this is wonderful

Hey, what are those things that guy is walking through - oh, just 100 million hand made/painted/fired ceramic sunflower seeds!



Crazy!

The newest Tate Modern Turbine hall installation is by the artist Ai Weiwei, and it is pretty incredible. Weiwei employed 1,600 workers from the traditional porcelain producing city of Jingdezhen who historically made porcelain wares for the Imperial court of China. More from the Guardian here, here and here.

longest day

I made this last weekend very late at night, and only just remembered it was around, and that it was a cover of a song I put on that mix. Perhaps a future Alpaca Beretta jam?

you don't want my love

KID CREOLE AND THE COCONUTS!!!

Always been a huge fan of these guys and can't get this song out of my head this week.
And what an awesome video!

KID CREOLE & The Coconuts - Annie ( I`m Not Your D… - MyVideo
My favorite line "If I was in your blood, then you wouldn't be so ugly."!
Fantastic!

wearing shoes and drinkin' booze it goes against the bible...

I'm back in Pittsburgh this week, and have been uncovering some nifty bits of family history. Since it is somewhat related to something I posted earlier, about the Welcome Week Boat Race I figured I'd include it here, cause it's kind of interesting.

This photo is the only existing photo of my great grandfather Joel Davis. (Hint: He's the one with the arrow pointing at him...)



At the time he was a coal miner, in the Vesta mine, which was actually a series of mines in Washington County, PA, just outside of Pittsburgh. (That link is to an amazing list of miners who were injured or killed in that mine, with lots of detail as to how it all happened.) The mine originally opened in 1898, but by 1907 was owned by Jones and Laughlin, one of the steel companies operating mills in Pittsburgh. At that time it was the largest mine in the world, as this article attests:



What I found pretty interesting was the fact that the coal powered steamboat my great uncle Buck was driving in the races I mentioned before was owned by Jones and Laughlin. Also, back in the day when my Dad worked in the steel mills for a few summers when he was in college, he worked in a Jones and Laughlin mill shoveling coke - coke that probably came from the Vesta Mine. Now certainly my great grandfather wasn't still in the mine when my Dad was working in the mill, and was actually working on the river boats when my great uncle was driving them, but it is still an interesting connection between all these different generations of the family.



That brings me back to the boat races - Dad was googlin' around and found this pretty sweet site, which includes photographs of the races, detailed accounts of what happened in the race in the lithograph (one of the boats' coal feeding mechanisms broke in the middle of the race and they had to manually shovel it) and a play-by-play style recording from a 78 record of the whole thing, with interviews afterward. Check that out here. I'ma probably have to write a song about it.

Oh this post is titled as it is because many of the details about my great grandfather were sandwiched between the pages of "The Family Bible" given to him and my great grandmother Emma Mae in 1908 when they were married.

shutterbug

this is mostly for the rad stripes on the car, and the giant stack of red cups.

celestial bodies

artists book; acrylic, india ink, sumi ink, on japanese and pastel paper.

soundtrack for the video is the books, appropriately and unintentionally.

new art/crit set-up

Just a few quick pictures of the set up I had for my final crit - most of this stuff showed up before in the pictures I posted for open studios - I went and took detail shots of them too, but of course the ones I haven't posted yet were out of focus for the most part, so I'm just posting one detail for now.



This one is around 40x50, acrylic monoprint on newsprint, mounted on panel.

textured surface

10x8, acrylic and silkscreen on panel


Edit: forgot I wanted to post this too, nice interview with Ghostface on the NYT.

WET PAINT: TEN YOUNG LA PAINTERS

Hello friends, I'm in this show opening shortly!

WET PAINT: TEN YOUNG LA PAINTERS

August 22 - August 29, 2009
Opening Reception: Saturday, August 22, 2009, 6 - 10PM

Steve Turner Contemporary presents WET PAINT: Ten Young LA Painters, an eight day exhibition showcasing works created during the past few months by ten talented local artists:

Daniel Cummings, Michael Dopp, Greg Kozaki, Anne McCaddon, Caitlin Lonegan, RJ Messineo, Michael Rey, Ana Rodriguez, Conrad Ruiz and Rowan Wood.

Opening night taco truck schedule:

6 - 8PM Kogi Korean BBQ
8 - 10PM Don Chow Mexican Chinese Fusion

WET PAINT is now up. Visitors welcome between 11 - 6 on Tuesday
through Friday, August 18 - 21.

From August 22 through August 29, 2009, the gallery will be open every day from 11 AM to 9 PM. Each evening from 6 PM to 9 PM, at least two of the painters will be at the gallery to discuss his or her work.

Nickels and Pennies

I first previewed some of this work here over 6 months ago and now the show is here.
Please check out Nickels and Pennies at Light & Wire's page and there are zines for sale and if you bug me I'll send you a poster...
More news soon!!!
Been missing ya'll

forgot the name!

i thought of a really good name for this at Air today, but forgot it about an hour later.






8x10, acrylic on panel

did this one last week.

Chef's Theory Opening @ 533

Here's some pics from the opening of "The Chef's Theory" curated by Maha Saab at FiveThirtyThree last Saturday.




The show is up till June 26th in Los Angeles, so get em while they're hot!

I will post some more installs -people when I get them soon!!!

thank you bill

Lovable Like Orphan Kitties and Bastard Children

Hello friends, I'm in this group show...

The Green Gallery East presents:

Lovable Like Orphan Kitties and Bastard Children curated by Kristin Calabrese and Joshua Aster

Opening Reception: May 9th 2009 4-10 PM

On May 9th, 2009 Milwaukee will be given the opportunity to survey a sampling of the LA contemporary art scene. Seventy-eight

paintings, 11 x 11 inches and under, by seventy-eight different artists, will be brought from Los Angeles via bag check and carry-on by

LA based artists Kristin Calabrese and Joshua Aster. The artists differ in their aesthetics, their styles, as well as, their stages of

development and exposure but they will all be converging from May 9th until June 6th in Milwaukee's Green Gallery East.

Brian Cooper	Doug Harvey	Jacob Stewart-Halevy
Laurie Nye	Frank Ryan	Christopher Pate
Daniel Cummings	Rowan Wood	Nikko Mueller
Heather Brown	Suzanne Falk	Eamon Ore-Giron
Angie Lacerenza	Stas Orlovsky	Linda Day
Lily Simonson	Karin Gulbran	Mark Dutcher
Brett Cody Rogers	Mimi Lauter	Mari Eastman
Karen Liebowitz	Ami Tallman	Susan Logoreci
Nina Bovasso	Theodora Allen	Salomon Huerta
Mary Weatherford	Tony Beauvy	Greta Waller
Lauren Lavitt	Nathan Danilovicz	Joshua Aster
Don Suggs	Karley Sullivan	Sarah Cromarty
Annie Lapin	Jon Pestoni	Brad Eberhard
David D’andrade	Holly Topping	Kent Familton
John Kilduff	Bart Exposito	Andrew Hahn
Benjamin Britton	Mark Licari	Robert Olsen
Caitlin Lonegan	Elana Sherr	Roger Herman
Andrea Shear	Gerald Davis	Analia Saban
Charles Karubian	Antonio Puleo	Maha Saab
Spencer Lewis	Sandeep Mukherjee	Kristin Calabrese
Kenny Scharf	Rebecca Morris	Claire Baker
Charles Irvin	Dino Rasmussen	Jodie Mohr
Steven Hull	Tami Demaree	Iva Gueorguieva
Susanna Maing	Liat Yossifor	Allyson Spellacy
Ian Hokin	Amir H. Fallah	Dee Dee Cheriel
Sarah Lowing	Lisa Adams	Stephen Westfall

Opening Reception: May 9th from 4 to 10 PM

The Green Gallery East Gallery Hours:

1500 N Farwell Ave Th: 4-8 PM

Milwaukee, WI 53202 Fr Sa & Su: 2-6 PM

phone: 414.226.1978 www.thegreengallery.biz

This is my painting in the exhibit.
Inner City Heart, 2009, Oil on Canvas, 10" x 10"

BOOM! CRACK! POW!!!

Hey guys, my architect friend Thomas Robertson (Ripple Design) and Eli Bonerz (XLarge) are P.A.D.,
They do bomb ass objects.
I'm a fan especially of their new 8 nob candle



They have plenty of rad goodies, peep it!

untitled *****UPDATED UPDATE***** ROWR ROWR LIKE A DUNGEON DRAGON*****

YEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

*****BONUS UPDATE******

cause I love y'all and water skiing elephants the only thing that could possibly make this better would be some new RED 'N METH!
M-E-T-H-O-D....MAN
I can't believe we're actually going to get a BLACKOUT 2
Very excited for the new album, makes me wanna do this:

*****BONUS BONUS... ******
MY FAV VIDEO WITH REDMAN, OOH OOH OOH OOH

De La Soul Redman Oooh
Uploaded by mik2l

promises

I figured I talk so much shit I better pay up.
Here's a new painting, a wee little 'feller.
"Captain" Oil on Canvas, 6" x 8" 2009.

Big ups to Eli KILLING IT!

The I.D.E.S. of April

DJSethMabbott (of the above pattern) sent out a mix for the season recently and his work on the ones and twos inspired my last post so I figured he should get some love here.

Here's a link to the mix and several others streaming from his site:
http://sethmabbott.com/songs/5

And here's a direct link to an mp3 for DL: http://sethmabbott.com/audios/5/original/mix_2.mp3


Peep the goodness!

The rest of his site is worth checking as well for all you fly skimmies.

mix mix mix UPDATED

In the grand tradition of 420 I made a mix for you guys but fittingly didn't get around to uploading it yesterday.

There's a bit of a theme and I think we ended up with something pretty interesting.

01 Help On The Way - Ian Dreiblatt - 4:20
02 Pink - Boris - 4:20
03 Jah Kingdom - Bong-Ra - 4:20
04 Knight In Shining Armour - Deborahe Glasgow - 4:20
05 Mister President - Amnesty - 4:20
06 Wanna Test (Madlib Remix) - Lootpack - 4:20
07 My Tunes - Specifics - 4:20
08 Joshua's Song - Zöhar - 4:20
09 Angel Feathers - Chief Kamachi And The Juju Mob - 4:20
10 Un Shipibo En España - Juaneco Y Su Combo - 4:20
11 Que d'injustice - 2BAL - 2NEG - 4:20
12 Fu-Gee-La - The Fugees - 4:20
13 What You Don't Know - Mongo Santamaría - 4:20
14 T-Rex - All Night Dance Party - 4:20
15 Candy Shop (Remix) - 50 Cent Feat Vybz Kartel - 4:20
16 We're Gonna Make it - Damian "Junior Gong" Marley - 4:20
17 Got To Find A Way - Lorna Gee - 4:20
18 Summer Gypsy - Nujabes - 4:20

http://www.zshare.net/download/58995229dfef5564/

*****UPDATE*****

printable album art since the mix will charmingly fix on a cd if anyone still uses those things....

enjoy my friends, I promise some art soon....

PEACE