Tuesday I’ll be the guest DJ on Henry Rollin’s shoe “Harmony in My Head” along with legendary skateboarder Tony Alva. The show is on LA’s indie 103.1 FM. If you are not in LA listen online at www.indie1031.fm. Expect to hear a lot of punk rock and stories about skateboarding. I can say that I may have had an insider advantage getting the gig considering that I did the indie 103.1 logo and I have done art for Rollins. It is no coincidence that Tony Alva is my co-host. Tony and I recently collaborated on a poster. The poster is my illustration of a photo of Tony from 1977 by photographer Glen E. Friedman who has captured amazing iconic moments in skateboarding, punk rock, and hip hop. Check out his site www.burningflags.com. To celebrate the release of the Alva collaboration, we will be doing a party/art opening Sat. March 8 at the Alva store at 1086 S. Fairfax. The posters as well as some fine art pieces will be available. The posters will be available online March 11. They are signed by me, Tony, and GlenCheck out the Obey Giant website for more information.
ImageKind isn't the sort of thing that is typically mentioned on FYW but we feel it's most definitely worth a mention. In short, it's a open edition print store which sells everything from prints of famous works of art to pieces created by users of the site: the "Member Art" section is a great way of supporting fresh talent without having to pay over the odds; typical price for a print is under $20. If you're the artistic type you can also sell your artwork through the site and keep 100% of the profit made. It's a great project, check it out here.
The paper used was Strathmore 500 Series Bristol 4-Ply Vellum Surface (Cold Press). Each edition is unique and employs elements of his style he has perfected over the years. He started by sketching [with charcoal or pencil] characters, ideas, and philosophies on some of the editions. He would either sketch on the paper before paint application [of the first layer of brown] or use charcoal to draw in the still wet layer. The one’s he did not initially draw on, he spent more time painting, distorting, and experimenting. He then applied a varying layer of gesso, which helps give the amazingly rich texture.The process pictures which can be found here speak for themselves; every print is completely unique and essentially an original piece from Mear One. Each of the M1's comes signed, numbered, hand-finished and is approximately 18" x 29"- yet the price is still surprisingly reasonable at £250 + P&P. If you want to order, send an e-mail to info[~at~]baurmanngallery.com at 1PM PST this Friday (February 22nd). Strictly first come first serve, strictly one per order. Good luck.
The gesso would also be distorted and manipulated heavily, especially using many of the techniques perfected in his “Live Art”. Depending on the effect and end result he way striving for, the gesso was applied to either the entire surface, parts [to show the under drawings], or splattered and scrapped heavily. A layer of yellow was then applied over the gesso and worked much further. He then switched up to Orange on some of them, which then led to a beautiful Orange/Yellow mix on the later editions when Yellow was used again. Throughout each step of creation, he would do such things as throw water on the paper [from his paints], sand it down, scrape it w/ his tools, shellac or splatter the paint and continually try to experiment and take things further.
The 2-color phoenix logo stencil was then hand cut by MEAR and sprayed differently for each edition. When dry, he then sketched more on top of most of the editions [some truly look so much like paintings, he left them be]. To sign it, he gave each one a huge street style tag. He also used an oil based paint marker that, even when dry, still gives it an extremely wet look.
Seeing it done in the pictures and video though will truly show why these editions are the best ones we have produced yet in my opinion and why we could not be happier with the results. By the weekend, lots of pictures should be posted.
The name of this series and style of edition is “Mono Distortions”, this one being titled “M1”. MEAR created the name to reflect his process, which heavily involves distorting, and manipulating his materials and the paper constantly.
