New Ups

Routine stop & Goal post

First Ups In La La Land

It took me going on strike from my job to get me up and out and posting in Los Angeles. This is because a) I'm stressed out and not sleeping well and b) I really don't need the same brain power to walk the picket line as I do on my job, so getting up at 3am to post isn't a big deal.

This is the street debut of "unity"

You can see a close up of "Unity" and "Trap" in the April '06 archives.




"Trap" is the perfect image for Los Angeles. I like that the business in the background is a car repair shop.

In NYC I was using a raw wheatpaste (Violet's stove doesn't really work and she hasn't any pots either) but here in LA I'm using a cooked wheatpaste (now with sugar too) and it's much nicer.













I think my images are a little small and busy for people going 40 mph so I need to concentrate my postings in areas with foot traffic (Melrose) and targeting intersections where people are stopped and forced to examine the environment around them.

A New Series of Paintings

These are some of the new series of paintings I've been working on. They all use "found words" mostly stuff culled from the missed connections pages of craig's list. Done very quickly they are meant to have a sort of impromtu feeling that matches the immediacy of the sentence fragments.










They would look great as posters put up along side movie and record advertisments on construction site hoardings.

Second Strike

Shy Mob strikes again! This time it's the unhip UWS where little art is on the streets.

They say street art is all about the juxtaposition of the image and it's surrounding and I thought putting the "goal" image on the same corner as a funeral home was an interesting contrast. Maybe people arriving for services or waiting to travel to the cemetary will see it and reflect on why they are there and what they are doing in life. (as well as literally their objective [goal] that day is to go from the funeral home to the cemetary). Violet doesn't think as much of it as I do.

Yes, I know that my presentation skills need improvement and I'm working on my posting technique.


Here is another posting from the same night.

First Strike

Last night I put up my first piece of street art! It's at West 4th and 8th Ave right outside S'nice (delicious lesbian health food). I'm mad now that I was nervous and rushed through the job so that one corner is folded over.










"Bully" is one of my favorite pieces. I created it when I was slaving away for a particularly vacuous entertainment cable network and my cash was being budgeted down to the dollar. It was a point where I felt especially pushed around by money. Granted this has a lot to do with one's personal relationship/philosophy with money but in this country's hyper-consumer environment it's hard not to feel a little intimidated by it.

Beyond the personal level "Bully" works on the street level too. I think it'd be cool to use this image more in so called "transitional neighborhoods" (i.e. gentrification) where "money" is blatantly pushing people around.

Images

These are two of the images that I'm thinking about "wheatpasting" Monday night. They are linocuts I made a few years ago but never put up anywhere. I actually created the "unity" image in 2000 and then of course 9/11 happened and I think it takes on a deeper sybolism. I feel the same is true with "trap" which I created for Violet because she hates driving in LA. But now again with the increasing gas/oil crisis it also takes on new meaning.

Shy Mob

Monday night is set for operation Shy Mob. details to follow.