Friday!

"A Walking Tour of Here" opening August 13th

Well, hey! Check this out:

A Walking Tour of Here - Recent Screenprints and Paintings by Justin Santora
Fillintheblank Gallery 5038 N. Lincoln Ave. Chicago, IL
August 13-Sept 4, 2010. Opening reception Friday, August 13th. 7-11 PM

I signed four stacks of prints last night and have more or less put the finishing the touches on the last couple of paintings today. I'm off to be a groomsman in my good friends, Logan and Vija's wedding.


Monday evening, we start the installation at the gallery.

Thirsty Pixels

Today, I heard the sad but inspiring story of Emily Henochowicz. Emily is a Jewish art student from the US who has Israeli citizenship. She was studying in Israel where she became involved in the movement for solidarity with (and justice for) Palestine. In one of the Israeli army's trademark uses of indiscriminate and unnecessary force, Emily lost her left eye when she was hit with a teargas canister*. Her outlook on life, art, justice, and the world is positive and absolutely worth sharing. Plus her drawings are just plain rad. Check out Thirsty Pixels, Emily's blog.

www.thirstypixels.blogspot.com

International Solidarity Movement (ISM)

* Incidentally, she had been attending a demonstration in response to the IDF boarding international aid ships bound for Gaza, killing 9 civilians.

The Sands've Turn'd Purple

Flatstock 26 has come and gone. To the left is Dan from Landland with friend, Mark. I took this picture just after the three of us had to scramble to put the front cover on our tent when some heavy winds and rain struck on Sunday morning. Luckily, the rain did not last long.
Despite nearly unbearable heat; this weekend was filled to the brim with conversation, laughs, meeting/seeing many awesome people, talking shop, print trades, and vegan ice cream cones (my total by Sunday was nine).
It was excellent getting to show right next door to Landland, as I am a huge admirer of the work they do. I managed to get that empty swimming pool print (upper right in the photo, entitled "Summer Ghosts/Winter Pool Party") from Dan in a trade. The print is absolutely beautiful, and it reminds me of skateboarding.
I rounded off the weekend by seeing Cap'n Jazz play a reunion set at the Bottom Lounge with Dan and Mark. It was one of the best shows I've seen in quite a while.
A photographer from Chicago Magazine came by and took pictures of all the Chicago poster artists at this year's Flatstock. Check it out.

Flatstock 26!

Oh hi! I've just returned from Cantankerous Hellfighter, a collaborative art show between Chicago's Delicious Design League and Aesthetic Apparatus (Minneapolis), and let me just say it's quite awesome. Like, big time awesome.
Speaking of awesome, Flatstock 26 begins tomorrow (July 16th) at Pitchfork Music Festival in Chicago. Come say hello.

I'll also be trying to keep track of how many vegan ice cream cones I eat over the course of the weekend. I'll post the final figure Sunday evening.

Monoprints! Flatstock! Et Cetera!!

I just put a few mono prints up for sale in the gigposters.com classified section. These are one of a kind prints that are kept around my shop to test screens and check registration before starting a run. They're always a unique and fun record of what was being printed in a given time. This particular print (picture to the right) has elements from my print in the Crazy4Cult show at 1988 Gallery, a tour poster for Make Do And Mend, and some screens from a not-yet-finished art print.
As always, each print will come with a drawing or sketch or some bonus posters/prints.

So there's all kinds of Flatstock madness descending on various parts of the globe. This weekend is Flatstock 25 in San Francisco (which I will regrettably not be attending), Flatstock 26 in Chicago, Flatstock 27 in Seattle, and Flatstock Europe 5. You can keep track of all this awesomeness on the brand new FLATSTOCK BLOG.

I hope you're all doing well. I'm in the midst of a day filled with sketching, printing, and painting. Still so much to do! And there are all kinds of other fun things in the works, so as always, I hope you'll stay tuned.

All I ever wanted was to be your spine

I set up a new skateboard deck on Saturday. A lot of factors are used when selecting a deck; size, shape, brand/prior experience with said brand, and of course, the artwork. To many people on the outside, the fact that art even exists on skateboards seems frivolous at best, given the fact that they're inherently doomed to be intentionally scraped against curbs, rails, benches, and coping. To someone like me, a skateboard deck is one of the finest examples of constantly changing functional art. It is created to be destroyed.
Some of my fondest grade school memories involve me and friends consumed by pages of mail order catalogs as we made our respective efforts to select the perfect board. I used to study each scratch, smudge, and nick in the paint of a new deck as I used it. Even fourteen years later, I am still taken with the beautiful effect that first lipslide will have on a previously unscathed skateboard graphic.

Sorry for the lack of updates and print releases. I have been incredibly occupied with creating work for my upcoming show at Fillintheblank Gallery in Chicago. There's a whole slough of other fun stuff up ahead:

- Collaborative print with Gina Kelly (Weathermaker Press) for Screens N Spokes
- Flatstock 26 in Chicago, Flatstock 27 in Seattle, and Flatstock Europe 5 (American Poster Institute/Flatstock)
- An art show at My Addiction Gallery in Tucson, AZ

Also, I have work in a couple of group shows that will be opening this week:
- Mini Print Show at Leia Bell's Signed & Numbered Gallery in Salt Lake City on July 11th
- Crazy4Cult print show at Gallery 1988 in San Francisco on July 9th