2012 Subscription and more!

Hi! A few items for you today: First, I recently designed a shirt for the band Ween, which is available on their website. I had to scan the original drawing and complete a simplified color scheme in Photoshop, which for those of you who know how I work, was a bit challenging for me. Nevertheless, I seem to have used a computer correctly and their printer did an excellent job with them.

Also, about two years ago, I made an exclusive art print for Pandora's Prints. Due to a series of delays, it is just now available on their site. I drew and printed this while I was living in Montreal in the fall of 2009. Check it out here: http://www.pandorasprints.com/exclusives-c-38.html

The 2012 print subscription is now open. I have produced close to fifty different prints this year between rock posters and art prints, and I have every intention of continuing with a similar rate of output for 2012. Subscribers will receive (matching edition numbers of) one of everything I print from January 1st, 2012 through December 31st, 2012 along with other various extras like a one of a kind test print, an original sketch, and a closed special edition. Prints will be shipped out in a large mailing tube twice a year.

2012 SUBSCRIPTION PRICING
US & Canada : $475/year
International : $535/year (please note that price difference is only to cover overseas postage)

I am flexible on payment, and payment for the subscription can be made in installments. A personal check or money order is preferred, but paypal is also acceptable. If interested in becoming a subscriber, please get in touch with any questions or to reserve a spot.

Snow, candles, oatmeal, sweaters, old films, and one-eyed rats

Yesterday, I rode my bike in below freezing weather, drew buildings for hours, went to a party where I hung out with some rad people who fed me cake, and met some adorable rodents.
Today, I'm eating grapes and hanging out with the cat as I wait for my friend Femi to come by so we can bundle up and go skateboarding under a bridge in Logan Square. I've known Femi since we were teenagers, and now he's a lawyer. When he started law school a few years ago, we used to joke about how he'd be a practicing attorney who still rides a skateboard. Adulthood is pretty much going better than I could have expected.

I've been contacted by a few people regarding a Secret Santa print exchange going on at expresso beans. To the right is a quick little drawing I did this week as a gift for someone from a subscriber of mine. I was asked to include something that is pertinent to Australia in some way, so I chose to try my hand at drawing a eucalyptus tree. They're pretty fun to draw, and I got to use my new brush pen for the branches. I still struggle with drawing trees, but it's getting a little easier. The house in this drawing is loosely based on a little structure right across the street from our apartment. I added the porch (front stairs going to nowhere seemed kind of silly).
One last little thing: before I finally announce details for the 2012 print subscription, feel free to contact me early to reserve a spot (or with any questions). Spots will officially be open next week.

Chips, salsa, hair dye, christmas trees, and sleepy cats

Over the weekend, I finished printing my edition of prints for the TEN x TEN project. It's an edition of 200, all of which will be going to the TEN x TEN print sets. Subscribers from this year will be receiving prints from a hand-embellished A/P edition (pictured to the left).
It's a quiet evening here in Chicago. My girlfriend is hard at work on a final paper for grad school, and I'm eating chips and salsa and trying to come up with ideas for an upcoming series of posters.
This has been a pretty mellow week, as I've mostly just been working on a commissioned painting. The last half of this month should prove to be rather busy, so it's nice to take it relatively easy for a week. It feels great to work on a painting again, and I'm definitely hoping to do some more in the coming year.
It always seems like the last couple weeks of December are full of reflection and anticipation. Not that a numerical change to our calendars really affects much in our day to day lives, but for artists, it's kind of nice to use the new year as the start of a new body of work. 2011 has been an eventful year for me. I moved apartments three times, spent almost a month in Europe, discovered plantain enchiladas, learned how to use an auto press, and at one point I was drawing and printing so much that I was unable to coat screens without feeling a sharp pain in my wrist. The year's not over, though! I'm already looking forward to 2012.

New prints available

Good morning! I just posted four new prints in the store on my site. Check it out if you feel so inclined.
Also, Art of Musical Maintenance 8 is open in Portland. Work from each artist can be viewed here.

Winter jackets, squash soup, inverted flags, and rescued kittens

I cannot believe it's December already. With only four weeks to go in 2011, there's still plenty to work on. To the right are films for my contribution to the upcoming issue of TEN x TEN, a collaborative effort between various Chicago print artists and musicians organized through Spudnik Press. My contribution is a print based on a new song by Tomorrow Kings. Each print in the set will be ten inches by inches (hence the name), and printers are typically printing two at once and cutting them down to size after printing. Since none of my films are printed from a computer, I had to keep my seps pretty simple as to be able to cut the same color twice. I xeroxed the ink drawing twice and ran the two copies through a blueprint printer to make the keyplate. I was able to use little reference points in the keyplate to make sure the two are consistent with each other.
These prints will eventually be available through Spudnik Press as part of the complete TEN x TEN set. There will also be a special A/P edition for my print subscription.

Devil Town opened last night at Gallery 1988 in LA. The work can be viewed (and purchased) here. There are some truly amazing pieces in this show, and I'm really stoked to be a part of it. I unfortunately missed the opening last night, as I stayed back in Chicago to attend a couple of local art events, including a group print exhibition that I had prints in at Black Cloud Gallery. I opted to get to this opening (along with Crosshair's show at Saki Records) on my bike, which by the end of the day, put my accumulated riding distance at almost twenty-five miles (this is including my commute to and from the studio earlier, as well as a short grocery run and a detour up to the North Side to see some friends). This would explain why I was so hungry when I finally got home.

New poster for Gene Ween

Just finished these today. I haven't signed them yet. Lots of split fountains.

Termites. There's yer problam!

It's a pretty beautiful fall afternoon, and I'm at the studio working on sketches, eating bananas, and hand embellishing some A/P prints with acrylic paint. These prints (and the hand painted AP prints) will be part of Devil Town, an upcoming show at Gallery 1988 curated my friend Daniel Danger. I haven't painted since the summer, so it felt really good to lay some acrylic down again. I need to paint more.
Devil Town will be on display at Gallery 1988 Melrose from December 2nd through December 24th, 2011 (opening reception December 2nd at 7PM). I'm really excited to be a part of this show and included in the list of participating artists.
There will be five hand painted AP prints available through the gallery, as well as the rest of the (non embellished) edition, which is a fairly large nine color screen print.

For those interested, stay tuned for information about the 2012 print subscription. I will be announcing info/availability about that in the coming weeks.

Take this job and...

Check it out. My friend (and excellent poster artist) Kevin Tong interviewed a bunch of other artists about old jobs we had before we started slinging ink. Up today is me and Rob Jones! Read it here.

Gravity

A chilly apartment, a fresh pair of socks, and a slight headache. An afternoon in progress.
A glass of water, a plate of rice, and a best friend. A blur of a night that bleeds into today, bringing with it all feelings evoked.
I'm not really sure what I learned, but I still believe everything we do is political.

Roll

Greetings from Milwaukee! I finished a whole mess of prints, shipping, and invoice writing over the weekend and earlier this week, so that we could take a little trip up here for a couple of days. I even had to recruit an assistant for the first time ever to pack and label orders while I was printing a new art print. Milwaukee's a fine city to visit. We had some outstanding sandwiches at the Riverwest Co-op, saw the art museum, ate espresso cake, wandered in the cold for a bit, and I had some drink called a Pink Lady.

To the left is me ollieing over a light fixture on the sidewalk outside the Milwaukee Art Museum. My girlfriend was nice enough to not only let me roll around and burn some energy for a few minutes, but to also take a few videos with her phone. I'm pretty surprised with the quality we were able to get by pausing the video at the right time and taking a screen shot. Cellphones!

I've always felt skateboarding was a pretty therapeutic part of my life, but this year I think I've come to realize that on an even deeper level. Skateboarding has been part of the equation for me since I was twelve years old, and it quite certainly dictated the paths I've chosen. I still remember how good it felt to get on my board after school to escape high school melodrama, skating in between classes in college, and finding solace in empty parking lots when I was nineteen and so many of my friends (and I) were changing. I'm almost twenty-eight. I have been skateboarding regularly for over fifteen years. Yet I'm still sometimes surprised at how much even just fifteen minutes on my skateboard can do to tame the ugliness and uncertainty of obsessive compulsive disorder, anxiety, and worry.
I hope you'll always be around.

New print available through Nevermind Gallery

"Sometimes the Uncertainty of Everything Can Really Scare Me"
6 screens on white Cougar cover
24x18", edition of 75, signed.

Check it.

Doom Town

I'm up a bit earlier than I thought I'd be this morning, which is not to say that I don't enjoy getting up at a decent hour--I've just been trying to catch up on rest lately. Either way, I couldn't be happier to be eating avocados, drinking soy milk, and listening to Tom Waits on this chilly autumn morning in Chicago.
My girlfriend and I ended up having a couple drinks too many and talking enthusiastically last night about everything from politics to our parents to our respective goals and progress in life. It's nice to occasionally have a reminder that not only am I doing what I want to do with my life (at least for moment), but I am with someone who is doing the same.
Seriously, I live for mornings like this. I've got a bunch of boring spreadsheet work to do, but it's totally cool.

Also, this is worth checking out: http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/interactive/2011/oct/18/occupy-protests-map-world

Inside the Rock Poster Frame Print Giveaway!

So a few months ago, I made a print called "Riding into the Wind Without Looking Back" for a bike-themed art show put on by Poster Cabaret. It looks like this. I don't have any copies of it left, but Inside the Rock Poster Frame is doing a giveaway of that print. All you have to do is click here and leave a comment for a chance to win one. Pretty cool, eh?

Candles, stuffed peppers, and bathing cats

Some new prints are available on my site today. Lots of new stuff on the way, too! I've also put a few previously-thought-to-be-sold-out prints back up. Stay tuned.

Look Homeward/Chicago's Calling

I am in Leuven, Belgium right now. Today is the last day of the poster expo at Het Depot for the Orange Factory 14 year weekend. Het Depot is an old elementary school that has been converted into a music venue. Seriously. It's pretty amazing.
Gary Houston and I arrived in Leuven from Dresden (by way of a series of trains that stopped/changed in Frankfort, Koln, and Liege along the way). It was a bit of an ordeal that involved some pretty tight timing, which meant regular episodes of running with our poster cases and luggage to the next train with minutes before our departure. Somehow we made it to Leuven on time and as planned where we were greeted and picked up by our friend Benny and taken to the venue to set up.
The weekend has been good, and the people here have been incredibly welcoming and hospitable. Leuven is full of beautiful old buildings that I can't stop looking at whenever I walk past them.
I finally fly back to Chicago tomorrow after three and a half weeks of traveling around Germany and Belgium exhibiting art and posters. I got to see cities I'd never seen before, stare at shelves in a model ship store for an hour, eat a piece of chocolate cake with avocado filling, sign an autograph, navigate the public transportation system in three different cities, and get rid of nearly all the posters I brought over. Four grown men laughed like kids in church on our way to a museum in Oldenberg and harassed a bunch of a sheep with our bad impersonations of the noises they make. I sent postcards to my lovely girlfriend back in Chicago. I scribbled down thoughts and rough drawings in my sketchbook on trains, at venues, and at the kitchen table in a host's apartment. I engaged in multiple conversations about the cultural relevance of poster art in both North America and Europe, as well as self-employment as a career and the prospect of using that career to build a life for oneself.
For as great as the trip has been, I have been aching to get back home. I've got a whole mess of work to tackle this week, as well as other exciting things on the horizon. Returning home is always such a warm feeling. This time, I can't even wait to step off the plane.

Lack of sleep verses too much sleep

Tonight, Colored Gigs Volume 3 opened in Dresden. The show will be on display again tomorrow night, minus me and Gary Houston, who will be in Leuven, Belgium for the 14 Years Orange Factory poster exhibition. Leuven is over 700 kilometers from Dresden, which means we're getting on a train at 5:50 AM and taking a whole mess of connections through Germany and into Beligum. I am taking a tram to Dresden's central station in about three hours. The last stretch of this trip should be interesting.

OCCUPY WALLSTREET

Mangos, soymilk, dental floss, and gendered nouns

To the left is Dresden as seen from the Rathaus tower. From the circular balcony on eleventh floor, you can see the city from above and in every direction. It was unusually warm, and the clear and sunny weather made for excellent visibility.
Colored Gigs Volume 3 opens this Thursday, September 29th in Dresden and will feature the work (and presence) of rock poster artists from Holland, France, the USA, and Germany of course. I was featured in a writeup about the upcoming show in a German publication, so if you can read German, you can check it out here: Kunst durch Sieb gepresst
(tip: using an online translator is not effective)
In a couple of hours, I am heading to the gallery here in Dresden to meet up with a few people and to discuss some of the mechanics and details of the show (and probably just hang out a bit). The nature of the Colored Gigs shows is pretty punk rock, by which I mean I'm reminded of my days putting together independent punk/indie shows with my friends. With regard for the installation and hanging of artwork, there's a lot of collaborative effort to set up a big event for a couple of nights, and then it seems like it's over as quickly as it came. But as always, it's totally worth it. And just like in punk rock, you form friendships that will last the rest of your life.
The Douze family have gone to great lengths to accommodate the out of town artists and organize and promote this event. It is definitely people like these who are pushing poster culture and actively working to expand its profile in Europe. I look forward to seeing how the scene grows here in Germany and the rest Europe in the next few years.

Fin

Flatstock Europe 6 came to a very tired (but happy) end last night. It was great to meet some of the newcomers to Flatstock, as well as see some familiar faces. Luke Drozd and Graham D. Pilling did subversive audio interviews with various artists and patrons of Flatstock Europe 6. This also featured a segment with me entitled "Justin Time For Cocktails," in which the three of us review fancy drinks we ordered from a bartender who wasn't particularly amused with us. We also renamed some popular drinks. If you're ever in Hamburg, make sure you order the "Sex on or Near the Bench" or a "Something About Cobras."
I'm off to Dresden this evening with a bunch of other artists for Colored Gigs Volume 3, which opens on the 29th. Unfortunately, I'll be cutting my stay in Dresden a bit short in order to make it to Leuven, Belgium for the Orange Factory show. Lots of fun up ahead before I return to Chicago next week.

"So 'lemon' means 'lime,' and 'lime' means nothing!?"

Oh shit! Flatstock Europe 6 is already here! Yesterday was a long and busy (and incredibly fun) first day of this year's Euro Flatstock. Hilariously, it seems I have become something of a vegetarian food guide in the rock poster community, too. Veg(etari)ans have been asking me about where to get food in Hamburg, what restaurants to eat at, etc. I'm more than happy to help, of course. Come say hi to me at my Flatstock booth today; I'll tell you how to speak enough German to order a pizza without cheese but with a bunch of vegetables. Or maybe you're concerned there's butter or yogurt in that Indian dish? Come see me. I'll set the record straight.
I don't mean to make vegetarianism or veganism sound like a set of self imposed restrictions or a maniacal quest for purity. It's really about doing your best to live a life that extends consideration to our non-human roommates on this big old planet of ours. I think people get overwhelmed when traveling and trying to keep Kosher with a vegetarian diet, but it's not hard or unenjoyable. I've had some outstanding meals on this trip.

I'm back at my friend Henni's place in Hamburg with Dan MacAdam. We don't have to be at Flatstock until 3 PM, so we're hanging out and talking about the Minutemen (the excellent band, not the less-than-excellent xenophobic vigilante group) , VHS tapes, the US Postal Service, and bungalow houses.
I'm going to get out and wander this city for a bit. If you're in Hamburg, come witness the hooliganism. After Flatstock, I'm off to Dresden for the Colored Gigs Volume 3 poster show, followed by the Orange Factory poster exhibition in Belgium. Then I fly back to Chicago and begin/resume working on a bunch of fun new projects. Expect a whole mess of new prints this fall.

...

I took a train today, which was followed by a short bus ride. I walked in the rain with a borrowed umbrella and passed through this cold iron gate. I tried to imagine what it must have been like when it was locked and constantly surveilled by guards. Today, it swings open with ease for people like me to walk in and tread lightly among the countless ghosts of some of the most intense and senseless suffering mankind has ever known.
The magnitude of it all could not ever leave the haunted, overgrown earth. It's in the stones underfoot, on stained walls, and in the growth rings of the moss-covered poplar trees. They never made it out of here.
We make a solemn pilgrimage to spectate and take pictures, and then we get to go back home. We quietly go about the rest of our lives. I try to make sense of it, but I cannot. I listen to casual and friendly chatter from tourists on a heated bus back through Dachau.

1933-1945

This is just a romantic concept

I arrived in Munich yesterday after a long (but comfortable) train ride from Hamburg. I was greeted at the train station by my friend Bernd Hoffman, poster artist Senor Burns. Bernd and I have a gig poster show together here in Munich that opens tonight at Foyer der Bürogemeinschaft (more info here). We spent a good chunk of yesterday afternoon hanging posters at the gallery, which is connected to an architecture office. I will try to get some photos of the full gallery tonight; this space is really cool.
I am staying with some new friends of mine, who are in a band called Candelilla. They are an artist on Bernd's record label, Red Can Records, and they have just returned from a little city called Chicago where they were recording a new album with Steve Albini. Last night we were given a preview of the album, and it's really, really good. Listening to the final mix of the album with them, hearing them talking about future plans for the band, upcoming shows, etc. makes me really miss playing music. So yeah, if anyone wants to start a mathrock band with me in Chicago, get at me.
Red Can Records' tenth anniversary show is this Friday in Munich, so I'll get to see Candelilla play (which I'm quite excited about), along with a bunch of other bands from the label.
Okay, time to find vegan food in Munich!

Note: Any orders that have been placed through my site since September 9th will unfortunately not be shipped until I return to the US on October 3rd. For those who have to wait an extra week or two for their orders to ship, I will be including some free stuff.

Slack Motherfucker

You never offered me a job. Also, I never asked you for one. But you did threaten me. You tried to teach me a lesson about authority. Subordination. Obedience.
Instead, I'm on my second glass of wine, thousands of feet above the Atlantic. I wouldn't be here had I tried to impress you.

- notes from flight 437

Vee vee

To the left is the view from the backseat of the car as we took a small ferry from what was previously West Germany to what was previously East Germany. Our hosts shared stories about what the border was like during the Cold War, and we were able to see the old lookout posts. I guess German citizens who lived in the vicinity of the border used to have to carry special identification. Now you can get across freely, and all you need is seven euros and the collapse of the Iron Curtain.
We took an incredibly pleasant tour of the German countryside out to Appleslounge, where a friend of ours makes his own line of cider and specialty wine. I got to try wine that was really like nothing I had ever tasted before, and we ate outstanding food and got to see how the whole process of making wine and cider works. It was really cool to learn about making wine and running a business from someone who is so passionate and knowledgeable about it. I've experienced some of the most amazing hospitality while in Europe.
It's hard to even explain how peaceful the countryside is. Tiny, two hundred year old farming villages with thatched roofs amidst incredibly green fields and slowly moving streams with swans in them; chickens, geese, cows, and goats grazing or nesting calmly; giant, power generating windmills; and plums and apples you can pick and eat right off the tree. There's something really comforting about walking past a tree and having each of us stop to eat something from it. This may sound utterly trite, but it's nice to be reminded of the fact that this planet has sustained life for millions of years without packaging, deep frying, artificial sweeteners, or mayonnaise.
I'm not really sure what the plan is today, but I know the next thing I do will be obliterating the emotional little point I just tried to make in the previous paragraph by buying food from a cafe around the corner. To be fair, though, it is going to be plant-based! Vegetable sandwiches on fresh bagels just sound a bit too delicious right now.

Bagels, data roaming, square toilets, and handsome dogs

Greetings from Hamburg! Saturday night was the opening reception of Das Pferd aus Illinois in Feinkunst Kruger gallery. The reception went really well. Jay and I spoke broken French with each other, paintings and drawings were sold, and I popped the cork off a bottle of champagne for the first time ever.
Many pieces from the show have been sold, but there are still some available. If interested in seeing a full PDF with all the work in the show (and more) along with a complete price list, feel free to contact the gallery here, or email Ralf: info(at)feinkunst-krueger.de You can also contact me for the PDF, and I will send it to you, but all purchase inquiries are to be done through the gallery.
Yesterday, we went to the Horst Janssen museum in Oldenberg, which was pretty awesome. Jay and I drink chocolate milk and German fruit juice, respectively. I had a remarkable cheeseless pizza from an Italian restaurant, and Ralf showed us the new location for his gallery.
I am eating bananas right now, and I'm about to head over to the gallery to meet up with these hooligans so we can head out to the country and have apple cider.
Next stop is Munich for a joint poster show with Senor Burns, followed by Flatstock Europe 6 in Hamburg, Colored Gigs 3 in Dresden, and 14 Years Orange Factory in Leuven, Belgium. Stay tuned!

UPDATED: All work from "Das Pferd aus Illinois" can be viewed here. This includes a few extra originals that were not part of the show, as well.

You can't really make out to Silver Mount Zion

Please excuse the utter lack of updates on my little sliver of the blogoscape. I'm leaving for Germany this Thursday, and I've had a rather offensive amount of loose ends to tie up before I head to the airport. One of these loose ends included printing and signing an edition of 1,075 tour posters for James Blake's upcoming US and Canada tour. To the left is the big stack of all 1,075 prints (as well as some AP's) that I spent a good chunk of my afternoon and evening signing and numbering. I was kept company in part by an excellent documentary called The Voice of Free Labor, which is about the Freie Arbeiter Stimme, a Yiddish anarchist publication. The movie focused on the Jewish labor movement (specifically anarchist sects therein) in the United States in the early part of the 20th century. Fascinating stuff.

I've been informed that all my new paintings and drawings have safely made it to the gallery in Hamburg, despite a brief delay in customs. Das Pferd aus Illinois will open this Saturday, September 10th at Feinkunst Kruger in Hamburg, Germany. As I've mentioned, this show will feature new (non screen printed) work from Jay Ryan and myself, and both of us will be at the reception.

I've got some packing to do, as well as a bit of shipping, email writing, invoice sending, and goodbye saying. Still a lot to take care of before I get on that plane.
Stay tuned for updates from overseas.

Gigposters: Volume 2

My pal Clay Hayes of Gigposters.com is proud to announce the release of Gig Posters: Volume 2. The highly anticipated followup to the first Gig Posters book is available for pre-order now at GP and amazon.com. This anthology is 208 pages and will feature 700 posters by several poster artists/designers. Also included are 101 perforated ready-to-hang full page posters.
Gig Posters: Volume 2 features biographies, rock posters, and stories/commentary from several of today's current poster artists. I'm very excited to be a part of this book.
Pre-ordered copies of the book will received limited edition art prints by the very excellent Landland (while prints last, of course!).

If you feel so inclined, I've made the last of the Lollapalooza after show posters available on my site. Included in this batch are Fitz and the Tantrums, Smith Westerns, and The Vaccines.
I've got plenty to work on before I leave for Germany (in less than a month), but I'm going to find some time to post a new mystery tube sale in the not-so-distant future. Stay tuned!

The sky above me

The last time I saw you, I was a bit of a wreck; I was actively resisting changes in my life when I should have been acclimating. It looked to me like you were taking on the world with grace and vigor. I envied you that.
You went back across the sea. I started working as an artist and moved to Montreal. Taking on the world with grace and vigor, just like you.
The earth kept turning when you left us. Maybe that's what makes something this permanent so difficult to fully comprehend. For whatever it's worth (and whatever it means), I hope you have found peace.
We all could go at any time, but most of us never think about it. Perhaps it's an adaptation to civilization that we put mortality out of our minds, making it a sobering thought when we finally are confronted with it. I just know I'm happy I knew you while you were here. Your kind nature, uniqueness, and zeal touched more people than I think you realized. I'm still inspired by your grace and vigor.

Das Pferd!

I have spent the last three weeks finishing (and starting) brand new paintings and ink drawings for Das Pferd aus Illinois, which opens in Hamburg on September 10th. Above is one of the new pieces, which is an ink drawing/painting on paper. I've been doing a lot of work with thin, layered ink washes (with a bit of pencil work here and there). I also am putting the finishing touches on some new acrylic paintings. I laid all the work for this show out on the floor today, and it's kind of hard to believe I actually made as many pieces as I planned to make. Such seems to be the nature of working on several paintings at once; once things finally start coming together, it seems like everything falls into place at once. I've got maybe another hour or so of painting left on this whole body of work. Then I'll be packing them up and shipping them off to Germany.
I hope I still remember how to screen print.

Ink, airline tickets, mangos, and predawn cat feedings

Oh, hi! Here in Chicago, Schubas and Lincoln Hall recently hosted six Lollapalooza after shows. The fine folks at the venues asked me to make posters for each of these events. I just put the three posters for the Lincoln Hall shows up for sale on my website.

In other news, I have been taking a small break from screenprinting and working hard on lots of new paintings and drawings for an upcoming show at Feinkunst Krueger with Jay Ryan. More info on that show can be found here. It opens September 10th in Hamburg, Germany.

Following Flatstock Europe 6, I will be heading to the country of Belgium for the first time to participate in 14 Years Orange Factory, which will showcase independent music, as well as rock posters by John Howard, Gary Houston, Malleus, and myself. I'm happy to report that this year's trip to Europe will feature my first ever direct transatlantic flight. I've always had at least one small layover (which I'm not complaining about; I got to briefly see Zurich last year), so having a flight straight back to Chicago will be nice.

I'm looking forward to getting back to Hamburg and eating at my favorite German vegetarian restaurant, Hin und Veg. I also can't wait to see what kind of rad vegan food I can find in Munich, Dusseldorf, and Leuven. Other than speculative future dining plans, I do have some new prints in the works. Expect new posters and art prints within the next month. That is, if expecting new posters and art prints is your thing.

Ice, potatoes, pencils, and air conditioning

I set up shop in a new location this afternoon. Here's a camera phone picture of my temporary drawing setup in my girlfriend's living room. I spent a good chunk of the day at her apartment, helping her out with a sprained ankle. With plenty of work left to complete for the Hamburg show, I worked on some preliminary drawings for new pieces while she rested and applied ice to her injury.
I found a snapshot of a house under construction that I took months ago when I was at my parents' house. I'd more or less forgotten about the photograph, but it ended up making for a pretty cool sketch (we thought so, at least). The pencil drawing at the bottom left in the frame will be used as a guide for the final piece. I lay a sheet of rag paper down on the pencil drawing on my light table and do a series of layered ink washes. Because I have to let the sheet dry in between washes, I try to make sure I'm working on a few of these at once. Towards the end, I start to go in with a fine pencil and do small accents or light line work. Occasionally, I will add diluted white acrylic for highlights.
I'm also working on a bunch of new acrylic on panel paintings, which are fun to do again. I hadn't done any acrylic paintings since the fall, and it feels good to continue exploring the medium. I still feel very new to painting, but I enjoy the way screen printing has informed my approach to it. I feel more comfortable with paint now than I ever did in undergrad, but I still feel like I have a lot to learn. Still, I'm pretty excited about this new batch of work.

One last little note for subscribers: Subscription tubes with all prints for the first half of the year have been shipped out. True story.

Curry, wine, and laundry

Until about two weeks ago, I had still been using a nearly obsolete cellphone that I bought secondhand almost six years ago. It had gotten to be a bit of a novelty, actually. It was sort of amusing to watch internet access and high resolution flash photography become increasingly common on cellular phones, while my own phone bore the name of a service provider that no longer existed.
I finally bought a smart phone, and while the internet-on-your-cellphone thing seems to be more of a luxury than anything, I am wondering how I got on for so long without the ability to take reference photos for drawing at nearly any time. I took the photo to the left while walking through an alley near my apartment. I admittedly know next to nothing about photography, but I've always been something of a reference photo junkie when it comes to drawing and painting. Since I'm currently working on over a dozen new paintings/drawings for an upcoming exhibition, having a little camera in my pocket at all times has been rather helpful.
Since Flatstock 30 has ended, I've resumed work on a whole mess of new work for an exhibition with Jay Ryan in Hamburg, Germany. Jay and I will be showing a bunch of drawings and paintings at Feinkunst Krüger Gallery. The exhibition is called "Das Pferd aus Illinois," and there will be an opening reception on September 10th, 2011. Both Jay and I will be at the opening.
I will also be doing a joint poster art show with Senor Burns in Munich on September 15th, 2011 in Munich (Foyer Bürogemeinschaft Westermühlstraße 32, 80469 München)
Lots of other fun stuff on the way, including Flatstock Europe 6 and a rock poster exhibition in Leuven, Belgium. More info on that soon.

"It's Always Clouds and Houses with You."

Hello again. I'm drying off after a walk from the train to the studio in a shoe-soaking downpour. I'm about to get to work on some new paintings and drawings today, but I thought I'd post a little update here while I wait for some previously rolled Somerset paper to flatten out.

Flatstock 30 was over as quickly as it came, excessive heat and all. I got to meet Johanna Goldstein and Scout Shannon who are working on this documentary about gig posters. They've been following my friends, Kevin Tong and Daniel Danger around quite a bit lately, and they talked to and filmed a whole lot of us at Flatstock. This includes footage of me and Daniel talking to each other about art in our best roughneck voices (whether or not it's used in the film is anyone's guess). Also, there may or may not be synchronized swimming. Johanna and Scout are awesome folks, and you should expect this documentary to be really, really great. Check out the trailer here.

To the left is a poster I printed during a massive storm (ha, that wasn't even intentional) of poster jobs. I drew and printed seven gig posters in about five weeks, finishing them just in time to make some new business cards and prep for Flatstock 30. Today, I'm sitting down with the ink drawing from this Vaccines poster at my light table and doing a painted version of this composition.
In other news, I hear the rain has stopped, and I'm thinking about having panang curry with tofu for lunch.

Little League

Being a grown up is serious business. (Photo by Logan)

There's ink and cat hair on everything I own.

Above is some ink I was mixing for the first color of a Delta Spirit poster. It was a big old split fountain for a night sky. I put the last color down last night. I'll post a picture of the finished print when I get to the studio and can find some decent light to snap a photo. This lovely midwestern summer storm will make finding ideal lighting a bit difficult, however. Like anyone in this part of the country, I've grown up with aggressive, seemingly spontaneous summer storms. I remember being a kid and having to flee with my mom and brother to a family friend's house when the sky turned green because our home didn't have a basement. We were too young to really be scared, and it was kind of an adventure to wait it out in the laundry room while the sky attacked our fortress. I can recall riding my bike through the neighborhood the morning after such storms and having to navigate through all the fallen branches and puddles (though I often got a charge out of riding straight through those puddles as fast as I could, but I digress).
I was commissioned to do posters for a series of Lollapalooza aftershows at Chicago's Lincoln Hall and Schubas, so I've been working on seven or eight things at once for the past month and a half. I have two posters in the series left to print this week, and I'm going to do my best to do a Flatstock poster or a new art print in time for Flatstock 30 this weekend. Oh, and I need to make some business cards. So much to do!

And now for something completely different...

Hello! I've been hard at work on a whole mess of new gigposters, and I just finished printing some t shirts for the first time ever. Printing on shirts is actually very different from printing on paper, I've learned. I was asked to participate in Happy Fuggin' 8th of July; a huge party, rock show, and t shirt art exhibition (all in one!). Each artist will have hand printed t shirts on display at Fugscreens Studios tomorrow night (that's July 8th). Shirts will be for sale at the show. I have never printed shirts before, and I have no idea when I'm going to do this again. I've been seeing a lot of other artists' work around the shop this week, and there is definitely going to be some awesome stuff. The madness begins tomorrow, 7 PM at Fugscreens Studios (1735 N. Ashland Ave. Chicago, IL). Real talk.

I will be giving a talk at Harrington College of Design (200 West Madison Street, Chicago, IL) on July 21st. More info here. Also speaking will be Dan MacAdam (Crosshair) and Zissou Tasseff-Elenkoff (Fugscreens Studios).

And of course Flatstock 30 will be next weekend at Union Park in Chicago as part of Pitchfork Music Festival. Nadine from Sonnenzimmer has challenged me to a vegan ice cream eat down. I feel confident that I can still hold my own a year later. Results will be reported.

Lastly, I will be releasing recent posters I did for Ween and Iron and Wine tomorrow (July 8th). Both prints will be available on my site. Sorry for the lack of updates here. If you're in Chicago, come on out to any (or all) of the aforementioned events.

If you should see one of these in Cafe Nervosa...

I was recently contacted by the Seattle Stranger regarding the use of a recent print I did for the cover of the June 29th-July 5th issue. Check it. Thanks to Logan for snapping this high quality photo of the print. You can see the cover on the Stranger's website here.

I've been calling her "Krandal!"

Oh, hi! I'm slicing up a cucumber with a box cutter and dipping it into hummus. Real classy, eh? Above is a freshly printed stack of Ween posters that I signed and shipped out this morning. They've begun their journey to Bend, Oregon for Ween's show at Les Schwab Amphitheater. Fun fact: for the past twenty-something years, I've been pronouncing the word, "amphitheater" with an L instead of that first H ("amplitheater"). I only recently learned the correct spelling and pronunciation of that word. It's kind of embarrassing, actually. Good thing I just posted it on the internet.

Expect Rain, Have Gin.

Here's something I'm working on right now (amidst about a dozen other somethings I'm working on). I kind of want to do a painted version of this, too. True story.

"Camp Firewood" Opens Tonight at Gallery 1988 Venice

Camp Firewood, Celebrating the Tenth Anniversary of Wet Hot American Summer opens tonight at Gallery 1988 Venice. Above is my contribution to the show: a five color screen print referencing the scene where the character Victor crashes a van into a tree while singing Kenny Loggins.
I believe the work from this show will be available shortly on Gallery 1988's website. I will have the print for sale in the coming weeks, as well. I'll be here in rainy Chicago, but if you're in the area, the reception's tonight at Gallery 1988's Venice branch.
Opening Reception Friday, June 10th, 7-10PM Hosted by director / co-writer David Wain
Lots of new stuff on the way. It might seem kind of quiet right now, but I've been putting in all kinds of hours on new drawings for gig posters and new paintings for a show in September. More on that very soon!

The Very Hungry Caterpillar

It's 1:13 AM in Chicago, and I've been drawing for about fourteen hours. I am just about to leave the studio and ride my bike back to my apartment. I hope it didn't rain. Above is my messy light table with some ink studies and part of a drawing I'm working on for a gigposter.

Plaid to the Bone

Here's something I've been wanting to try for about two years. For some reason, I either kept forgetting to try it or would put it off. I finally gave screen printing a plaid pattern a try on a new tour poster for Iron and Wine. I finished printing these the day before I left for a week vacation (that and packed/shipped two dozen mailing tubes).
Above you can see the film for the second color in progress. I spent quite a bit of time with a T-square, triangle, an X-Acto, and sheets of rubylith. Of course, I was finding bits of peeled rubylith stuck to my forearms all week, too.

Wagon Wheel

On the coast of North Carolina, less than half a mile from the house we stayed in is a huge pier. You can see people fishing from the pier every day, and the local brown pelicans (like this handsome fellow) sometimes hang out to eat bait fish or wait to be fed the tiny fish that some people catch. Other wildlife cameos this week included appearances by laughing gulls, boat-tailed grackles, sanderlings, a stingray, and some dolphins.
It's been a rather relaxing week here on the coast. We swam in the ocean and got tossed around by big waves. We talked, played guitars, and laughed a whole lot. I did some concept sketches for paintings. We watched our good friend get married on the beach right behind the house we rented for the week.
The last time I was on the coast in North Carolina was when I was nineteen and on tour with my old band. Many of the people I spent this week with were connected to that band or that tour in some way. I remember staying with friends in Wilmington one night on that trip and wondering what it might be like to relocate to this area someday. My mind has begun wandering in similar directions the past couple of days, but I know that Chicago is still and will always be home to me.

Speaking of Chicago, if you're in the area, you should know that my friends in Sonnenzimmer have an exhibition of collaborative paintings with comic artist, Anders Nilsen. Being in North Carolina at the moment, I am missing the opening reception like a total wiener. Check it out, though. I'm definitely getting up there one day this week to have a look at the awesomeness.

Salt water, habanero peppers, pelicans, and out of tune guitars

Greetings from North Carolina! I've been on vacation since Saturday and have been spending the week on the coast here in Wilmington, NC with about a dozen good friends. The house we're staying in has internet access, so I've been able to answer emails and tend to a few other work-related things. If you placed an order for a print (or prints) last week, it was shipped before I left.

In other news, my friends at Chicago Printmakers Collaborative are having their fourth annual $20 Cash 'N Carry Print and Poster Sale, which will feature tons of great prints from local printmakers, all for twenty dollars or less. No joke. It's opening this Saturday, May 21st (12-7PM) at CPC. More info here.

Also, Mike King and I will be the two featured artists at Peoples Art of Portland's Spring Show. The show opens May 21st at Peoples Art of Portland (Pioneer Place Mall, 700 SW 5th Ave 3rd Floor, Suite 4005) in Portland, OR. I will have a whole mess of art prints and posters on display, along with some original ink drawings.

I've got tons more stuff in store for the rest of the year, so I've got to hit the ground running the second I get back to Chicago. I'll be keeping you fine folks posted (nearly) every step of the way right here, so I hope you'll stay tuned.

Exactly as advertised

When you're a small child, anything outside the scope of your tiny world can be pretty scary. In time, life becomes full of reasons to be paralyzed with fear, especially for an eleven-year-old who is afraid to go to school because of his anxiety disorder. Or a fourteen-year-old who has just broken his ankle skateboarding. Or a high school student without an idea what to do with the rest of his life. Or a nineteen-year-old whose father is having brain surgery. Or a young adult who realizes that the world is run by psychotic businessmen and murderers.
No matter how scary the world got, it's been easier with a mother to talk to. I'm grateful to have had my mom there for all the uncertainty and weirdness. Happy Mother's Day, moms.

And another thing!

Poster Cabaret's Bicycle Print Show opened on May 5th in Austin, TX. To the left is my contribution, a five color screen print entitled, "Riding Into the Wind Without Looking Back." Pictures from the show have been posted here. There are many outstanding artists in this show, and I'm really happy to be participating. You can check out the prints in the show (and buy them) at Poster Cabaret.

I've been experimenting lately with multiple keyline films, which often means drawing certain components of a composition on separate sheets of paper. The aim is usually to achieve a sense of depth that would sometimes be missing when I printed one homogeneous line drawing on top of layered colors. For that reason, I used four keyline films in my print for Gallery 1988's Required Reading show. This print to the left has two; a dark gray for the houses and fence, while the cyclist and tall grass are printed in black. The shadow under the cyclist was also printed on the same screen as the lighter keyline. The idea was to create atmospheric perspective by varying the darkness of the ink with which each layer is printed. I think this is a bit more apparent in a closeup photo, which you can see by clicking here.

Anyhow, go have a look at the prints currently up in Poster Cabaret's Bicycle Print Show.
Lots more stuff on the way! I'll be posting some new posters, sketches, and process photos this week, too, so I hope you'll check back soon.

Dance of days

Hi, all. I've had quite a bit going on lately, including shipping a bunch of posters, art prints, and original ink drawings out to Portland for this upcoming show:

http://poboyart.com/

Just a quick update/announcement for now. Also, for those of you attending Pitchfork Music Festival this year, make sure you stop by Flatstock 3o and say hi to me and my friends.
Check back soon, as I do have a bunch of process photos from some recent work that I have been meaning to post, as well as some other fun stuff. True story.

Who wants to start a mathrock band?

Oh, look! Elephants! I drew and printed these guys for Block Party 2011, a multi-band event put on by Community Records. These friendly elephants are marching at the intersection of Carondelet and Clio Street in New Orleans. By coincidence, my initial sketch bore a close resemblance to the intersection at which this fest is being held. This was pointed out by the record label, and they supplied me with some snapshots of the intersection so I could draw it more precisely.
One of the headlining bands for Block Party 2011 was RX Bandits, who I've read are on their final tour. I saw RX Bandits in 1999 when they were still a ska band (yep). They took a lot stylistic twists and turns over the years and ended up being a totally different (but awesome) sounding band. It's pretty cool to do a poster for a band I listened to when I was kid. This poster is going to be available on my site shortly.
One last thing: If you're in Chicago, you should get over to Rotofugi sometime soon and check out Jay Ryan's new paintings. I rode my bike in some underestimated rain on Friday to attend the opening (even though I could have driven). Anyway, Jay's new work is awesome, so check out it.

Oh, hi Mark!

It's raining in Chicago right now. I've finished work for the day and am contemplating what to eat for dinner. I spent a good chunk of the day working on some new paintings. It feels good to paint again. I'm pretty excited about these, too.
I was recently asked to participate in something for the 2011 Version Festival through my friends at Fillintheblank Gallery. The idea was to make a quick visual map of one's personal "art landscape." I had only a rough idea what I was going to do for this, so it mostly came together when I sat down and penciled this out. This was actually going to be a lot more cartoonish, but I ended up deciding against that. I had a lot of fun with this. It's going to be interesting to see what other people came up with.

For no apparent reason other than to procrastinate on making dinner, here are a few songs that have been feeding my ears today:
Rose Melberg - Each New Day
Jawbox - Sound On Sound (originally by Big Boys)
Fugazi - Furniture
Smashing Pumpkins - Try, Try, Try (alternate take)
Tiger Trap - Sour Grass

Gallery 1988's Required Reading goes live. Local man has tea and uses internet.

Greetings from the coffee shop down the street from my apartment! I've just been handed my Earl Grey tea, and it has some sort of metal lid and a timer on top of it. I'm not familiar with this custom, but I sort of enjoy it. I speculate the timer is to indicate when the tea has steeped. I also like that they have soy milk next to the sugar and dairy milk. Not that I would add soy milk to a black tea (Can you do that? Would that be appropriate?).
Anyhow, I'm here writing this blog post because I've been without internet at my apartment for a couple of days, and it has been a bit too long since I've updated here.
To the left is my print in Gallery 1988's Required Reading. For this show, each artist picked a classic book about which to do either a poster or art print. I did an art print for Kurt Vonnegut's Breakfast of Champions. I chose to illustrate a passage in the book in which the character Dwayne Hoover is standing on top of the Holiday Inn he owns, staring out at the city and thinking, "Where Am I?" as he thinks of the many ways he is connected to this place and wonders how his life ended up as it has. The fact that Dwayne's mental state is beginning to deteriorate at this point makes this passage interesting, as well.
I think asking "Where am I?" of oneself in this context (minus the impending madness) is a pretty universal experience; to think of past events and experiences that lead you to the moment you have a bizarre but obvious re-realization that this is my life. Reflection of the self and one's surroundings sometimes occurs so infrequently in daily life that when it finally happens, it feels like it's been a few years and you're left wondering exactly when it was you moved into the apartment you're currently occupying (or the Holiday Inn on which you're currently standing).
Required Reading was curated by Mitch Putnam of OMGPosters! and poster artist, Rob Jones. There is a ton of excellent work in the show, which you can check out and/or purchase here. My print, pictured above/left is currently available here. Below are some detail shots.

This was probably the most involved print I've done so far, with the drawing alone taking somewhere in the 16-20 hour area. I completed the full composition in pencil, and I inked the drawing in four separate sections, so I could have four separate key line films (this was how I printed different parts of the city in different colors). The print ended up being nine screens, the final being a transparent layer of white for the glow around the Mildred Barry Memorial Center for the Arts (a stilted, spherical structure described in the book that I couldn't resist drawing).

In other news, Poster Cabaret's annual Bicycle Print Show opens May 5th in Austin, Texas. I just finished my print for the show last week and subsequently shipped it off to the gallery. Other upcoming poster fun will include work for Ween, James Blake, and a tour poster for Iron & Wine. Plus a whole slough of paintings later this year, but more on that later.