Monday, October 27, 2008

Turning In Circles


My next exhibit, "Turning In Circles" opens at the Riverside Art Museum Saturday, December 13th, 2008. This exhibit is made up of ideas and paintings from the last 12 months. There will be around 20 new paintings and I'm currently finishing a large 50' wall installation. I will post more as we get closer.

I'm happy to be doing a show in my hometown, and it's great that the Riverside Art Museum (RAM) has been involved with some very progressive exhibits in the last year- Barry McGee and Clare Rojas, Skullphone, Sea No Evil, Raymond Pettibon. I'm looking forward to this show and hoping to see everyone in December!

The Riverside Art Museum is located at: 3425 Mission Inn Ave., Riverside CA 92501

Sales will be handled by Kinsey/DesForges Gallery. Please contact Jana DesForges for more info: jana@kinseydesforges.com

Thanks,
Jeff

Friday, October 17, 2008

Racism in the I.E.


What's wrong with people? I wish I could say I can't believe that someone would do this, but it just goes to show how much racism is still prevalent in our country.

This image was distributed in a newsletter by the Chaffey Community Republican Women, a Republican group in the Inland Empire. Their president, Diane Fedele apparently thought it was funny and did'nt see any racism in the picture- "I didn't see it the way that it's being taken. I never connected," she said. "It was just food to me. It didn't mean anything else." Yeah right. You're nothing but a racist byatch.

One of their members, Sheila Raines, who is African American herself said, "This is what keeps African-Americans from joining the Republican Party... I cried for 45 minutes."

It's really sad, and I know this is not the first attack on Obama of this kind but I think it hits home a little more because I live in the Inland Empire where this took place. Being in Southern California, a huge melting pot of all kinds, you'd think this behavior would not exist. I feel like the younger generation is more accepting and less racist, maybe because we have grown up in said melting pot unlike some of our parents and grandparents. Or maybe it just seems like that to me because most of my friends are liberal artsy types. Okay, this is an art blog so I won't get too political. Cause I could write for a while about the election/Inland Empire/Rep. vs. Dems/racism, etc...

Here is the full article at the Press Enterprise.

And here is Diane Fedele's email in case you want to send her something: ChaffeyCommunityRWF@cfrw.org

Tuesday, October 07, 2008

Babytattooville 2008


This was the second annual Babytattooville event. It's Bob Self's creation, and I don't know how he pulls these things together. The name is kinda weird as it has nothing to do with babies or tattoos (that would be an awful combination!). It’s a Friday through Sunday event that took place here in Riverside at the Mission Inn. It is hard to describe, it’s sort of like “hang out with artists and get art merchandise”. Well, I don’t care about the merchandise, I like the “hang out with artists” part, and that's what I did.

Here’s the featured artists.... Thomas Han, Joe Ledbetter, Michael Whelan, Shag, Glenn Barr, Brandi Milne, Amy Sol, Daniel Peacock, Ana Bagayan, Dave Cooper, and Bob Dobb.


After an artists’ introduction at the Mission Inn, everyone was shuttled over to my studio which was the secret dinner destination for the evening. Two bus loads of people descended on my workspace- holy shit were there alot of people! Pretty sure over 100 art lovers. There was beer and sodas, pizza, some fancy finger foods, tons of art nerds (and I say nerds with a lot of love), and of course all the artists. Some of the artists from last year were there along with several friends and relatives. I had a good time.


The artists started the “Art Jam”, a collaborative painting to be completed by all the featured artists. This is them about to get started..


Despite the crowd, there was only one casualty- my trusty old stereo was attacked and gutted, which I wasn’t very happy about. Fuck, now I gotta get a new one.


Then it was back to the Mission Inn for a figure drawing session and more painting on the collaborative piece. It's interesting to see it transform over a couple days as artists added and painted over areas.


The Mission Inn is world famous, it’s a fancy old hotel and of course it’s haunted. It's perfect for this art event. I’ve stayed there a few times but never noticed anything but definitely felt a little creeped out. Our first stay (during our wedding night no less) was in room 401, Aunt Alice’s room. I found this info on the room:
“Alice Miller's ('Aunt Alice') room 4th floor, south east corner. This two-level room is very active. Reports of cold spots, touches, apparitions. Strong presence of Alice.” Creeeepy... then Jennifer told me she thought she saw a figure walk through our room late Saturday night.. jeeez.. We thought this hallway looked straight outta The Shining.


This is the five story Rotunda, you have to see it in person. Jennifer went to high school with a guy who fell and died in there.


Beau from Project Gallery with Tessar Lo and Nate Frizzel talking to attendee Andrew Wong.


Shannon hanging out.


Nathan Spoor and Lola. Nice to meet Nathan for the first time. And always nice seeing Lola- we went to school together a long time ago, guess we're both products of Riverside.


Dave Cooper worked on 50 drawings for attendees, he is a madman. His family was awesome! If you read this Julie, thanks for hanging out with us!


Shannon found a new friend in Jake Cooper!


Amy Sol painting with the iPod action...Joe Ledbetter and Gris Grimley putting final touches on the Art Jam....


Michael Whelan was also working on 50 paintings for attendees. He was pretty much working constantly, turning out spontaneous artistic visions. It was nice to connect with Michael, he’s an inspiration from when I was a teenager and great to talk to finally.


By Sunday I was pretty tired and didn’t take any more pictures, there’s a new site that has more coverage from Babytattooville- Arrested Motion. It was a fun event, but as is the same with the Comicon, I feel like I need a vacation.

No time to relax in sight though- my next show is looming on the horizon. Here is a piece I’m about finished with...


More info soon...