Last night I began working on a piece with Adam Void for the Showpaper Newspaper vending machine show. The finished boxes will be shown in a gallery then placed on the street in various locations to be enjoyed by all New Yorkers. Stop back to see the finished piece that will include Adam’s hand painted lettering.
Here’s a few new one’s. I took some of the 6th graders to help Bill and I on a mural for the Wellington Ct project in Astoria. We got rained out half way through so Bill and I came back at night to finish it up. I came back the next day for photos and put up a little something of my own and to pass on the family business.
Hello. Yes, it has been awhile. But tonight I am fighting sleep and trying to communicate here what I’ve been up to for the past months. There’s some new projects too that I will mention if you have a minute.
First off, since school and teaching is almost done for the moment, I cut this piece and printed it last week. I titled it Give ‘Em Hell. It’s made up from a photo by Boogie and some photos I took in Baltimore last year. I printed it on that textured paper I’m diggin’ from French. It produces a wood cut look I like where areas of the print randomly drop out.
So since September I have been teaching printmaking and graffiti part time at East Brooklyn Community High in Canarsie while pursuing an Art Education degree at City College in Harlem. What I’ve attempted to do at East Brooklyn is share with the students how simple and fun the printmaking process can be. The thing I’ve found is that you don’t have to be a master draftsman to produce good prints. You just have to be able to recognize the shapes that make up the image you want to reproduce to give a clear interpretation.
Once the class got underway and we worked on some lettering styles we moved onto the photographs that would make up the self portraits. Since I had to take a photo class at City I decided to shoot the kids in the class and use those pictures for the students to work from. Here’s a few of the photos and the drawings to give you an idea of how it all worked. These images were then cut into stencils and made into prints. I gave the kids the finished prints to take home so I don’t have them to show here.
Over in Queens I was also teaching a printmaking class. Myself and the main teacher, Katherine Huala, had the students develop imagery based on an emotion. I went through the screen printing process from A-Z . It ended with them pulling their own prints. Stay tuned to see the finished product. Until then here are a few rubylith samples.
During the spring Semester up at City I took part in two classes: Adolescent Learning and Development and Intro to Photo. I learned a lot from both courses. I’m not going to bore you with any papers but here is a link to a Web Quest that I made for the adolescent learning class as a tutorial for 9th-12th graders on how to make a stencil.
I do have some photos though from the other class. It was the first time I really understood what the hell was going on with the F-Stops, Apertures, and the rest. Thanks Zeke! I even went out and bought all the equipment to develop and print at home. Here’s some shots:
I’ve got an interest in self expression whether it’s stencils, graffiti, photos, writing, etc. I don’t really want to limit myself to one thing. Sometimes certain feelings and ideas lend themselves to specific mediums, or I’ll feel drawn to taking a picture or cutting one out, or just writing about a moment that’s on my mind.
After all it’s my life and I should be able to say what I want if nothing else right?
When I was younger, (and maybe it’s just because I was younger), there seemed to be more of a creative buzz going on in life. Maybe it’s because I was experiencing it all for the first time. There was the punk, skateboarding, hip hop, and graffiti communities that really got my attention. Of course these were days before the internet when information wasn’t taken for granted. It was kind of held sacred and there was a certain magic to seeing someone with a mohawk and a Dead Kennedy’s or a Black Flag shirt on. Or by chance driving through an underpass that was lit up with huge colored graffiti pieces. It would literally give me butterflies to see that stuff. However, I still see people skating through traffic in NYC and it makes me want to join them. So I guess the feeling isn’t completely gone. Maybe it’s just been dulled a bit by time and the information highway? Anyway in an attempt to re-capture some of those DIY positive creative vibes, myself, Josh Macphee, and Kevin Caplicki, will be compiling what we hope to be a continuous journal of art/photos/writing, etc titled Residue. It will be a B/W off set printed 120 page book with a new screen printed fold out cover for each issue. The first one is due out in August. It will feature some of our own work plus the work of Bill Daniel, Martha Cooper, Mike Schreiber, Chip Thomas, Swoon, Rafael Alvarez, Just Seeds Artist co-operative, students from East Brooklyn Community HS, prison letters, old show flyers and other memoribila. You will be able to find it at some indy bookstores and online at www.justseeds.org
I may have said this before somewhere but the first real artist’s I met were VOKE and MODE. After hanging out for awhile we formed the Concrete Poets. VOKE brought this surrealist edge into his work that I found really inspiring. The piece above was done by VOKE in 1990. Recently we all linked back up. Just before MODE and I lost touch with VOKE, about 7 or 8 years ago, we had transformed the crew name to In The Dream. It was a declaration of love really, of being in your “element” and wanting to remain there. It was also an acknowledgement of the creative energy that we shared. Now that we are back in communique we have put a little site together with the help of our friend and long time supporter Ryan from Until the Break of Dawn. Here’s the link to our site that is just beginning. www.inthedream.org We have a mini painting “tour” planned for NY and Baltimore this summer.We will be painting in Brooklyn at Factory Fresh and in Albany at Living Walls. In Baltimore we have a legal wall lined up downtown. I will post the photos as they develop.
Well It’s getting late and I have to get up in about 5 hours to teach the final screen printing class of the school year. Goodnight. Thanks for stopping by. -Chris
This is a new print titled What Holds Today? Its a play on words for What Today Holds. I wanted to switch it around and put the emphasis on what was going to keep the day from falling apart around me.
Aesthetically I am still exploring the melding of words and images, straight typefaces and handwritten letters. I hand cut this image out of rubylith and screen printed it on some textured paper that I think Josh ordered and left here many moons ago.
In this image you will find a man who is been through the ringer, a dog I photographed in a Baltimore alley when I was 10, some stencil typeface (always in tribute to John Fekner), and some handwritten letters form a missive from my man Chris still doin’ time.
I have been wanting to make the work more personal and this is yet another attempt.
Thanks for stopping by.
If you are interested in this print please contact www.themarketplacegalleryny.com
Photo: Jaime Rojo
Last weekend Bill, Kevin, and I got up on the roof in Brooklyn with the help of the BSA gents to help celebrate Martha Cooper’s birthday and her upcoming show in LA. Get the full details here.
Well it’s certainly been a minute and a lot has happened. Instead of boring you with all the details here’s a few highlights:
Since September of last year I have been teaching printmaking part time at East Brooklyn Community High School. It’s a transformation school which means these kids are giving it a second go to get their degrees. We start with very basic procedures and build from there. Below are some drawings from the students that were later made into screen prints:
I also went to Norway last month to attend ISfit 2011 and to teach a printmaking class there. Here are some photos from the project I worked on with the participants concerning global health:
Which brings us up to last night and painting for the Fountain exhibit for this weekends NYC artfair. Thanks to Kevin, David, and the crew for the help.
And last but not least, of course, Steve Ignorant from CRASS and various other projects has put together a group of folks to do The Last Supper tour across the States and into Canada. The band will be performing some of the classic CRASS hits. Be sure not to miss it!
Thursday MARCH 10 New York, NY @ Santo’s Party House
Friday MARCH 11 Montreal, QC @ The Olympia
Saturday MARCH 12 Toronto, ON @ The Opera House
Sunday MARCH 13 Chicago, IL @ Logan Square Auditorium
Wednesday MARCH 16 Seattle, WA @ Neumo’s
Thursday MARCH 17 San Francisco, CA @ DNA Lounge
Friday MARCH 18 Pomona, CA @ Fox Theater
Tuesday March 22 Austin, TX @ Emo’s
Friday March 25 Baltimore, MD @ Sonar
I just thought I’d give it one more go in 2010. So here it is amidst the 18 or so inches of snow around NYC. I started cutting it Wedsnesday night after the kids went to bed. Finished the cuts late last night and painted it this morning because the wife has off and is keepin’ the kids occupied. I decided to prime the wood with DRYLOCK because it has sand in it and creates a nice textured surface. Like cement in someways. It’s the first “stencil” I have cut in awhile where I went back to using DURALAR to cut from instead of the RUBYLITHE then burning a screen etc.
The look on the older kids face says it all for me and that’s why I chose it.
I documented the process below. I hope you have a Happy New Year!
Besides the usual stuff like school, homework, teaching, house, kids, and squeezing in art, I was able to make it down to Miami for Art Basel. This was made possible by the Public Works Dept. Thanks! Below are some photos from my trip.
Joe Iurato with a piece he cut specifically for Miami. If I remember correctly it was 6 layers of stencils.
www.justseeds.org check it out!
James Walker had a nice install at Art Whino and did this piece next door.
By far my favorite piece of the whole event.
Chief Rocker Cool Hand Jake was there reppin’ the real Americans.
Phase 2 was showing work in Wynwood as well.
Joe Iurato and I found this great spot and quickly went for it. The piece on the right is mine. It is comprised of handwriting by my father and a close friend then I mixed in some urban landscape. The photo is of Willem. He is in my printmaking class at East Brooklyn Community High.
In Other News
Amara was helpin’ out color in the wheatpastes just before the trip. I didn’t get a chance to get them all up but not every horse is a winner.
I did a piece for the Never Judge show at Stolen Space in London. The idea was to use a classic that you liked and incorporate your own image. I went with Grapes of Wrath.
This one was for the 12 x 12 show at Mighty Tanaka in Brooklyn. It was the first time I worked on canvas which made it interesting. I never liked the way the canvas gives when painting it but this time it proved to be a good experience.
Paste up in Miami.
One of the most amazing things about living in NYC is that a cat like Futura 2000 could come walking around the corner. I always like to meet my hereos. I was out painting for the ALL City App event. When I turned around Futura was there so I took advantage of the opportunity to say thanks and someone snapped a photo of us. Wild! What an incredibly humble artist and such a style pioneer. He told me, ” I just didn’t want my stuff to look like anybody else’s… I’m just Happy to be alive.”
This is the piece I did at the event for ALL CITY. Its the same picture of Willem just larger and without the detail on the bottom. Thanks to Skewville for hookin’ this up!
