Enter the dark world of creepy cute ghouls and girls with new paintings by Xavier Lopez Jr. and soft sculpted dolls by Sara Lanzillotta at Gargoyles Statuary.

The artists have worked on a couple of fun collaboration pieces plus Sara has created a new collection of spooky dolls outfitted in lush Victorian style costumes titled Monsters Among Us.

Opening reception
Friday, August 20th, 5-9 pm at Gargoyles Statuary
4550 University Way NE, Seattle, WA 98105
(206)632-4940
http://www.gargoylestatuary.com
http://www.DevoutDolls.com

Roq La Rue Gallery is very pleased to present a series of new paintings by Edward Walton Wilcox. In addition, we will also be hosting a small “mini-show” of new watercolors by Liz McGrath. August 13 – September 4.  

The opening reception is Friday August 13th from 6-9pm. 

Frankenocchio returns for its third run in Seattle at the Lee Center for the Arts, August 12th – September 4th

Prepare to be regaled, titillated, and made slightly squeamish by the earthbound stumblings of the mute boy, Frankenocchio, as he seeks to rejoin his nimble head with the rest of his body, wending his way through the dark bellows and performances of a third rate traveling circus.

This is a  story of a stringed puppet made by God, who in a fit of boredom cuts his strings.   The poor puppet plummets to earth, where his head and body pop apart. Searching for its body, Frankenocchio’s head arrives in a dark and rundown circus.   While mad barkers and accident prone clowns attempt to use  his headless body to fulfill their own dreams, Frankenocchio searches for a way to be made whole again and return to his former life as God’s favorite plaything.

Conceived and Created by Brian Kooser, with script by Stephanie Timm, and touted as a “nightmarish world that might have been dreamt by Tim Burton after listening to Tom Waits while dosed up on codeine cough syrup”, this bizarrely delightful story, set aglow with gaudily gorgeous bunraku puppets and scenery, will leave you strangely inspired.

Accompanied by the live, kaleidoscopic, musical barkings of God’s Favorite Beefcake http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vLycseGX5k,

Kooser and his cadre of deft puppeteers bring this sweet, nightmarish saga to life for Seattle audiences.

8pm Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays
August 12th – September 4th
Tickets $18 at the door or BrownPaperTickets.com
http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/120745

Lee Center for the Arts, 901 12th Ave, on Seattle University campus:

http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/lee_center_for_the_arts/Location?oid=33949

For a sneak peak: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dERwHAQTZeQ

Please note: this puppet show is not suitable for children.

I’ve always been intrigued by the art of Timothy Siciliano. One part cotton candy circus fun and another part darkest Jeffrey Daumer-esk nightmares, it’s fun and colorful while at the same time dangerous, dark and scary.

Look! Is that a kitty? A little pink pig? Oh wait, is that blood?!? His sweetly dangerous art is like the evil circus clown that you always see in your nightmares.

Catherine Person Gallery celebrates their fifth anniversary with a solo exhibition of Timothy’s work, opening First Thursday, Sept. 2nd, where Timothy will transform the gallery into a fabulous day-glo environment, resplendent with funky sculpture, hand-crafted altars and hot pink hanging lanterns.

Dongguan Highways Hot Pink is a new body of work of paintings on paper and mixed media sculptures. They depict a hallucinatory landscape of industry and decadence while traveling across the endless freeways on my many visits to Guangdong province, in southern China. It is the “Heart of Darkness” of the new industrial age.

Hundreds of thousands of factories line the freeways burning the eyes and senses. Through this smoky haze psychotic visions of human & animal sacrifice, freeway altars and alien deities create a glitzy carnival of dehumanization. It is the “Wild West” of the new century.’

Dongguan Highways Hot Pink
Timothy Siciliano
September 2 – October 9, 2010
Opening: September 2, 6-8 pm
Catherine Person Gallery
319 3rd Ave. S., Seattle

Georgetown Art Attack 
Saturday August 14th, 6-9pm

Seattle, WA. The tradition of cool art in a hot neighborhood continues with the Georgetown Second Saturday Art Attack on August 14 from 6:00 to 9:00 PM. Fabulous food, fine art, friendly bars and a few surprises are in store at this colorful monthly event in one of Seattle’s most compelling communities.

Among the many free visual and performing arts events: Georgetown Records and Fantagraphics Bookstore present the book launch party for “Cover Story: Odd, Obscure, and Outrageous Album Art” featuring an exhibition of album art from the book, a book signing, and DJ sets from contributors Aja West and Cheeba; The Georgetown Arts and Cultural Center presents a solo show “Archetypes and Lucky Charms” which combines universal archetypes with individual portraiture by Seattle artist Deborah Scott; the return of the Georgetown Trailer Park Mall featuring a Market of Curiosities – a collective of local artists with hands-on activities – followed by an outdoor screening of highlights from the Georgetown Super 8 Film Festival at dusk; new paintings by Julie Lukes at Calamity Jane’s; photography by Robin Crookall with musical guests presented by the Twilight art collective at the Stables; the grand reopening of Krab Jab Studio, having moved from suite 335 to suite 250 of the Original Rainier Brewery, featuring new member, painter Michael Hoppe, as well as works by Julie Baroh, Kyle Abernethy, and Mark Tedin.

For a map of participants, please see: www.georgetownartattack.com.

Cal Anderson Park hosts MadArt this Thursday August 12th, 7 pm to 10 pm at the kick off event.

Jason Puccinelli – Rocket photo by Liz Potter

Rocket  - Featured Installation for MadArt in the Park

Early one summer morning, a rocket fuselage smashed into earth right in the middle of Cal Anderson Park.   The two-story projectile will no doubt capture the imagination of park visitors, compelling them to draw close.   From what strange place did it come?  Is there any life form aboard?  One can only discover the truth when they walk up and touch a few buttons.

Shoreline City Hall Gallery presents “Details,” a new exhibit focusing
on micro views of our environment and human introspection. artists include
laura brodax, gudrun bayerlein, judith heim, janice maple, and jan primous.
August 4 – October 29, 2010

There will be a gallery opening Monday August 9th, 5:30-7:00 p.m.
Shoreline city hall gallery is located at 17500 Midvale Ave. N., Shoreline 98133.
For more information please contact the arts council at 206-417-4645.

Yes, it’s official.  Read all about it in the Stranger’s blog Slog.  Congratulations Jim!

(Photo by The Stranger‘s Kelly O.)

A Luau Birthday Celebration at the

Official Bad Art Museum of Art

…and click here for party details from our previous post…

Here is a video of Marlow giving an interview on KING 5 Evening Magazine

Jim Dever and KING 5 Evening Magazine

A Luau Birthday Celebration at the

Official Bad Art Museum of Art

Wednesday, August 4th, 7:pm – Cafe Racer/OBAMA
5828 Roosevelt Way NE, Seattle WA 98105

Cafe Racer specials featuring Food and Drink of the Islands

Music by The Ukadelics

Wednesday August 4th is the birthday of President Obama, and because Obama is a native of Honolulu, Hawaii, and because we at O.B.A.M.A. are looking for an excuse to have a party, and celebrate the Hawaiian and Tiki Culture, we’re having a Luau inspired party to celebrate OBAMA! Wear a muu-muu or Aloha shirt, have a fruity cocktail, get lei’d!

Molly Epstein will be having a solo exhibition of new work at Gallery4Culture, that opens this Thursday 8/5. Molly has worked with doctors creating medical devices that not only save lives, but are also beautiful, and this translates into some very interesting and dynamic work.

Molly’s interactive sculpture and jewelry express a deep understanding of the history of body adornment and its ability to influence the psyche. The goal of achieving equilibrium is central to Molly Epstein’s art: “My work is about healing, both physical and emotional. I am on an unending quest to find this balance. Whether it is through making surgical instruments, jewelry, or sculpture, the mission is the same.”

The exhibit at Gallery4Culture includes a large-scale kinetic sculpture, a group of abstract, wall-hung pieces, and a series of brooches created from materials and inspiration drawn from healing and medical environments.

The opening at Gallery4Culture will be from 6-8pm and the show runs until August 27th.

The creation of this work was made possible in part by an Artist Trust Grants for Artist Projects (GAP) and an Individual Artist Project Grant from 4Culture. Find out more at www.artisttrust.org and www.4culture.org.

This is the last week for Bette Burgoyne’s show at Vermillion Gallery at 1508 11th Avenue on Capitol Hill.

Here’s a review of the show by Laura Macomber at Visual Art Source:

Bette Burgoyne’s latest exhibition of pencil drawings channel a deep, dark, and mysterious mythos: with titles such as “Whisper Vapor,” “Sacrum,” and “Primordia,” they’d better. Each drawing, a veritable webbing of wispy white lines that merge, plait, and even throb across their surfaces of coal-black paper, offers a new and semiopaque supernatural vision of worlds – of creatures, of material, of flora – that only our imaginations can rightly access.

Burgoyne’s work, however, is rooted in the natural world: “Each drawing,” she claims, “is a reinterpretation and combination of observations made from looking at many things: clouds, rocks, erosion, light, mammal ears, leaves, fur, waves, lichen and science illustrations of electromagnetic fields.” But where we might think we see echoes of birch trees, outlines of sand dollars and bird beaks, so do we sense the decomposition latent in them. Burgoyne’s pencil-tip latticework is as equally redolent of severed brain tissue and bone, snapped spinal columns and ashes and dust. Any of these drawings might inspire loneliness or sublimity or repose. Their exquisite pencil work will simply inspire.

Each piece, an exercise in meditation, is elaborate and complicated and is made using white Prismacolor pencil on black paper.

The show is up at Vermillion Gallery until July 31.

Northwest Puppet Center is honored to become the home to this internationally acclaimed collection.

“The World of Puppetry: Treasures from the Cook/Marks Collection” will be the first opportunity for a portion of this massive collection to be displayed in Seattle.  Don’t miss your chance to see the world through wooden eyes with puppets from Bucharesti, Palermo, Bali, Athens, Osaka, Rio de Janeiro, Bamako, Bursa, and many more points on the globe.

Included on display are stunning examples of Sicilian opera dei pupi, Indonesian wayang and Japanese bunraku (some of the puppet traditions recognized by UNESCO as “Intangible Cultural Assets to Humanity”).  You will even see vaudeville marionettes returning to the limelight after making their original appearances on Seattle stages a century ago!

Northwest Puppet Center presents

The World of Puppetry: Treasures from the Cook/Marks Collection

Location:
Seattle Center Pavilion B (next to the skate park)

On View July 23-Aug. 1, 2010
6pm-9pm on Fri. July 23
11am-4pm on weekends
11am-3pm on weekdays

Admission is FREE but donations to Northwest Puppet Center are welcomed to help continue NWPC’s expanding museum efforts.

Exhibit sponsored by The Jacqueline S. Marks Fund at the California
Community Foundation and Seattle Center.  General support provided by ArtsFund and Washington State Arts Commission.

To learn more about the Cooks/Marks Collection:
http://nwpuppet.org/worldofpuppetry.html

Get a double-dose of puppets by combining your visit with the regional festival, Puppet-O-Rama,
organized by members of Puppeteers of Puget Sound, to be held at Seattle University July 30-Aug. 1.  International Puppetry Museum and Northwest Puppet Center will be hosting a reception at the regional festival on July 30 to celebrate this new collection and would like you to join in their celebration.   Come learn more about puppetry at the festival:  http://www.puppet-o-rama.org

Not a puppeteer and want to see puppet shows all around the area?

Find out where the Northwest Puppet Center will be performing this summer  http://www.nwpuppet.org/summer.html

After this exhibit at Seattle Center, more of the collection will be on display when the 2010-2011 season opens in November. Northwest Puppet Center will feature two exhibits each year and The Cook/Marks Collection will be a major portion of the Puppet Museum at the Northwest Puppet Center for generations to come.

To find out more about the Northwest Puppet Center’s 2010-2011 season performances: http://nwpuppet.org/weekend.html

We at Seattle Twist support Thunderbitch, a very cool project our friend Daniel R. Smith is putting together. Support Thunderbitch if you can, and you’ll get the exhibit catalog and have fun at the associated events, and get to see me there having fun too. Can’t go wrong! Just announced a super live music lineup for the opening, Aug. 5th. How about a set by VISQUEEN (7pm), plus BARBARA IRELAND + STONE GOSSARD (6pm) PLUS show by DAMIEN JURADO (8pm) to celebrate his new album St. Barlett…? Not to mention an appearance by the PISTON PACKIN’ MAMAS, Seattle’s all-girl vintage car & motorcycle club.

Thunderbitch: Women Designers in Northwest Rock 1966–2010 

From DIY Xerox flyers for bands you’ve never heard of to big budget rock albums that sold in the millions, women designers have shaped the visual identity of music in the Pacific Northwest since at least the late 1960s. Some never considered themselves designers, simply making Xerox posters out of necessity to promote their bands. Some are artists and illustrators synonymous with various music genres and some are career graphic designers. Thunderbitch is the first attempt to document these women artists and their work. Taking its name from a pseudonym for Catherine Weinstein, an early rock poster maker in Portland, this exhibit spans the emergence of psychedelic rock, DIY punk and new wave, grunge, riot grrl and today’s contemporary silkscreen gig poster movement from Washington and Oregon.

The Exhibit Catalog 
With so many previously undocumented Northwest posters, flyers, etc. in this exhibit, I want to share the full-color images, plus some of the unexpected stories gathered along the way. Like the life story of Catherine Weinstein, who raced cars in Portland in the ’60s, created psychedelic posters and in 1984 was convicted of attempted manslaughter. Like Seattle’s Judith Bissell, member of the Weather Underground who spent time in federal prison for two attempted bombings, and who created a precursor to feminist riot girl fanzines. And Kim Kalliber, founding member of the Piston Packin’ Mammas, Seattle’s all-girl, vintage car and motorcycle club, who designs rock posters and pinstripes hotrods.

Funding 
Tether (tetherinc.com) has generously provided graphic design support for Thunderbitch, including the exhibit catalog. Mohawk Paper (mohawkpaper.com) has donated paper to print it on. Seattle’s woman-owned print shop, Girlie Press, has offered a deep discount on printing the 40 page, 7.5 x 9.75″, full-color catalog. All I have to do now is cover the remaining hard costs, $4,000 for the printing. Donate $20 or more and receive a copy! Or donate more and get great stuff, including recognition in print.

See the Exhibit 
The exhibit runs August 5th – 28th, 2010, at Tether Design Gallery, 323 Occidental Ave South, Seattle, 98104. www.tetherdesigngallery.com

Exhibiting Designers 
Lynda Barry, Judith Bissell, Deborah Brown, Rachel Carns, Neko Case, Chelsea Conboy, Cindy Crangle, Shari Critchley, Louise Crowley, Katha Dalton, Dotty DeCoster, Ellen Forney, Candy Fowler, Sharon Gannon, Marianne Goldin, Kathleen Hanna, Chanda Helzer, Jane Higgins, Lucy Huntzinger, Barbara Ireland, Kim Kalliber, Eva Lake, Molly Neuman, Lisa Orth, Tammy Packs, Gina Papen, Cielito Pascual, Emily Pothast, Robynne Raye, Mary Rivard, Helena Rogers, Rachel da Silva, Helene Silverman, Clara Sims-Mulligan, Heidi Snellman, Dana Squires, Kim Stringfellow, Ashleigh Talbot, Tobi Vail, Jeanne Wasserman, Joanna Wecht, Catherine Weinstein (aka Hedda Goldspace, aka Thunderbitch), Alice Wheeler, Bon Von Wheelie, Allison Wolfe

Please read more about Thunderbitch here.

Object sculpture by Kim Kalliber of The Piston Packin’ Mamas.

Transillumination by Bette Burgoyne at Vermillion Gallery, opening July 8th 6-11pm

The show runs July 8 – July 31, 2010 at Vermillion Gallery on Capitol Hill 1508 11th Avenue.

By definition, the word Transillumination is the transmission of light through tissues of the body.

Transillumination is a series of work by Bette Burgoyne where she uses white Prismacolor pencil on black paper to create an ethereal landscape of shapes. She says, “Each drawing is a reinterpretation and combination of observations made from looking at many things; clouds, rocks, erosion, light, mammal ears, leaves, fur, waves, lichen and science illustrations of electromagnetic fields . The lighting in the drawings is oblique, like the light during sunset or moonrise. It is a time filled with portent and possibility, just before the night begins. Each new piece of black paper is a little dark night that I beam some light into.”

Bette Burgoyne was born in Seattle in 1959. After graduating from Cornish College of the Arts in 1986, she moved to San Francisco and spent 10 years practicing and teaching art. Bette earned an MFA from Mills College, California. She taught at several places, including San Francisco Art Institute and California College of the Arts.

Bette’s solo exhibitions at New Langton Arts, Southern Exposure, Mincher/Wilcox and Headlands Center for the Arts were reviewed positively by art critics Kenneth Baker and David Bonetti. Her work has been featured in many group exhibitions, including A Labor of Love at the New Museum NYC and the touring exhibition New World (Dis)Order. Among Bette’s awards and residencies have been the Veronica di Rosa Residency Award at Headlands Center for the Arts CA, Tread of Angels Fellowship at Djerassi Foundation CA, Watkins Award at New Langton Arts SF, and the Boudreaux Cadogan Scholarship at Mills College.

After her return to Seattle, Bette purchased a giant roll of black Canson paper and has been cutting it and drawing on it ever since. The current exhibition at Vermillion, Transillumination, is a presentation of drawings made within the last 12 months.

July 7, 2010 – Seattle, WA. Multifaceted cartoonist, musician, performance artist, fortune teller and neo-Victorian culture maven appears at Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery on July 10 to celebrate the publication of MEAT CAKE, a collection of stories from the first decade of her popular comic book series of the same name. The event features an exhibition of Dame Darcy’s original comic art and other creations, an enchanting music recital and a fortune telling session with each book signed.

MEAT CAKE is like a peek into an imaginative, deranged dollhouse filled with fractured fairy tales. An expanded version of the long out-of-print hardcover book, this new paperback assembles the very best of Darcy’s work from the first 11 issues of the beloved comic (including “Hungry Is the Heart,” the legendary collaboration with Watchmen creator Alan Moore). According to the New York Times, “Darcy’s comics are aesthetic manifestos… Darcy is a star. Meat Cake will prevail, as luxury takes over America. And the world beyond.” The Los Angeles Times observes, “[Darcy] has created a childlike, otherworldly realm, a land that hovers in the twilight space between the whimsical and the macabre. Ghosts and goblins, foul-tempered stepmothers, lovesick mermaids and charmed forests are all rendered in Darcy’s distinctive hand, loose and flowing lines reminiscent of the work of Edward Gorey.”

Dame Darcy’s appearance on Saturday, July 10 from 6:00 to 9:00 PM coincides with the colorful Georgetown Second Saturday Art Attack featuring challenging visual and performing arts presentations throughout the historic industrial arts corridor. Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery is located at 1201 S. Vale Street (at Airport way S.) only minutes south of downtown Seattle. Open daily 11:30 to 8:00 PM, Sundays until 5:00 PM. Phone 206.658.0110.

Glenn Barr’s “smallEpics”
New Work @ The ROQ LA RUE
July 9, 2010
2312 2nd Avenue, Seattle, Washington 206.374.8977
www.roqlarue.com

Commemorate the holiday with a bang at Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery on Monday, July 5. Lovely Los Angeles-based UNLOVABLE artist Esther Pearl Watson will appear with her husband and collaborator Mark Todd from 1:00 to 4:00 PM and we’ll be hosting a festive urban barbeque. Best of all, everything in the store is on sale 20% to 50% off for one-day-only! All day long!

What better way to conclude a holiday weekend than with complimentary hot dogs, baked beans, cold beverages, and cheap comic books! Don’t miss this opportunity to meet these accomplished young artists and stock up on essential summer reading at bargain prices.

The store, located at 1201 S. Vale Street in Seattle’s Georgetown district, will be closed on Sunday, July 4, but open regular hours 11:30 to 8:00 PM on Monday for this spectacular event. And mark your calendars for Saturday evening, July 10 with the enchanting Dame Darcy debuting her new MEAT CAKE collection.

June 29, 2010 – Seattle, WA. Summer celebrations continue in Georgetown with the Second Saturday Art Attack on July 10 and the annual Georgetown Garden Walk on Sunday, July 11. These colorful activities accentuate the unique character of Georgetown’s historic business corridor and creative residential neighborhood.

Among the highlights of the July 10 Georgetown Art Attack: Seattle Teen Printmakers (STP) display work from recent workshops at Georgetown Arts and Cultural Center together with Amy Pleasant’s “Family Album” exhibition and open studios with resident artists; “Meat Cake” book launch party featuring original comic art exhibition, book signing and performance by Portland-based artist Dame Darcy at Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery; a collection of handcrafted traditional Caribbean masks from Trinidad & Tobago, Puerto Rico, St. Lucia, Dominican Republic, Honduras, and Jamaica by Alyssa Johnson at Calamity Jane’s; the debut of “Seattle Hop” tee shirt and other works designed by Seattle home brewer and digital artist Laura Fletcher at Full Throttle Bottles; “Just Before the Leap” paintings by Mark LaFalce, “Encaustics: the Wave of Wax” by Deborah Stachowic, and “Clay, Baby” works by Pamela Hathaway at 5626 Airport Way S. studios; an exhibition at Indiro artist studio, 5050 First S., featuring Dave Alton, Nicole Appell, Catherine Bailey, Jolie Bergman, Felice Dunn, Darren Emmens, Becky Fitterer, Meredith Jenkins, Brian Kuntz, Gay Seydlitz, Reecca Thayer and Carrie Whitney. Also included in both the Art Attack and Garden Walk is a “Trailer Park Market of Curiosities” featuring local art, vintage clothing, collectibles and more at the newly minted Georgetown Trailer Park Mall.

For Trailer Park Mall information visit: www.georgetowntrailerpark.com. Maps of the Georgetown Garden Walk can be found at the Bank of America parking lot at 1112 S. Bailey St. on Sunday, July 11. For a map of Art Attack participants see: www.georgetownartattack.com