Seattle Twist

Jordan Crane on May 10, Peter Bagge on May 17, and SHAG on May 24

Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery springs into action in May with a succession of events featuring three of the country’s most celebrated cartoonists and remarkable illustrators. The public of all ages is invited to join us in an exciting series of exhibitions featuring Jordan Crane on May 10, Peter Bagge on May 17, and SHAG on May 24.

For this coming Saturday:
 
Los Angles artist Jordan Crane’s evocative and bittersweet meditations on the human condition in comics and illustration have gained him an enthusiastic following among art aficionados of all ages. His economical narrative observations have been published by Seattle-based Fantagraphics Books, including two issues of the comic book series Uptight, and graphic novels The Last Lonely Saturday and The Clouds Above, recently issued in trade paperback. His exhibition opening Saturday, May 10 includes exquisite limited edition prints and original artwork from his comics.

The reception, from 6:00 to 9:00 PM, serves as the after-party for exhibitors and guests of the Emerald City Comicon, where Crane is among the featured artists. The opening also coincides with the lively Georgetown Second Saturday Art Attack, featuring art, music and more at over 30 locations throughout the enchanting Georgetown neighborhood.

 Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery is located at 1201 S. Vale Street in Seattle’s Georgetown district. Open daily, 11:30 – 8:00 PM, Sundays until 5:00 PM. Phone: 206.658.0110.

www.fantagraphics.com

Look for posts regarding the next two shows over the next two weeks

“Georgetown Second Saturday Art Attack” Spring Offensive Continues with a Blast on Saturday, May10 from 6:00 to 9:00 PM

Seattle’s liveliest cultural adventure continues with the May 10 installment of the Georgetown Second Saturday Art Attack. This monthly event, a production of the Georgetown Merchants’ Association, is intended to draw attention to the creative industrial arts district of Georgetown in an effort to foment public sentiment in favor of preserving this historic civic asset. More than 50 galleries, nightclubs, boutiques, studios, and individual artists participate in this colorful celebration of aesthetic diversity.

Coinciding with the Art Attack is the first exhibition of Georgetown Independent Artists in the Engine Room of the enchanting old brewery building. Organized by painter John Ohannesian, the show features recent work by Augie Pagan, Doug Parry, Diana Pharoah, Angielena Chamberlain, Dave Mazak, Steve Wright, Mike Poetzel, Dave McGranaghan, Lance Mercer and many others. While these artists frequently exhibit throughout the region, this exhibition acknowledges the fierce independence of Georgetown’s working artists, who largely reject the stifling restrictions imposed by traditional gallery representation. Other highlights include: “We Make Our Own Luck,” mixed media encaustic paintings by Joseph Wackerman at Georgetown Tile Works; an exhibition of illustrations and prints by Los Angeles artist Jordan Crane at Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery; Georgetown artist Sherri Scott at George; musician Anna Coogan performing at Full Throttle Bottles; free musical performances at neighborhood n
ightclubs; exotic dining, drinking and shopping experiences in the charming Bohemian enclave of Georgetown.

www.georgetownartattack.com

The post office is becoming obsolete.  That sucks.  Bring the ponies back.  Right? 

“Ouch My Eye” has figured they should give them some business or better yet, have you give them some.  So here is the deal.  They have an installation show.  It’s called Ship It!  Whatever you send to their  gallery will be displayed.  In its box, unopened, in all its glory.  What won’t they show?  Uhmmm, nothing the post office would be willing to deliver.   So all bets are off.  EVERYTHING submitted with be shown.  On pedestals, with their new fancy track lighting.  So yeah.  Make a box, envelope, poster tube, and decorate whatever you want and Ship It!

Opening 1st Thursday May 1st, Opening Party Friday May 2nd.

www.OuchMyEye.com

Flight Attendant Day at the Museum of Flight , May 17th, with paid museum admission, a discussion on the history and service by a panel of flight attendants.  Listening to flight attendants tell stories is as juicy as talking to waiters away from work, when they can let their hair down and tell it as it really is.   Go get the inside scoop about flying and service when the flight attendants don’t need to put on their game face.

For those into art and technology (like me), my friend Joel Kollin has collaborated with Juan Pampin and Ensu Kang to create a sound and sculptural installation that links 911 Media Arts and SOIL. The opening is this Thursday, February 7, 6-9pm at both venues.

Entanglement draws a symbolic acoustic line between two distant locations, SOIL and 911 Media Arts Center in Seattle. A hyper-directional sound beam linearizes the acoustics of the two galleries creating the illusion of a single, infinite line of sound into which both sites get trapped.

…This fragile acoustic construction can be physically disturbed by the participants at each location. Using their body, participants can interfere with the acoustic waveguide, spilling over particles of the linear sound field into the room as they block their transit to the other site. The piece not only provokes the “entanglement” of the participants with their own sonic perception locally but also remotely, as the acoustic shadow of their bodies gets cast onto the other space. In this way, Entanglement explores the concept of “tele-absense” (rather than tele-presence), using a virtual acoustic channel to telematically project the disembodied presence of participants interacting with the acoustic waveguide.

It runs through March 1, and if you miss the opening you should still go–you’ll have some time and space to interact with it. The installation is part of the Ultrasonic Sound Beams in Media Arts research project, supported by the Center for Digital Arts and Experimental Media (DXARTS), University of Washington.

More info at SOIL.

The GALAXY OF PAIN is a photo exhibit by BLUSH PHOTO that
displays images of Seattle notables such as The Presidents of the
United States of America, El Vez, John in the Morning (KEXP), and Ben
Exworthy (Super Geek League), all facing off in the underground
wrestling ring to benefit an awesome local charity
Home Alive.

Where: At the McLeod Residence in Seattle
Date: January 11th, 2008
Time: 8:00pm-1:00AM
Ticket: $20; all profit goes to Home Alive

Guests can look forward to special musical performances, raffle items, a silent
auction, COSTUME CONTEST, and the chance to see celeb photos by Blush
Photo.

Crazy, Man!

Ken Kelly rocks! If you don’t know him go to this show and get to know him!

604 Second Avenue, Seattle, Washington 98104
http://www.howardhouse.net

(Since you’re in Pioneer Square stop in the Catherine Person Gallery and meet Nola Avienne at the opening of the ‘Black & White Show’).

Opens Saturday January 12 at Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery in Seattle.

The youth rebellion of the 1960s produced some of the most stunning artwork and graphics of the 20th century. Four decades later, this imagery still resonates. The artists of this era will be featured prominently in Seattle at the dawn of 2008. The Frye Art Museum will host “R. Crumb’s Underground” opening January 26. Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery will endeavor to place Crumb’s work in historical context with the exhibition “Rebel Visions: The Underground Comix Revolution” opening January 12, continuing through February 6, 2008.

Based on the book of the same title by comix historian and archivist Patrick Rosenkranz, in association with Fantagraphics resident curator Larry Reid, “Rebel Visions” will feature relics, artwork and artifacts by an impressive array of Underground era cartoonists: Justin Green, Rick Griffin, Greg Irons, Robert Williams and S. Clay Wilson, among others.

Patrick Rosenkranz is the author of two books on Underground Comix. In addition to Rebel Vision (Fantagraphics Books, Seattle, 2003), he wrote You Call This Art?!: A Greg Irons Retrospective (Fantagraphics Books, Seattle, 2006). The book chronicles the career of this influential, though largely unheralded, underground artist. Following his experience as a cartoonist, Irons moved to Seattle where he became an accomplished tattoo artist working at the storied Seattle Tattoo Emporium on First Avenue. Several works by Greg Irons from this period will be on display. Rosenkranz will lecture on R. Crumb and his compatriots at the Frye Art Museum, 704 Terry Avenue, on Saturday, January 26 at 2:00 PM.

Fantagraphics Bookstore & Gallery is located at 1201 S. Vale Street at the corner of Airport Way S., in the heart of Georgetown’s lively business district. The space is open daily 11:30 to 8:00 PM, Sundays until 5:00 PM. Phone 206.658.0110.

Seattle-area artist Ries Niemi presents a vision of cell phones as a life form, manipulating humanity for their own purposes. Ries says he purchased, sight unseen, this collection of objects from a mini-storage auction. In this new exhibit, Niemi examines just how exactly that cell phone got into his pocket, and who is really in charge.

Niemi cuts and pastes pop culture in a variety of mediums, including: digital imaging, embroidery, wood, paper, textiles and metal. In his installation, pages from old books, fossils, textiles, metallic objects, even furniture and clothing document the surprising centuries long attempts by cell phones to take over the world.

Ries loves his phone. Ries hates his phone.

Working in a wide range of media, Niemi has shown widely around the country, and works extensively in public art, including a new piece on Pine Street adjacent to the Paramount Theater, “Eat, Drink, and Be Merry.”

Located next to the Paramount Theater on Pine Street, the sculptures are 3 totem poles for the 21’st Century, collaged from images of contemporary culture, food and drink.

Ranging in height from 16 to 18 feet, and 8 feet in diameter, these glittering stainless steel figures are anthrophomorpic but not human. They are made from different textures of forged and fabricated stainless steel.

The site is a small urban park whose reason for existance is the Vent Shaft for the Sound Transit tunnel under Capitol Hill.

Ries’s new show is at Punch Gallery January 3 – February 3, 2008

Opening Reception: 5-8pm
First Thursday, January 3, 2008

Artist will be in attendance the first and final Saturdays of the month.

Seattle artist Tim Marsden opens a show of his paintings in uber-cool Georgetown at Calamity Janes at 5701 Airport Way S.

Artist reception December 15th 2007 (Saturday)  12-4pm (nicely 
placed in the afternoon.

The show will run December 2007 until the end of January, sometime in 2008.

Great show and good food!

The Bridge Motel by Sally Banfill

The Bridge Motel (3650 Bridge Way N, off Aurora, in Fremont) will host a one-night only event to kick off the MOTEL series on 15 September 2007, 5 PM - midnight. Built in 1952 by a retired policeman, the motel has anchored the north end of the infamous Aurora Bridge for decades in welcoming glory. Originally a place frequented by tourists and traveling salesmen, the Bridge Motel has over time become more a place for those living from paycheck to paycheck, and whose lives involve drug use, prostitution, and the like.

In the popular imagination, the place embodies and realizes that underbelly, shady side of life’s toiling. There has been murders here, and numerous drug busts, its decaying artifice contains the stories of a full lifetime of drama, and the day by day passing through of souls … For one night, its last night of existence, the Bridge Motel will be dressed up and called to shine and dance … Numerous installation/performance artists have been given full rein the week prior, to transform each dilapidated pocket into whatever they could imagine. The opening evening will reveal the Bridge’s final blossom before its inevitable razing. And to top it off, every inch of the motel will be crawling with performance artists, injecting the animation and energy of truly ephemeral art. The stellar roster of artists involved is sure to create a cacophony of sights and sounds to inspire the mind and heart, and give the aging motel a proper dress-up before it’s demise … This night is not to be missed.

Jed Dunkerley, Jason Puccinelli and Greg Lundgren will be holding down room #10 on the second floor, with a performance piece entitled “Deep Space.” Other performers are Vis-a-vis Society, One Pot and Dike Din.

Sat Sept 15th, 5 pm-midnight
www.MotelMotelMotel.com

UPDATE: Photo set from flickr. Unbelievable.

Seattle Miniature Show is fun, even for those without a dollhouse.  They have exhibits, like little kunst cabinets of curios in teeny-tiny detail.  Lots of supplies for those who are crafty and are looking for something a little different for pins, jewelry and the like.