons

How to measure success? For many artists, the acme is having their work selected for the Whitney Biennial or perhaps profiled in Art Forum. For Warren Craghead III, though, the pinnacle is making art as publicly available as possible. He often leaves post-it drawings on gas pumps and in grocery stores, and he offers do-it-yourself books at his website for people to print and staple themselves.

This month, Craghead brings together an international group of like-minded artists for the exhibition, “Leaf and Signal,” at The Bridge. Consisting of original works and pages printed from computer files, the show’s artwork comes from books self-published by three individual artists and three collectives, who practice what Craighead calls “lo-fi” publishing. A few of the pieces are framed, but most— and there are hundreds— are plastered to the walls using wheat paste to create the feeling of street art.

“I wanted to kind of overwhelm if I could,” Craghead says.

The floor-to-ceiling mosaic of images on the gallery’s south wall represent Southport, England-based Café Royal, a group helmed by former abstract painter, Craig Atkinson, whose own mixed-media works fill the southern end of the east wall. The overall aesthetic is often raw and cartoonish, but there are moments of refinement, such as the tie-wearing, faceless heads drawn by Daniel Mackintosh in a series that mocks gallery-goers with captions like, “At openings this month, I will behave in an aloof fashion and won’t talk to anyone. I will stand out.”
In contrast to Café Royal’s organized chaos, Kelly Lynn Jones’s San Francisco publishing group, Little Paper Planes, creates meticulous letterpress prints (on view in the main gallery) and complex color works (displayed in the Bridge’s anteroom). Falling somewhere between Jones’s and Atkinson’s approaches is André Lemos’s Opuntia Books, based in Lisbon, Portugal. Lemos, who was last in town for the Craghead-curated SSG show, “Impera et Divide,”— and who painted a mural on the Bridge’s exterior— publishes everything from children’s monster drawings to complex collages in books that often feature unusual aspects like velum overlays or fold-out sculpture.

The individual artists included in “Leaf and Signal” each use books to respond to the physical world. England-based Oliver East creates watercolor and pen-and-ink impressions of his travels for his series “Trains are…Mint.” Franklin Einspruch also paints personal experiences, often supplementing his watercolor images with haiku-like poems. Meanwhile visual poet Geof Huth plays with typography and also photographs environmental poems he composes.
For Craghead, artistic success is literally— and literarily— about public exposure.

Café Royal subscriptions

2010-10-08T18:30:00.000-04:00

Café Royal is offering subscriptions to it's published zines. This is a great idea - I subscribed so I can get weird books mailed to me.

How This Happened Pt 6

2010-10-07T21:04:00.000-04:00

André Lemos and his Lisbon-based Opuntia Books comrades were one of the first groups I thought of for the show. André was in the show I co-curated last year, showing his own work. He even painted a mural on the side of The Bridge that is still up. BENNY LAVA!

André has a great commitment to making and publishing books. His own work has a living fluid line - a giant slap of ink that seems alive even when depicting something else. He also does inventive and crazy collages and we have examples of both kinds of work up in the show.

We also have lots and lots of pages from the books he's published. Opuntia makes books that ate beautifully printed and presented while still being "lo-fi" and inexpensive. He has artists from all over (Finland, Italy, Brazil, France etc) and publishes their work in "no reprint!" editions. I really like how André and Opuntia keep their books atthat edge of cheapness but still beautiful products.

We have a limited number of Opuntia books for sale from a variety of his artists along with a bunch of André's original pieces.

Kelly's victory

2010-10-06T22:05:00.000-04:00

Kelly of LPP had a great victory last Friday as well - the opening of her show in Oakland. Like LaS there's a bunch of folks involved and it looks like she'll be busy all month. VICTORY!

More images of victory

2010-10-05T23:47:00.000-04:00

Cafe Royal with some books (from my personal collection) to look at.

Craig Atkinson, el Maestro

Oliver East's beautiful pages and some very popular Little Paper Planes prints.

One of Franklin Einspruch's great pieces. Yes, that's a red dot.

More candy from Franklin.

Some Opuntia Books images. The "Time Life" pieces are so good.

Reading area, some lovely LPP prints and some Geof Huth power.

More Huth.

and more to come...

more Leaf and Signal victory

2010-10-05T00:35:00.000-04:00

Victory!!!!

2010-10-01T23:35:00.001-04:00

Even more hanging

2010-10-01T00:31:00.000-04:00

Tonight I pasted up a ton of Opuntia Books works. I also cut up some covers for the show book. I'm still scared, but I think it's going to turn out ok.

Hang hang hang

2010-09-30T16:52:00.001-04:00

Wheat paste is fun! Thats Cafe Royal legions over my shoulder and Craig Atkinson above.

One million thanks to great artist, friend and helper Will May.

Also, books are printed, more hanging to come and Franklin arrives tomorrow. It is happening.

Unboxing Einspruch

2010-09-30T06:58:00.001-04:00

I thought Andre was the best packager ever but Franklin is a master as well. In a big box there was this:

Inside that was

An archival box. In that I found

Neatly wrapped and clearly (and beautifully) labelled little packages of great watercolor and ink things:

Plus a ton more. We'll also have a computer set up so people can see the works as published online.

More hanging

2010-09-29T18:02:00.001-04:00

And a guy fixed the exit signs.

Hanging is starting

2010-09-28T23:39:00.000-04:00

Barely, but it's starting! We came up with some trickery for the installation. Plus we have a show soundtrack - all thunderbroom and speil.

How This Happened Pt 5

2010-09-27T17:59:00.002-04:00

Oliver East is another artist I had been thinking about for a while. He's a UK based walker and drawer and he publishes books about his travels.

Like Einspruch's work, Easts is directly linked to his experience - he takes weird walks, then translates them into pages of drawings. They're kind of comics but kind of not.

His "Trains Are...Mint" series is great, the his recent larger works, "Proper Go Well High" and "Berlin and That" are wonderful too. His work is a cross between language and experience, sometimes we're walking with him and sometimes we're deciphering some arcane code about something. In the crowded world of comics, this work is fresh, original, and beautifully eccentric.

For the show we have some original pages - they're big! - and copies of a bunch of books for sale. I wish we could have him come here and do a book about walking around Charlottesville.

Unboxing Little Paper Planes

2010-09-25T23:55:00.000-04:00

Kelly at LPP sent some great prints for the show. Most are printed but a few are letterpress:

She also sent some copies of Brion Nuda Rosch's recent book:

This stuff is going to look so great in the gallery.

How this happened Pt. 4

2010-09-24T18:32:00.040-04:00

From the beginning I wanted Franklin Einspruch's online comics work to be in the show. This work, produced over the last few years, has a clarity and focus I greatly admire. Einspruch hones in on experience and phenomena in his seemingly simple watercolor and ink drawings - simple like a petal on a pond, something lovely covering depths.

His I-70 travelogue series (the first one here) recalls the great travel narratives of old Japanese Poetry masters. They sprinkled their prose with poems as Einspruch uses words and pictures with the same aim - to capture and transmit elements of experience and life.

Einspruch publishes these online and having a work that uses this way to show work was important to me - this is another lo-fi way to send art out into the world. His comics use elaborate Python scripting and CSS - again, simple only on the surface. In the show we'll have a collection of the lovely watercolor and ink originals along with, hopefully, Einspruch himself at the opening (and Supergirl too!).

I've deliberately left this until last, but he is known more as a painter and well-regarded art writer than as a comics-poet. His writing at the now defunct artblog.net and his new Journal is educational, challenging and clear. I've learned a great deal about a great deal from reading and interacting with Franklin and I greatly look forward to showing his work and meeting him.

Unboxing Andre Lemos and Opuntia Books

2010-09-23T17:33:00.001-04:00

Andre, my Lisboan hero, sent a bunch of really nice ink drawings and collages. Big bold and beautiful.

I put tape tabs on the backs for hanging. He also sent a bunch of great books he's published - I'll have a complete checklist next week.

BTW, Andre is the greatest packager ever. Getting his box open was a real puzzle - see that weird handle? It turns out to be a little drawer inside the box! And inside everything was bagged and taped. I bet he even kisses them goodbye.

Unboxing Oliver East

2010-09-23T07:01:00.001-04:00

Oliver's pages are just so gorgeous. They're pretty big too.

He sent a bunch of books too.

I'll do an official checklist next week, but there's old and new books.

a peek at some lines

2010-09-22T18:44:00.004-04:00

Franklin posted this sneak peek of one of his images from the book we're making for the show. The rest that he sent are this good too - I'm really excited about this book.

Pages and pages and pages

2010-09-22T00:08:00.000-04:00

Getting pages ready last night. We have images from books so along with original work we'll have tons and tons of pages from their books. That's some Opuntia Books stuff in the top two pictures and some Oliver East printouts in the bottom picture.

More art arriving

2010-09-21T17:30:00.001-04:00

Lots of boxes of good things are arriving.

And cards too. Email me with a mailing address if you want one sent to you.

Geof Huth joins up

2010-09-17T18:36:00.034-04:00

I mentioned a new mystery artist joining the show recently... Actually there's a lot of artists not mentioned yet who are from the three publishers participating. I've been working with Opuntia Books' files and there's a lot of great stuff in there with artists from all over. The same with Café Royal. Little Paper Planes sent a box full of prints from a long list of artists too. I'll do a big run down of ALL the names once we get closer to the opening.

We do have a new artist though...

A couple weeks ago I asked Geof Huth (also see here) to be in the show. Geof is a visual poet who publishes his work both in small weird books and, quite literally, all over he place. For the show we'll have some great text-based pages from books he's done along with documentary images of work he's done in snow, steam, pollen and dust.

Like the other "solo" artists in the show, Franklin Einspruch and Oliver East, Geof 's work has a very strong connection to his life and the places he goes. Years ago when I met him he showed me a book he keeps adding to - a dictionary of family expressions collected from his kids, his parents, everyone, all organized into a real working dictionary. Reading it is seeing his family in a strange and unique cross-section and I still remember it as a great and powerful expression of his love for his family shown though his artistic interests.

I thought of him as a good example of another facet of this lo-fi publishing movement, one that comes from the poetry side into the visual. Geof's work has as one of it's ancestors Apollinaire, so of course I'm all over it.

Next, back to how all this happened, with comics that aren't comics but are comics....

Figuring out the show

2010-09-15T00:15:00.000-04:00

Franklin once quoted someone saying that one should think with a pencil. Good advice as I try to figure out some things for our show.

promo image

2010-09-09T18:25:00.002-04:00

I just sent this for The Bridge's website. We're making a postcard that looks similar to this as well. And yes, if you're paying attention you can see a sixth artist on there - we added a secret mystery guest artist that I'll announce soon.

How this happened Pt 3

2010-09-07T18:40:00.000-04:00

First I got in touch with Craig at Cafe Royal and he reminded me of Little Paper Planes and Kelly Lynn Jones. LPP is another artist-run online store with books, prints, t-shirts and other strange items. I've sold books and prints with Kelly before and thought having some of LPPs work in the show would be great.

The problem was the AMOUNT of stuff they have available. So much of it is great and from a wide variety of artists from all over. I ended up asking her about the series of prints that LPP published themselves - most things they carry are made by the artists and just sold through LPP but they started up a series of books and prints that LPP commissions and sells. So I got to go shopping at LPPs print area.

These aren't books like most of the other work in the show, but I wanted to show some other ways of sending one's work out into the world and digital prints are good too*. I did a lot of printmaking in school and though I really value the handmade litho or etching, I think it's foolish to ignore the ease and cheapness of this way of working - like zines being an alternative to the precious handmade book.

"We are not your enemies
We wish to offer you vast and stange domains'
where mystery in flower offers itself to whoever wishes to pick it
there are new fires there and colors never seen"
- Guillaume Apollinaire

I guess that could be the motto of the whole dang show...

Next - Comics that aren't comics but really are comics.

PS Kelly herself won't have any work in the show - she's busy getting ready for a solo show that opens when ours does. I'm trying to get some work from her for the book I'm making - her work is really good.

*There's another way of getting work out - that's the next artist I thought of.

Café Royal is/are doing things

2010-09-05T22:18:00.001-04:00

From Craig:

Piccadilly Self Publishing Fair and Exhibition is a new self publishing event in Manchester, U.K. The fair will take place on Sunday 3rd October 2010 from 11am-6pm in Piccadilly Place as part of the Free for Arts Festival.

Café Royal Books are opening a pop-up library for two weeks in November at a gallery in the North West of England. The library will show independently published and short run artist publications. The library already holds over 200 limited run titles. All titles included will be catalogued and listed online. If you would like more information, or would like to submit a title for inclusion, please email me for further details.

Une exposition de livres photos auto-publiés, à la Maison d'Art
Bernard Anthonioz, Nogent-sur-Marne,
les 11 et 12 septembre 2010.

2010-09-02T18:26:00.000-04:00

Tomorrow night at The Bridge: Site Singularity, Suzanna Fields, J. T. Kirkland, Sean Lundgren A three-person show exploring single materials used in site installations, with artists who each plan to use their work to directly interact with The Bridge’s gallery space in a multi-sensory way. Curated by Leah Stoddard.

This is show just before ours and it's curated by a good pal.

Prints have arrived

2010-09-01T11:21:00.001-04:00

Just got a box full of beauty from Kelly at Little Paper Planes. YES!

How this happened Pt 2

2010-08-27T18:51:00.030-04:00

The first person I thought of for the show was Craig Atkinson. He's a great and prolific drawer and runs Cafe Royal where he has published and distributed lots of the kinds of books and zines I was thinking of.

In the past Craig made more traditional painting but a few years ago he stopped and started over with scratchy, simple and sketchy drawings and collages. He quickly began to publish that work in little zines and books (one of my favorites is one where he documents both why and how he made that big aesthetic switch).

In his drawing I admire and enjoy how close the work seems to his life - he draws electronic equipment he wants, celebrities and politician he sees. His lines range from crude to subtle but he seems to be always searching around, looking for things, finding unexpected images. Craig and I have been secretly working on a collaborative books for a few years and in our back and forth drawing volleys I can see him riffing and finding.

He has a great collection of his sketchbooks online and he uses raw material from those in a variety of projects. Looking through them one can see bits of images that are later used in other books, drawings and collages. He seems to cultivate an attitude of letting work flow all over. That attitude goes into his books as well where he publishes things that seem random and strange but still interesting to him - there's a book of photographs napkins he got while on holiday in Spain and another of doorways in China.

He also publishes and distributes other artists work under the Cafe Royal Books imprint. Lately he's focussing more on photography (esp with the fantastic Field Trip Magazine - all analog photography), but he still has a bunch of drawing based books in his arsenal. We'll have a bunch of books to sell and hopefully some of his original work to hang up, but I wanted to find a way to highlight the sheer energy of what Craig and Cafe royal have done over the past few years.

I thought of Cafe Royal Magazine, a series of books he published featuring work from a variety of artists from all over - I had a piece in the first issue (numbered "issue zero"). For Leaf and Signal I've gotten a ton of pages that were published in CR Magazine and plan to hang them in a huge wall of paper in The Bridge. I'm hoping it's a drawing OVERLOAD when one stands in front of it.

Next - who else to add to this tornado...

pics of The Bridge

2010-08-26T18:54:00.001-04:00

Look here for some idea of what the inside of The Bridge looks like. There's a long room and a smaller square one. White walls, wood ceiling. I'm hoping to coat the walls with drawn things and have a table with bookmaking supplies in the middle. See a ton more images of their projects here.

How this happened pt. 1

2010-08-25T18:01:00.001-04:00

Last year Greg Kelly of The Bridge asked me to curate a show. I had worked with Pedro Moura on a show at another Cville gallery and it seemed to go pretty well so I said ok.

I wanted to think of something that both interested me and was along the lines of community-based art that The Bridge tries to foster. I really like how they show a lot of weird and sometimes challenging work but try to also include most everyone in Cville in it. Buzzwords - outreach, community etc. Elsewhere I've seen this kind of thing turn out bland and lame but somehow they keep it strange and crazy.

So I came up with an idea to show "lo-fi" art publishing - basically art-zines, published both in print and online. Good work by artists I respect that is also generous, democratic and, at least as a side effect, intent on getting out into the world. So much "outreach" work is bloodless but the stuff I saw people publishing in weird booklets and online wasn't. So I started making a list of folks.

Images: Andre Lemos, Craig Atkinson, F. Einspruch

a tree for a book

2010-08-24T18:33:00.005-04:00

I bought Mr. East an atlas, he drew me a tree and sent it to me. It's part of his trees for books scheme and it's a lovely drawing.

minus 39 days

2010-08-23T06:58:00.005-04:00

The show opens Oct 1 - only 39 days! AAAAA! Things are moving ok though. I have files and work from a few artists (that's Andre's package above - obrigado for the quick work) and expect more in a few days. I'm starting to design the catalog, which is really more a companion book/zine and I've made some cheap posters to put up - I'll post images once I hang a few. I have to get a postcard together too.

This is a really busy time for me to work on a show but I'm really excited to see The Bridge filled with paper and books and craziness.

The Bridge

2010-08-20T18:31:00.000-04:00

The show will be at The Bridge, "an accessible and dynamic venue for the exploration of the creative process, supporting the work of artists and the greater community – working to bring people together through collaborative practices and programming in the art."

also

"AT A GLANCE; The Bridge is a small-scale non-profit arts organization housed in a 1200 sq. ft, brick building on the corner of Graves and Monticello in the neighborhood of Belmont, just south of downtown Charlottesville. As one local put it: “That big brick of chocolate adorned with a silver ribbon of smoke.”"

I've always really liked the crazy shows they have there and when the Executive Director Greg Kelly approached me last fall about curating a show I wanted to do something that fit both things that I was interested in and the mission of The Bridge.

Here's a ton more images of shows and the space. Also,

Andre painted a big crazy mural on the side of the building when he was here last year. See more and more.

Introductions and Ahoy

2010-08-19T06:18:00.001-04:00

I'm setting this blog up for the upcoming show and will be posting about the artists participating and the process of getting the show together and up. I'll write a bit more about everyone (including The Bridge) in the coming days but as a quick intro, here's who is participating:

Café Royal Books with Craig Atkinson (Southport, UK)
Craig who runs Café Royal, a zine and art books publishing and distribution company. Craig will be showing some original work along with lots and lots of pages from lots and lots of artists who have published in his Café Royal magazine.

Oliver East (Manchester, UK)
Oliver has published a comics/art book series “Trains are….Mint” along with other books, prints and drawings.

Franklin Einspruch (Boston, USA)

Franklin is a painter, writer and comics-maker and has published online a great series of poem-comics, “The Moon Fell On Me.”

Little Paper Planes (San Francisco, USA)
LPP is an artist-run online store and publishing venture run by Kelly Lynn Jones and some pals. We'll will have some of their LPP published prints and books from a variety of artists featured. (Image is from Jonathan Ryan Storm)

Opuntia Books with André Lemos (Lisbon, Portugal)
Lemos publishes his own and other artists work. André was in a show a couple years ago here in Charlottesville and painted a mural on the side of The Bridge (he also drew tons with my kids).

I'm opening up posting to the artists showing, so feel free to post whatever you want whether or not it's directly related to the show. Thanks!