mja home

you may remember that i just recently moved into a new studio. in that very space, this saturday, will be the first art show of many to come. this time around will be an open studios/group show in conjunction with device gallery.

in addition to my most recent work on display in my studio, i’ll have 3 new pieces in the show – drawings on mylar on steel.

i hope you can make it!

ps- i didn’t design the invite but i did design those glashaus letters.

36″ X 12″, spray paint and rapidograph on 3mil double matte mylar

first, i did this mirrored subway car drawing (based on the R36 ) a few weeks ago for a painting i’ve yet to start:

then i photocopied it a couple times, cut it out, and taped it together to make a neat little subway car skyscraper that sits perched on a shelf in between some art books and some ultra flat black.

next, 2 more drawings that will become paintings very soon, and will be unveiled on september 27th at the Device Gallery in la jolla.

“30 story ranch house”

“up”

thanks jill!

last weekend was really fun. it was comic-con, i was part of a cool group art show, i had friends in from out of town, i had 4 days off from work, i got to meet and be semi-insulted (all in fun) by ashley wood while he signed my poster and gave me a custom sketch, and i got to watch my lady be a star for a day while she walked around comic-con in her ironman costume that she made from scratch! here she is posing with the “real” ironman:

here she is during one of her many “paparazzi moments”:

eventually she hooked up with some fellow avengers – captain america (that girl was tiny. her and trista entered the marvel costume contest together and got into the finals but didn’t win), and nick fury:

speaking of hand made clothing. here’s trista and i the night of the art show – she’s wearing a skirt that she made just 2 days before.

the art show went relatively well. three pieces sold, although unfortunately mine wasn’t one of them. still, it was fun. plus the show will be up for another month, so who knows, maybe it’ll sell.

i was originally told that this was a comic book themed show, although it turned out to be not so comic book related. nevertheless, i adapted my style to the comic book theme. the piece is a diptych titled “Metrotham” – 48″ X 37″, spray paint and paint marker on 18g steel. The word metrotham is a combination of metropolis (as in the city of superman) and gotham city (where batman fights crime). i used relatively the same drawing for both cities with subtle differences. the idea being that metropolis and gotham city are both based on the same city, NYC. the one on the left is metropolis – red, yellow, and blue are to represent superman. that red streak in the clouds is superman taking off from the daily planet building. the right then is obviously gotham city. it’s black and gray, the colors of batman. the design has changed slightly by omitting the daily planet and adding smoke stacks, a bat signal moon, and a W to the top of wayne tower. in both pieces there are subtle differences in gloss, satin and flat colors that are almost impossible to photograph. for instance the background of metrolpolis has 3 different whites of varying textures and gotham’s background has 3 different blacks. you can only really tell in person….so go see it. it’s up til sept 15th.

i had done 2 pieces prior to this on aluminum but this was my first on steel**. i had a 1″ square steel tube frame welded for the back of the steel sheet so that i could hang them without outside frames. i JB Welded the tube-frames to the sheet and painted the back white:

here’s a shot of the back signed, titled, and dated. “metrotham: metropolis” and “metrotham: gotham city”

**i’ll be working on steel from now on. it just fits better into the whole arrowchitectural decograf concept. graffiti was painted on steel trains, skyscrapers are built of steel, and so on.

so, some new developments since the last post. first, i finished my first spray paint on metal piece. it’s called “who’s afraid of red, yellow, blue, purple, orange, green, black, and white (jacks painting)”. the title is referencing robert irwins huge aluminum panel piece called “Who’s Afraid of Red, Yellow & Blue³” ** that was built by master fabricator of the art world jack brogan. while working at the MCASD i was fortunate enough to have been able to be a preparator for bob irwins “Primaries and Secondaries” retrospective. while i got to help install many of the pieces for that show, i (along with my pal joey gold) spent the most time (a week) installing the aforementioned “Who’s Afraid of Red, Yellow & Blue³”. while installing that piece under the guidance of the man who built it, jack brogan, joey and i got to be pretty friendly with him. this guy’s got so many stories about so many famous artists he’s worked with. he’s been the go to art fabricator in southern california for decades and has built some of the most famous contemporary art pieces. on top of that he’s an extremely humble, easy going, and generous individual. he’s the one who helped me with some of the issues i had about how to go about painting on metal with acrylic, and even gave me a can of aluminum etching primer of his own volition (which i used on this painting).

it took me 4 attempts to get this painting done! the first 3 attempts i mention in the previous post. on that 3rd attempt i made a mistake that screwed it up again and had to start for the fourth time. i got it right after that. here’s the result:

the colors are slightly off in this photo, and there’s a very subtle fade coming off of all the arrows that you can’t really see here. also, this design is based on one of the first arrow deco drawings i did from about 4 years ago.

second bit of news. *sigh* someone robbed my studio of about 30 cans of spray paint that i just bought. FUCKING BASTARDS! i guess i can be thankful nothing else was taken and none of my art was messed with…but damn! KILL!

and finally, to offset the extreme rage of being robbed…i sold a piece! woohoo! a man from atlanta, who obviously has impeccable taste in art, happened upon my site and fell in love with my “city block” drawing. thanks again dan. here’s what he purchased:

i’ll be kind of sad to see this one go, it’s one of my favorites. however, i’m never sad to get paid.

over and out.

** robert irwins piece “Who’s Afraid of Red, Yellow & Blue³”

when i used to work at MCASD as a security guard it could get pretty boring. there would be stretches of up to 2 hours sometimes where there would be absolutely no one in the museum. thankfully, during those times we were allowed to sit and read. i did a lot of reading when i first started. titles such as “the master and margarita”, “1984″, “hunger”, and one of my favorites, “the confederacy of dunces”. after awhile though the museum got a little busier and it got harder to concentrate on reading when you’d have to stop and put the book away every 5 or 10 minutes. so i didn’t read on the job too much anymore and went on to doing crosswords. well, i suck at those so i went on to just drawing. i’d carry a clipboard with a few sheets of printer paper that i’d get from the front desk, and whether i was sitting or standing i would draw (usually with a ball point pen, sometimes pencil). i amassed quite a few drawings during those long boring days. most were complete garbage that i’d end up tossing out as i left to go home. but some were worth keeping. most of these are smaller than the picture implies. i blew them up in order to see them better.

this was my view across the street of the new museum location at the santa fe train depot from the front desk of the old downtown location at one america plaza. “concept is king” was a stab at the museums choice of the jenny holzer permanent installation on the front of the building. not my cup of tea. same thought was behind this drawing which is based on the museums “X” logo:

this is about as controversial as i get in my work. heh. on to less agenda oriented drawings like these:

want to see the other 26 sketches? check out my FLICKR page.

here’s a few art night drawings. the first 2 are from a couple weeks ago and the last is from last night.

that star has a couple butts on it

this one’s a little hard to see because it’s non-photo blue on chip board. i don’t usually draw like this but…i don’t know. felt a bit cubist at that moment i suppose.

here’s some colored pencil drawings from a couple years ago:

this one was done during a past art night – it’s a collaboration by myself, joeygold, and gubba:

nice lounging bean by GUBBA

this drawing i did for a friends (an ex art night core member, NICK) short lived ZINE:

it was an art zine, and you had to do a piece that was based on a theme. i don’t remember the theme, but this drawing was based on that theme.

close up, just cuz:

fellow art nighter, FRIDA, gave me some of this great paper she got while in mexico. it sat in the studio for a couple months until i finally put something down on it. i did these four drawing the same day i made my “black power” collage. here we go:

on these first three i drew the paint marker lines first at random, and then i did the graphite lines to bring it together.

the texture of this paper is cool:

macro, just because: