i feel it too

Owls A-Poppin’!

zombelina — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 16:22:30 +0000

This flock of owls are all on their way to their new homes!

Along with their Certificates of Authenticity (or “Awesome-ticity”).

Each certificate certifies with great certitude that the owl is “handmade in (often) sunny California, crafted with love and sly wisdom from quality fabrics and the finest faux owl innards. It is guaranteed to be authentic, cuddly, and to win all staring contests.“

And now a word about owls from our sponsor (me) — perhaps you’ve noticed that a lot of people like owls.

Look, they even baked a cake for owls, or "Hooters" as they call them!

Maybe you’re one of them, maybe you aren’t, there’s certainly enough owl t-shirts out there to fill Russia’s famous Sobolkho bottomless lake, and things like this might make you run screaming from the room…

… but you gotta give it up to the cold hard fact that owls are hecka cool. There are 130 different kinds of owls ranging the planet, living everywhere from steamy tropical forests to snowy wastelands. They can stand a majestic 2 feet tall like the Gray Owl or twitch and blink at only 5.5 inches high like the itty bitty Elf Owl. And they’ve fascinated people and appeared in art since the cave painting days. The Greeks, believing the owl to be a very enlightened, astute bird, made it sacred to the goddess of wisdom Athena.

This is actually a Roman owl mosaic but I like how he's hopping on his branch.

Detail of Lucas Cranach the Elder's portrait of Dr. Cuspinian. The owl is there to show you how smart the good doctor is.

Sometimes an owl is appreciated simply for being a badass predator. (A pair of barn owls can clear about 1,000 rodents a month.) The 18th century saw a big rise in exotic animal art and many royal families built aviaries and menageries. If you didn’t have the bankroll for a personal zoo, you could always commission a painting and Pancrace Bessa was considered to be one of the most talented painters of his day. This watercolor gives you some idea why.

Pancrace Bessa "An Owl With Its Prey"

Because it’s a nocturnal animal, the owl is also sometimes depicted as a funerary bird or attribute of The Night. As someone who can’t ever seem to go to bed before 1am, I don’t think there’s anything particularly wrong with being a night owl — in fact, several recent studies have discovered that people with high I.Q.s are more likely to be night owls. (Come to the dark side. We’re smarter.) You can read more about that right here (preferably at 2am): “Why Night Owls Are Cleverer & Richer.”

One of my favorite recent owl sightings was the Art Student Owl meme:

That does have a certain ring of familiarity to it...

Who spawned a thousand other Art Student Owls, including this guy:

Another sentiment I can relate to

Thus endeth today’s Let’s Chat About Owls segment. Be sure to stay up late so your brain can grow!

Whoa, too much caffeine?

“Night time is really the best time to work. All the ideas are there to be yours because everyone else is asleep.“
~Catherine O’Hara

Get Your Freak On!

zombelina — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 00:32:32 +0000

Please tell me you aren’t one of those strange creatures who’s already finished all their holiday shopping, because what are the holidays for except the panic of running around like a headless chicken?!? The only way to experience the true joy and spirit of giving is to leave some shopping till the last minute so you can get that heady high that comes from snatching up The Perfect Thing with mere days to spare. And let’s not forget the time honored tradition of buying something wonderful for yourself, just in case Santa fills your stocking with coal this year. (It was worth being naughty.)

So fear not, the solution to all your gift fretting is at hand — the Holiday Freaktastic Art & Book Sale at Varnish Fine Art is December 21st, 11am until 8pm, 16 Jessie Street, San Francisco, CA. The sale includes special artist prints and unique items that you wont find in the regular Varnish Emporium, including some of these goodies:

“Nutz!” porcelain collector plates, my saucy book “On Tender Hooks”, limited edition signed & numbered “Song of the Magi” jigsaw puzzles, and kickin’ little “Doe Knocker” knickers will be among the many treats awaiting you, so get on down to Varnish, support local artists and scoop up something special for the holidaze!

Here’s a little Missy to motivate you to get out:

Are You Curious?

zombelina — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 16:46:24 +0000

"Besame Mucho" oil on wood panel

“The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.”
Dorothy Parker

There may not be a cure but perhaps you can temporarily satisfy your curiosity by seeing what the answers are when new art blog KrossD asks me Five Questions. Click right here to find out.

“Wize” Owl, Now With Bigger Balls!

zombelina — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 19:45:30 +0000

Woot! I mean HOOT!

‘Tis the season to give handcrafted and in our merry woodland workshop my friend Bea and I have been tinkering to make you a little friend. Based on the painting “Wize” from the “Into the Woodz” series, this little guy is ready to gaze fiercely from your couch, knick knack shelf, or pocket, imparting his woodsy wisdom.

From this...

... to THIS!

Another fine “Woodland Fabulous” collectible, each “Wize” owl is completely handmade, 100 cotton, with a cozy dark chocolate corduroy back and your choice of two colors of ball fringe. (Ignore the puny balls, we tried them out and found them to be lacking in fun and frolic.)

Your choice as long as they last: Chocolate Brown or Golden Rod balls!

“Wize” is 9 x 4 1/2 inches (not including festive balls), $45 (+S&H) and comes with a certificate of authenticity signed by both makers. Yours to squeeze, display and treasure forever — but we will only be able to make a handful to ship before the holidaze, so please contact me ASAP if you want one and we’ll do our best!

Small but intriguing, ready to party with you at Hooters or settle in for a nice bottle of champers...

Musings On A Muse

zombelina — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 16:29:04 +0000

Meet my current muse, the rubber monster finger puppet…

(There are actually too many funny caption ideas for this shot, I couldn't make up my mind...)

I’ve been looking for excuses to paint more hands ever since I did the original “Redivivus” series as a way of exploring the Frankenstein story. (Redivivus means “to come back to life”.) I liked the challenge both of paintings hands (beautiful but tricky) and the idea of creating a portrait that didn’t include a face, or even a body. What kind of tales could I tell with only a disembodied hand that had a cheeky habit of getting loose in the laboratory and going off on various adventures?

Out of this idea was born these four paintings, culminating in the hand eventually finding true love…

"Redivivus (Bitten)" oil on wood panel

"Redivivus (The Secret)" oil on wood panel

"Redivivus (Lucky 7)" oil on wood panel

"Redivivus (The Poet)" oil on wood panel

"Love Is Blind" oil on wood panel

Simply put: I love hands. I really do. I’m fascinated by looking them, apparently I fling mine around quite a lot when I talk, and I always check them out in other people’s art. When I was at the Louvre in October I ended up snapping over fifty pictures just of the hands in various old master paintings…

So when I was asked to do something for the “Taetrum & Dulce” (Creepy & Cute) show at MondoPop Gallery in Rome, Italy, it seemed like the perfect opportunity to revisit the hand and see what it might have been up to. Originally I was going to paint it meeting a little mouse (who would bring the “cute” to the “creepy”), but I needed a stand-in for my reference, so I grabbed this little monster finger puppet and sewed an antique iron key into his rubbery arms with some red thread (otherwise he simply would not hold it properly). Why a key? Because they’re nifty symbols of knowledge, mystery, and curiosity.

But somewhere along the way, as is often the case with art and muses, I realized I didn’t want it to be a mouse anymore. I had kind of fallen in love with the little guy, which is when I decided to wave a magic wand over him like the Blue Fairy in “Pinocchio” and make him a real little monster with proper legs and feet, and let him be the star of the story.

"Redivivus (Ambush)" oil on wood panel

"Redivuvus (Playmate)" oil on wood panel

“Muses work all day long and then at night get together and dance.” — Edgar Degas

The show opens next month in Rome, if you happen to be out that way check it out — many fab artists including Nouar, Tiffany Liu, Jana Brike, Edward Robin Coronel, Richard Frost, Buddy Nestor, Charlie Immer, Jason D’Aquino, Macsorro, Jaw Cooper, Julian Callos, Jessica Ward, Apricot Mantle, Felipe Bedoya, Luis Lorenzana, Jittagarn Kaewtinkoy, Dan Barry, Diavù, Nicola Alessandrini, Allegra Corbo, Odö, Sebastien Nassiet Saldubehere aka Malojo, Cesko, Victor Castillo, Morg, Chris Mars, Isabel Samaras, Paola Sala, and Marco About.

“Taetrum & Dulce”
Opens Dec. 10, 2011
MondoPop Gallery
Via Dei Greci 30
Roma, Italy

http://www.mondopop.it

Bags Are The New Black

zombelina — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 04:59:23 +0000

I mean the bags under my eyes. Just got back from Paris, unpacking to re-pack because I depart for LA tomorrow morning. Not sure if this makes me Jet Set or just jet lagged.

Getting used to living out of a bag, and yup, that's a ukulele case in the background.

But if you are in the LA area or have any of your digits on the pulse of the Pop Surrealist/Lowbrow art world, then you already know that La Luz de Jesus Gallery is celebrating their big 25th anniversary with a BIG show (so immense they had to break it into two consecutive exhibits in October and November). You can get all the info and oggle the massive list of artists gathered up to honor Billy Shire and his gallery right here. It’s damn impressive.

The man behind it all, as captured by the brush of Shawn Barber.

There will also be a companion book available, so if you can’t make it to the show, bring the show to your living room! All the work from both tandem shows will be compiled in its pages, along with essays written by all the artists, and you can see a much better picture of my piece “It’s Like That” in the book.

See you in LA! (I’ll be the one snoozing in the corner.)

“Express Yourself”

zombelina — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 15:24:57 +0000

"N.W.A. (Nuthatches With Attitude)" (detail)

It’s possible that everyone who creates for a living gets asked the question “Where do you get your ideas from?” whether you’re making movies, writing songs, painting pictures or creatings gastronomical delights. What I think is actually the more interesting question is “How do you choose which idea to pursue?” Because there are lots of ideas floating around out there, and when you cast your net you’re likely to pull up some good stuff and some things that are just sad and need to be thrown back. Sometimes the thing that makes one idea stick out from a sea of possibilities is if it can make me laugh.

Which is how I ended up painting “N.W.A. (Nuthatches With Attitude)” for the big grand re-opening of Varnish Fine Art gallery this Saturday. There were other ideas, but in a “survival of the fittest” idea contest this one put the others down hard. (Though as usual, the entire time I’m painting it the little voice of doubt on my shoulder was going “Just ’cause you like it doesn’t mean anybody else will.” Which is why I listen to a lot of music and podcasts while I paint — to drown that evil little bastard out.)

The start of most any piece begins with the gathering of reference, so I was looking at things like this (notice how they burned all the sports logos off the hats):

And I have several branches in my studio, so I took a few snaps to get some ideas about what the birds might be sitting on…

This owl was kind enough to model my gold dookie rope, and I ended up with a sketch that looked like this:

The little green post-it notes were me figuring out who was who — Eazy-E was kinda, um, “not tall in stature”, and as it so happens there is actually a pygmy nuthatch (I love the universe), and MC Ren kinda needed to be an actual wren (props to Mark Matcho), the rest are proper nuthatches with Dr. Dre up top, DJ Yella in the middle, and Ice Cube in the lower left about to take flight (he split N.W.A., didn’t feel like he was getting his fair cut since he wrote most of the songs).

Lil' Eazy-E with his Compton hat. (detail)

Put it all together and it looks something like this:

Then it was off to deliver!

Jen Rogers and Kerri Stephens are like dual phoenixes, rising from the ashes of the original Varnish gallery (torn down when the SF Transit Authority made a land grab), and have created an absolutely gorgeous new space not far from their original location. Here are a few sneak peeks:

Kerri built these shelves which I absolutely covet.

The "Nutz" painting, chillin' in the lounge.

Taking a quick meeting with Kerri on the roof.

Gorgeous space, show up n' ready to go (including the Monster Photo Booth)

Pretty sweet, right? So if you’re in the Bay Area, you know where you want to be this Saturday between 4-8pm! Correct! Varnish Fine Art — you can read more about Varnish in this swell little write up on ScoutMob right here, and visit the gallery’s site right here.

Varnish Fine Art Relaunch
Opening Sept. 24th, 4-8pm
16 Jessie Street, SF CA

Hope to see you there!

And the Geek shall inherit the Earth…

zombelina — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 00:23:44 +0000

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again (though it’s probably a bit obvious to even the most casual observer): I’m a bit of a geek. I geek out over just about everything, with glee and abandon, and my geek roots go back to a childhood spent wearing braces, glasses, and a Star Wars t-shirt whilst poring over science fiction books in the local library. So I was quite tickled to turn up on The Chronicles of the Geek Gurrls, where I get to share space with Clarina Nichols (don’t pretend you know who she is, just go look), Wednesday Addams, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley and Lady Gaga. After some hang time with these gals you can quench your inner geek with a really fantastic glimpse of what Stormtroopers get up to on their days off.

It’s all RIGHT HERE!

If It Finds You Young & Free

zombelina — Sun, 11 Sep 2011 01:47:27 +0000

I meant to post this days ago but it slipped through the sieve-like skull contraption I keep my brain in, so without further ado: if you’re in the SF Bay Area, there are two shows you should definitely try to go lay your eyeballs on.

Used to live around the corner from this, one of my fave walls in SF. "What Do Your Heroes Look Like" by Jessica Hess

Jessica Hess is exhibiting an epic amount of work at White Walls in her show “If It Finds You”, super detailed urban landscapes and a righteously cool collection of collaboration pieces with ceramic badass Christa Assad.

Christa Assad hand formed these spray cans out of porcelain clay on her throwing wheel, and then Jessica hand painted each one.

At Jessica’s opening I met Anthony Lister and Ben Frost, who’ve flapped all the way over from the other side of the globe for a show of contemporary Australian street art in “Young & Free” at 941 Gallery, right around the corner.

If they came all this way, the least you can do is hoof it over to the Tenderloin and scope out the show, right? Right! It’s up through October 22, so no excuses.

Cancer Sucks!

zombelina — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 21:00:37 +0000

Sarah Deragon was also documenting the heart-swelling turn-out for the “Will Draw 4 Drugs” fundraiser for Kelly Malone.

It really was an amazing night, and it was so great to see how many people turned out — not just to create art but to come and buy the work and support Kelly.

This is just a little teaser-taste, you should really go peep the whole batch RIGHT HERE.