Starting off the week proper with these rules which inspire me to create daily as written by Sister Corita (via John Cage) during her time as head of the Immaculate Heart College Art Department in the 60’s. More info to come as we get closer to the weekend’s premiere of the short film we’ve been editing about the life and times of Sister Corita as well as the retrospective art show of her amazing work. Both have far exceeded our modest expectaions as talented people from film and music have joined us in wanting to be a part of this passion project. Stay tuned!
In continuing the films spirit of collaboration, creativity, and inspiraton, Beautiful Losers and Nike Sportswear teamed up this summer to give back to the community with the Make Something!! workshop initiative. Many of the artists from the film (Ed Templeton, Mike Mills, Thomas Campbell) their contemporaries (KAWS, Todd James (REAS), Jose Parla, among others), as well as the filmakers (Aaron Rose, Money Mark, Tobin Yelland, and me Lenny Mesina) taught classes to high school kids in Tokyo, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Miami on the D.I.Y. (do-it-yourself) aspects of art-making. The web series, which documents workshops in NY and LA, was just released to the public through Nikesportswear.com. As supervising film editor of the series, which was produced and directed by BlackLake Productions, I believe we really made a difference as the kids in the workshops were extremely inventive and clever with the work they created. Here’s a look at one of the webisodes:
The Muppets have teamed with FAO Schwarz to create the Muppet Whatnot Workshop, an online site where you can build your very own Muppet! With the Muppet Whatnot Puppet Designer you can choose from 3 different “body tones” (orange, green, and blue) and dozens of eyes, noses, hairstyles, and outfits to create a standard puppet. And for those who aspire to be true Muppeteers, you can order the Muppet Whatnot Gift Kit which is a custom Muppet built just like the hand and rod puppets from the shows! As you can see from the pic above, I’ve spent some time creating myself as a Muppet. Probably too much time. Or maybe not enough? Either way, I can’t think of a better gift to give someone. BTW, my birthday is November 13th!
Thanks to Alissa the Gelatobaby for spreading the felt.
(click images to see more from the Barack On! Obamathon)
With so many people ready and willing for change in the White House, it comes as no surprise that fundraisers for the Obama/Biden campaign have reached record amounts both in dollars and in number of donors. But what is surprising is just how much the people have donated. With a staggering $186 million raised since Septmeber alone, the Obama/Biden ticket has now topped the $600 million mark. I’m both pleased and proud to say that on Friday, October 17th the Barack On! Obamathon I organized with Jon Barlow (producer of Beautiful Losers) and Jonathan Sample (Fresh Pressed) added to that record total by raising $6000 in only 5 hours! With pro-Obama designs contributed by local arists and designers for silk-screening of shirts and posters, bakers feeding those hungry for change with a sidewalk bake sale, and people of all ages coming out to support our effort with positivity and enthusiasm, what started out as a modest fundraiser quickly turned into a mini block party. The “fun” in fundraiser was definitely on display as we Baracked the night away!
Thank you to everyone who came out and helped make a difference! Special thanks to all our friends who contributed their time to dj, take photos, participate in the bake sale, tend the bar, help usher in the long lines, and work behind the counter! Extra extra special thanks to Max Erdenberger, Jimm Lasser, Jessica Louise, Amy Martin, Megan McGinley, Lenny Mesina, Jonathan Sample, and Nick Toga, for their artistic contributions and getting their design on in such a hurry!
As we countdown the days to the most important November 4th of our generation, people continue to find new and interesting ways to show their support for some dude named “Barack Obama”. The people who created the website yeswecarve.com have added a Halloween twist with their support for the one called Obama by giving other supporters an online place to submit and share photos of their own home made “Barack o’ lanterns”. Or would it be “Jack O’bamas”? Either way, I think it’s safe to say that this is “carve you can believe in”. Yeah that’s right, I just came up with that! It writes itself folks.
As the most important election for our future fast approaches, some friends and I have put together the Barack On! Obamathon, a fundraiser for Barack Obama’s final push to the Presidency. The event will be held at Fresh Pressed on Hollywood Blvd. in Los Feliz (where Shepard Fairey recently put up an Obama/Hope rooftop wall mural) on the night of Friday, October 17th from 6-11pm.
We’ve teamed with local artists who’ve contributed pro-Obama designs for live screen-printing of shirts, garments, and posters. Artists include Max Erdenberger, Jimm Lasser, Jessica Louise, Megan McGinley, Lenny Mesina, Keith Scharwath, and more! PROCEEDS WILL GO STRAIGHT TO THE OBAMA/BIDEN CAMPAIGN TO CONTINUE RAISING AWARENESS IN THE REMAINING SWING STATES. Pricing for goods will go as follows (cash only please!):
$20 shirt/garment
$10 B.Y.O.T. (bring your own T or other printable garment)
$10 poster on French paper
In addition to designs, drinks, and djs, the good folks who put on the Obama Bake Sale Fundraiser will also be in attendance to fill your appetites for change!
Thanks for your support and I hope you’ll join us in helping make a difference!
*If you’d like to bake some noise and participate in the bake sale or volunteer for the event please contact Nikki Braendlin at nikkibraendlin@gmail.com
*And if you’d like to contribute but can’t make it, please help us reach our fundraising goal by visiting our official webpage and making a donation here:
If my memory serves me correctly, and it rarely does these days (what am I even paying you for you stupid brain?!), graduation ceremonies for the younglings are currently in progress across the country. Which makes me wonder how well our future leaders and followers are being educated for the real world. Which in turn leads me to this segue to an excellent video from the annual creative idea conference, TED (Technology, Entertainment, and Design). In February of 2006, Sir Ken Robinson went on to explain how creativity is not necessarily nurtured in our educational systems but rather brushed aside in favor of conventional thinking. Needless to say, this strikes a chord with me as I’ve always been an ardent supporter of logic but in my old age I’ve come to realize that being overly analytical may deprive oneself of being freely creative. This English chappy “makes an entertaining and profoundly moving case for creating an education system that nurtures (rather than undermines) creativity.” It’s a must see for all you creative types, as well as for anyone with a brain. Especially those new brains just graduating from high school. But not for me, my brain and I are still fighting.
Thanks to Denny “Cool Breeze” Devries for dropping the science.
Extra credit! Sir Ken’s definition of “creativity” so you don’t need to watch it over and over like I did:
Creativity-Process of having original ideas that have value, more often than not comes about through the interaction of different disciplinary ways of seeing things.
Last month I took the time to chuckle at our lovable mums for Mother’s Day. This Sunday, the 15th is Father’s Day so I thought why not honor them in the same way? By laughing at them. Now I don’t intend this to come off as mean spirited or hurtful in any way, but more as an alternative to the greeting card/gift giving mentality most of us are accustomed to. So take a look at some funny pictures (see above) at a site called manbabieswhere fathers and sons heads are chopped off and affixed to the latters bodies and maybe you’ll be inspired to do the same for your pops. Sure it sounds a bit morbid but hey, it’s Friday the 13th after all!
(from left to right: Harmony Korine, Mark Gonzalez, and Carlo McCormick)
On Sunday May 18th, my first full day back stateside, I was treated to a special “conversation” between filmmaker Harmony Korine and artist/skateboarder Mark Gonzalez which was later moderated by magazine editor Carlo McCormick at Tokion’s Creativity Now conference at Cooper Union in Manhattan. The two playfully started off their discussion by going through their list of “Name Poems” which are names of celebrity types dissected and reshaped to form whole new names. This exercise in adolescence started in Harmony’s Prince street apartment at the start of their long standing friendship and through the years has grown into a list of hundreds. Starting with their first foray into their new art form, Harmony recited the original name poem “Emily dicked her son” (Emily Dickinson). And from there, back and forth they went laughing with childlike pride at some of their crudest and funniest inventions which included; “Dick rides around in a van looking for dykes” (Dick Van Dyke), “Is it a kite? Harvey can’t tell” (Harvey Keitel), “Burt Reynolds wrap”, “What’s Stephen Hawking?”, and “Kirstie was raped in an alley” (Kirstie Alley) to which Mark replied, “That’s just mean.” Mean indeed, amusing yes, and the audience of students and young and old people enjoyed it all. Here’s a bit of video of the tail end of the name poetry segment:
From there Carlo McCormick joined the brouhaha and attempted to turn the conversation into a more insightful one with sincere answers. This was not easily done with the Harmony and Mark revelling in being the jokesters they are. At one point Mark completely interrupts Harmony mid-answer when he started playing his harmonica on his mic:
But not all of it was fun and games as Mark gave one of the best answers of the day when Carlo asked him how his process when making art involves leaving his errors in finished pieces, to which Mark responded (in so many words), “the mistake is part of the make.” A lesson I’ve been slow to adhere to being a perfectionist for most of my life, but a lesson I now live by as I understand the beauty in drawing outside the lines. As these two creators have been doing for most of theirs.
Thanks to the lovely Heather Seccia of Tokion for getting me and my brother in.
Living in Los Feliz, I tend to focus more on happenings in or around LA. Not to leave my NY brethren out of the loop, here’s a look at a selection of the featured artists for the upcoming Tokion Creativity Now event this May 17th and 18th at Cooper Union in Manhattan and a blurb from the Tokion tokers:
“Held annually in New York City, Tokion’s Creativity Now Conference assembles the top names in art, design, music, filmmaking, fashion and photography to speak about their work and respective industries before an audience of 2,000. The international scope and diversity of the conference has made it a unique and important gathering for young individuals whose culture and interests span the globe. For the past four years, members of the international creative community including industry professionals, students and pop culture enthusiasts have had the opportunity to listen and pose questions to the definitive creative talents of this generation.
Doors open at 11AM each day, Conference begins at noon and finishes at 6:30PM.
Additional speakers to be announced. Please check back for regular updates.”
And speaking of Zach Galiflanakis check out the bearded ones latest finger flicking film, Visioneers:
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