Storm Clouds

Man, I should update this more than once a month. Been working and painting alot, no time for the interweb. Here is some information on my upcoming show:

Storm Clouds
Jonathan Levine Gallery, New York City
Sep 8 thru Oct 6, 2007
Opening reception- Saturday, September 8th, 7pm-9pm



For me, the new work is more political than in previous shows. My work lately has been dealing with politics and being a father. I’ve been exploring my fears for the planet that Shannon's generation will inherit (I’m also concerned with how fast kids have to grow up these days!). The paintings are usually related to these fears and deal with topics such as the war in Iraq and our carefree attitude towards preserving nature. Most people are very good at not worrying too much about these things. I think in America we're getting numb to what's going on around the world. We are so disconnected because it‘s happening overseas in a foreign place, and most would rather not think about it and veg out to the latest news on Paris Hilton’s jail drama. It’s not right, I wish more Americans would take a stand, get educated and try to make a difference. There are many here who really take things to heart and are trying to turn the tide and get people to be involved. I know making paintings is like preaching to the choir, most fans of my art are aware of what’s going on on a global level. But I might be able to reach a few open minds here and there. That's why there's always a hint of optimism in my paintings. I think we can make things better somehow.

Anyways, I'll have around 30 new works for the show. Most are on wood panel and several are on paper. After NYC I'll be taking a break from showing in the U.S. for a year or two to concentrate on showing my work overseas and to finish up some long neglected projects.


Some random photos...

A big garbage fire a few streets away from my studio.

Aaron getting some work from Regino Gonzales.

June is birthday month for the Soto's. Soo many birthdays...



Ron Jeremy (AKA Jonathan Levine's Uncle Ronald) picture in my bathroom. Why do I have this?

A website called Glltn.com just did a little article on my studio. Here's a link- Soto's Studio. It's a really neat site to be able to see all these different artists' work areas. Some are clean, some are messy (like mine). It's fascinating. I started out years ago in a corner of my bedroom, moved up to a garage and now I'm in a pretty big workspace- which is awesome but in some ways doesn't mean shit. All that matters is that you're making work you feel good about still. Always makes me think of some lyrics Jennifer brought up once from a White Stripes song:

When you're in your little room
and you're working on something good
but if it is really good
You're gonna need a bigger room
and when you're in the bigger room
You might not know what to do
You might have to think of
How you got started sittin' in your little room

Happy 4th of July....

Here is some news on my calendar package coming out in July. I don’t do alot of merchandise really, I try to keep to products I feel positive about, either art objects like toys, or prints and zines that are hand signed. This calendar project was a lot of fun to work on, it’s a 13 month calendar (Dec. 07-Dec. 08), a mini zine, and a sticker sheet, all boxed together. I tried to put in a lot of random history, artist birthdates, weird holidays, and of course what calendar is complete without the lunar schedule?



The mini zine was fun to work on as well- each book is hand signed inside, and about half have drawings, rubber stamping, writing, etc. in them. It’s going to be pretty random, you might buy it and get a drawing in there. I wanted them all to be unique. Here’s some images from the zine and a couple of the signed sheets...








The calendar package debuts at the San Diego Comicon in July, but Murphy design is offering preorders right now at their site: Murphy Design- Soto Calendar

Here’s some more info from Murphy Design:

"Jeff Soto's Lucky 13" calendar + "No Hope" 32 page minizine

Jeff Soto is proud to deliver 13 full-color calendar images that you can proudly display on your wall. The calendar measures 9” x 18” when you are hanging it on the wall and features 13 months starting in December of 2007 and finishing in December 2008. The calendar features 14 major paintings from the past couple of years -- not featured in the sold out Potato Stamps Book – and 39 small images from Soto’s “Cold Ice Age” series of 100 paintings.

This package also includes “No Hope” a 32 page mini zine that measures 5 1⁄2” x 8 1⁄2” featuring photos, sketches, drawings and painting pieces and parts. The mini zine is signed on vellum and is bound in the book, appearing in the front. Jeff threw down his Photoshop and design skills to teach Murphy a thing or two. And the result is major coolness. Also included is one 8” x 8” sticker page with 10 stickers.
This package will be shipping end of July and will be premiering at ComicCon in San Diego. You may want to act fast, as this online promotion is limited to 1,500 copies. Packaged as a limited edition collector's set.
ISBN : 0-9771430-9-0
Price:$33.00
Pre-order at Murphy Design

May is already almost over. Where has this year gone? So it looks like I'm a once-a-month "casual" blogger these days. Lots of randomness today...

My last post dealt with overly derivative art. It's not bugging me as much lately. I guess we're all related, there's a lot of the same inspirations, and we're all guilty to an extent. I do feel this art movement is getting stale in some ways.. or at least watered down somehow. All we can do as artists is strive for originality and be supportive and honest with other artists. Tell it like it is.




Painted a Darth Vader head for a group show at the Star Wars 30th Anniversary. The show will be touring around the world after it comes down in L.A. I usually don't do the whole "paint on shoes, toys, skate decks, etc" thing anymore, in fact I told myself a couple years ago the only ones I'd do would be for charity events (stuff like Keep a Breast events). But Darth Vader, man, how can I not paint on that? He's an icon from my childhood.



The Ox-Op series 3 Qees have been released. Here are the two I designed. The red one is the rarer "chase" figure. I like the way they turned out. I have em' for sale on Potatostamp..

More random stuff...


3D picture of Crescent Meadow in the Sequoias. I took this picture of my dad and brother Corey a couple years ago and just thought it turned out cool. What you do is take two pictures, about 2" apart. Then photoshop them next to each other. The trick to seeing it is to relax your eyes until the images overlap. They used to make cameras that had two lenses that would take "3D" pictures. They have a good collection of those at the California Museum of Photography.

Very random stuff..


I picked up a new book on L.A. graf called "Graffiti L.A." by Steve Grody. has a Slick piece on the cover and is chock full of the best graff from Los Angeles. In particular it has alot of work from the late 80's- early 90's which in my opinion was the high point of L.A.'s graffiti. Letters really had flair and style back then, it was like the words were dancing and moving to a beat. Some highlights from that era- CBS, AWR, Hex's Hip Hop Shop, Frame, Risky, Toonz, Mear, early Saber, Skill, then there's the locations like Venice, Motor Yard, Belmont, anyways it's an awesome book.

It brought back lots of memories, and really made me want to pick up the can again. Though we were from the I.E. our crew painted pretty often in L.A. spots, we were respected for our skills but at the same time shunned for being out of towners. We had a few productions that burned everything else in the yards and it'd be a crapshooot weither it'd be left up for a month untouched or painted over that night. It was frustrating and one of the reasons I started getting fed up with the graff scene. Too much politics. Like most things it was all about who you know.


The book is interesting, our old crew is in the "active crews" listing in the back. I guess when Maxx and I went on to other things, the crew kept going as an L.A. crew. There is one piece of ours in the book, a wall at the Commerce yard from 1996 with me, Jipsi, Maxx, PR, and Coed. I remember I called in sick to Target that day, hehe.

So speaking of old graff, old friend Jose sent some pictures of and I painting from the mid 90's....


Maxx...


Me...


This is kinda cool, we painted this for "Elements", a hip hop show Maxx put together in 96(?). The show where he got knocked the funk out (I think I wrote about this somewhere in a previous blog). I painted the left side and Maxx painted the right side. Our idea was a graf writer breaking his bonds and attacking the evil and corrupt media. I think we were feeling like the nightly news was giving graf writers a bad name because they were linking graffiti to gang violence. We never got a photo, and after the event it was left in Maxx's backyard and rain made the particle board disentegrate after a couple of weeks. So it was awesome to get this picture.

I'm looking for a small wall to paint on with Maxx.. nothing too big, just a wall so we can do a lil' something for fun... willing to travel anywhere in So. CA. Anyone have any leads? Email me...

More randomness..


Ever seen one of these fruits? Looks like an alien egg sack. I bought it from the market because it looked cool and I like to try new things. I didn't know what to expect, all I knew was I read you're supposed to eat the jelly-like seeds...


Wow, green inside... and very seedy...


Slurp... pretty nasty. I dont recommend it. Too tart! Tasted like a tart cucumber but maybe it wasn't ripe. I think I'll stick with oranges for now.

More random...


This photo was on my camera. I have no idea how it got there, either someone took it of me when I didn't know or I accidentally shot a self portrait. Jeez, I'm very beardy...


Birthday party...






A lil' more randomness...

I can't figure out how to get youtube videos on here, so here are some links:

Dali on "What's my Line?" From Eric White to Jamie O'Shea's Supertouch blog now I'm showing it. Check this Dali clip from "What's my line". Wow, TV was so much more eloquent 50 years ago. The people sound intelligent. Compare this to the crap on Mtv, it's sad really. Wow, Dali's signature sure looks like graff to me!

I found some more Dali clips-
Dali- Lanvin Chocolate
Dali being born I remember watching this whole film in high school and the egg part still sticks in my mind.
Destino- Dali and Disney collaboration. For more about this check Wikipedia- Destino

Shannon is down with graff too. Bath crayons are awesome.



Thanks for reading!
-Jeff

Way too long since I last updated this thing. Too much negativity on the news lately so I won’t even go there. Let’s keep this light and happy today shall we?

Been keeping busy with a job for Extra Gum (which was my gum of choice in high school), and been painting/drawing for my September show at Jonathan Levine Gallery. So I’ve been grinding away in the studio the past month, not a whole lot happening (which is why there’s no blog updates lately).

Hmm, so what has been going on? I must have had some adventures this past month? Hmmm....

Brad Keech from Pressure Printing came out for a studio visit. What an awesome guy. I took him to Tio’s Tacos which is this Mexican restaurant in Riverside with a crazy/cool sculpture garden. He has some super secret stuff he’s working on with a very well known artiste, I better not say anymore. As for myself, we’re planning on doing an etching at some point, probably after my NY show when I have more time. Stay tuned.

Brad is making a few new prints of an old plexiglass plate I scribed in 2005 in RCC printmaking class. I only made one press at the time and it turned out pretty cool. But then I dropped the class.


Easter was fun, the whole family came out and stuff. Shannon had a great time, especially playing in my parent’s pond thingy. Lots of eggs to be found. Some had money in em'! That last photo is by my brutha Tim of his GF Karen. It's all Batman-villain looking sideways.


Got a new phone, one of them razor ones. Had my old trusty one for like 5 years, and there was no way to get all the old contacts off it. So I’m doing it all manually. Yuck. Uh, I think my phone just permanently died just now when I scanned it. I can’t turn it on! Shit! R.I.P. old phone? R.I.P all my contacts? Maybe it's good to start fresh.


Our mailbox got tagged by some white power dumbshits. The assholes also tagged on some cars and people’s garage doors in the neighborhood. I painted over it right away. Losers.


A couple weeks ago Jennifer’s parents came over and I said, “I feel like I should be wearing kelly green too”. They looked around and started laughing. Strange when that happens huh? I had to take a photo to preserve the moment. I don’t know why the donkey is in there, and I don’t know why Ralph is muzzling it...


I saw a UFO but it was too far away by the time I pulled over, plus my camera sucks. It looked really weird, like a balloon with dark stuff in it and tentacles hanging down. Maybe some sort of weather experiment from UCR? Maybe a Metroid? It sorta feaked me out.


I’m working on new paintings and a wall installation. Tons of sketches and doodles, gonna get busy up in dis shit soon. september is coming fast. and yeah, that is Snoop dee oh double gee.

I'm doing a zine and a 2008 calendar with Mark Murphy. It's looking pretty rad. Email him for more info...


Just finished and sent off a new piece to Art Prostitute Gallery in Dallas. It’s called “Stars Over the Hanging Gardens of Babylon”, acrylic on wood, 12” x 22.5”. The show starts April 28th.

And, lastly, I’m dealing with artists who are imitating mine and other’s work. They say imitation is a form of flattery but when people are doing stuff very similar in style to what you’ve been doing for years and they’re selling it, it’s more of a slap on the face. I am not naming any names but I’ve seen alot of imitation the past couple of years and it’s getting worse. The good thing is that for some reason people tend to copy the stuff I was doing right out of school- sun rays (hehe which I copied from Alex Gross), robots, boxes with wings, etc. It still sucks. I don’t know if the artists are to blame or the galleries that show them. Or it could be the buyers who are supporting this. So here’s some advice for everyone...

Artists- if you find yourself with a lack of ideas or have trouble finding your style, DO NOT take the easy path. Don’t look at who’s successful and steal their ideas. Do not copy them. Do not imitate them. This might help you sell some paintings, you may even sell out a show or two. But in the long run it will come back to bite you in the ass. You’ll be but a flash in the pan. A one hit wonder. If you are a serious artist and you make art because you have to, it’s in your soul, it’s in your heart, you will eventually find your own style. I’m not saying it will be easy. It takes sacrifice, dedication, and experimentation. And once you think you found your style, throw it all away. Because your shit will get stagnant if you don’t keep evolving. The artists who are copying will not be around in a couple years. Watch.
*Note- it’s alright to be a little derivative right out of school, no one can help that. But if you’re out of school for a while and selling your paintings and deep down you know it’s not totally original, then it’s time to refocus and get onto a better path.

And..

Galleries- You have a responsibility to show original work. When you show work that is overly derivative, it cheapens your gallery and the entire “scene”. This scene is small. Really small actually. If you are showing work in this genre you should have at least an understanding of who the artists are, what their work looks like and where they have shown. You have to have the backbone to be able to tell artists to come back in a year with new work if it’s derivative. Galleries used to be tougher. It was special if your work got in. It meant you were making original, thought provoking work. Realistically not everyone is going to be able to show Viner or Camille Rose Garcia, but that doesn't mean you should find someone who is making similar work.
There are tons of young artists out there who are deserving, hard working, eager and super original. Go find them. Promote them. Teach them.
There are tons of young artists out there who are copying. They will come to you. Educate them. Push them. Be honest with them. They will return better artists.

And...

Buyers- You’re gonna hopefully buy a piece of art because you love something about it. Investing in art is not bad either. I hope you also really research the artists you are interested in (especially if you're looking at it as an investment). It’s hard to keep track of everything but try to stay informed. Most of the artists being copied have shown at some time at La Luz de Jesus (now Billy Shire Fine Art), Jonathan Levine Gallery, Merry Karnowsky, New Image Art, BLK/MRKT, etc. They have higher standards and will never show anything derivative. Research some of these galleries that have been around for a while (there are more, don’t limit to those I mentioned), get back copies of Juxtapoz, Giant Robot, check out American Illustration, there are also some great books on the subject. Most artists also have their resume’s listed on their websites. In short, do your research. Unless you don’t mind buying work that may be derivative, and that’s your prerogative (cue Bobby Brown here).

So that’s my little rant about this situation. I’ve talked to a lot of people about this and everyone agrees that it is getting to be a widespread problem. Any ideas on this? What are your thoughts?