Jeff Soto's Blog

Bunch of boring stuff to write about...

It snowed yesterday in Riverside. I've been here since 1985 and it's never snowed, it came as a shock to see small flakes falling down in our yard. I thought it was pollen then realized, no way, it’s snowing! It gets cold here in the winter (for southern CA) but dang, never would have thought I'd see snow! Jennifer, Shannon and I went in the backyard and tried to catch the snowflakes but they melted as soon as it touched our hands. Supposed to be super cold again tonight and the frost can damage plants and crops so I picked a bunch of avocados. Our tree has been producing some damn good ‘cados lately. It’s all about the guacamole...



Shaunna, Mike and Dylan came over last week and the babies had a bath together. These will be good photos to embarrass them with when they’re older...



Bought some new books the other day- Albert Reyes- I love this guy’s stuff, Jim Houser- will be showing alongside him at JLG in NYC Sept 2007, “Dear New Girl”- a book with tons of art from some of my art heroes- Kevin Christy, Taylor McKimmens, Jason Holley, the Clayton Brothers, etc. and American Hair Metal- a look at the glam rockers of the late 80’s. That’s aaaahwsome dude! I remember my friend Jacob and I were really into some of this stuff, Poison, Motley Crue, GnR, I guess when I think about it, we liked the better bands. We hated Stryper, thought they were lame.





BLK/MRKT is having it’s BMG Artists’ Annual show tonight. I got to see alot of the work earlier in the week when I dropped off my piece. I really like what Amir Fallah (creator of Beautiful/Decay mag) is doing, and there’s a lot of other fresh pieces in the show. I really like the direction they’re taking at BLK/MRKT. I forgot my camera that day but here’s an image of my new piece that will be in the show, “Fall Energy Waves”.



Here's some more from BLK/MRKT... Amir Fallah:



David Ellis:



Kinsey:



Robert Hardgrave:



Lucy McLauchlan:




Went by the Mu Pan and Esther Pearl Watson show at La Luz de Jesus. At first I thought it’d be a strange duo but somehow the paintings work pretty good together. They’re both telling stories with their work- Mu Pan’s are epic stories of life and death, Esther Pearl Watson’s are memories of her father’s UFO fascination. I really enjoyed both artists visions. I met Mu Pan a couple years ago at Fuse gallery NYC. He’s a cool guy and good friends with Regino Gonzales, an old homie from the I.E.

Esther Pearl Watson:




Mu Pan:




Also went by Art Center yesterday and Mike Bertino had work up on the front gallery wall. Pretty nice...




A couple months ago Jonathan Levine and Mark Murphy came out for a studio visit. he has uploaded some of the videos onto Youtube. Who knew there was a Ron Jeremy-Jonathan Levine connection?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1tGLAIhMWs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bI-LyhfkOv4

After my show in November the stress level dropped a bit and I started playing a little Warcraft late at night. From an artistic point of view, I love the candy coated colors, I mean, look at the pretty sky color. They can do some cool stuff with videogame graphics these days. I grew up with Atari, Sega and Nintendo so seeing what they can do nowadays trips me out. I almost went into entertainment design in college, would have been fun working on games...



Next entry- the Norton Simon Museum...