June 2012 - A bitter taste of podcasting

P.U. what a stinker! Some would call what happened a learning experience, but this left such a bad taste in my mouth that I didn't try again until three years later! Now that I'm almost 70 shows in, its exactly what I wanted it to be in the very beginning! Since this lost pilot, I continued on my merry way creating art and doing table shows. I got that down pretty well and made some good cash from it, but I put the breaks on all that as I got more into podcasting. I still love to draw but now I only do it for myself or the show.  It not only sucks time, but creative energy because as always, do the best I can possibly do with the resources I have.
DIY or DIE!

As some of you might have heard, I am taking underway a new project. The Revenge of the World podcast should be up and running very soon. Producer Brennan Burch and I will be doing some audio testing tomorrow. I am however missing some key components for recording guests. I’ve footed the bill on this all by myself so far but alas I am only a humble artist. So for the very first time in my life I am passing the digital hat around. If you are a fan of my art, personality, or Houston culture I assure you that I will produce a podcast that will meet some level of learning, goofing, and possible on-air debauchery that will be entertaining to at least some if not all of you. My goal for the next two weeks is $400. A meager sum for some, even for me had I not exhausted my funds already. This money will be going toward a new machine and finishing up mic set-ups. Oh also, Rene Cruz will be my co-host on the show! We’ve been friends for over a decade and have a great chemistry when it comes to the funny. So get excited, I am! Please send donations to my paypal at: revengeoftheworld@hotmail.comAlso leave your mailing address so i can send you a limited print as a thank you.

8/18 Return To Wasteland (solo show)Tapia House 313 Center St Pasadena,TX 77506

10/6 (3-8PM) Houston Zinefest (Not-to-miss!) Super Happy Funland3801 Polk Street Houston,TX 77003

May 2012

As best I can tell from my tumblr account, I used to be the most productive sonofabitch in history. I dont know how I found the time to produce art and art merch, do table shows, and adopt a stray crawfish.

JMV Comic Show Austin

Ok well first off this trips post will have a lack of proper pics documenting how fun last weekend was. Sorry. I'll have to do better. The ol lady and I stayed at the Marriot where the show was going to happen. This was a good call on our part as that place is dope as hell and not stabby at all.

1st stop into town was Domy books where i picked up these rad zines. The one on top impressed me so much i contacted Matt Rebholz and he's agreed to be in the next ish of 22VEINS. We hit up a couple other places and went to the hotel for some much needed rest.

The hotel had a good gym so we went to wal-mart and bought the cheapest shoes i could find. I call them phucks. Super comfortable for the workout but as soon as i got back to the room the room my feet started burning like crazy. They turned red and felt like they had been in the flames of hell. Phucking fake chucks!

So to lighten the mood i challenged my girlfriend to a feat of strength. I have never been dragged across the floor by a topless beauty before! Way to go babe!

The morning of the show Jess opened the curtains to our dark room and I swear to god it was if a star exploded inside my brain! White lasers shook through my optic nerves! I yelled out as I went blind and grabbed at my face to make sure it was still there.
"oh sorry, let me close that."

Well this pic is from after i set up, tore down, and set up somewhere else. The dude in the stripe shirt is James. good guy/his gig.

Coffee with a water chaser. It was a looong day.

This carped reminded me of a cosmic kirby drawing.

On the way home we stopped at a bead shop and i found this rad blade.

April 2012

I am grabbing stuff off my tumblr so that I can keep my past in one place as I move on to something else in the near future. Its so strange to look back on some shows I had back then and look at the excitement in my writings.

Two Shows Tomorrow!

If you live in the Houston area, you probably dont want to miss these. Both shows are stacked deep with talented artists and should be a lot of fun. both will have non-dubstep DJs and free beer!

Nighthawks at the Last Supper @ Diverse WorksI’ll be there showing art from 6-8PM. Show ends at 10.
1117 East Freeway

Hello Everything @ El Rincon SocialI’ll be here shortly after 8PM to show art and man my merch table.
3210 Preston

ZINEFEST 2013

I know that you know I love doing festivals, but I really enjoy doing Zinefest in particular. Its really great to be around people with the same passion as you. I often hear that normally my fellow zinesters are introverts by nature, but not today. Today is their day and Zinefest is their fest. Our fest. Surrounded by fellow artists, readers, and writers, the Museum of Print History settled into a warm groove of positive energy where we all talked and met each other again or for the first time. Of course this is only my experience and I did observe a few grumbling psychos here and there, muttering to themselves and staring into empty space, but overall spirits were high.

Zinefest was really well organized and seemed to run smooth from where I was sitting. I missed out on all the special activities in the stage area of the show but I'm sure they were very informative and inspiring... honestly I have no idea. I just saw little Maria Heg trot in and try her hardest to yell stuff. I pretty much missed everything except what was going on at my table.
The best part of my time was getting to chat with all kinds of people coming by to check things out. Most of the people were there because they loved zines and came to collect. There were also some people from the neighborhood that came in to see what was going on and they were fun too. 

The room I set up in. I believe there were three.

Favorite pics. Sucks I missed some tables in all the fracas.

To the guy who proclaimed he would "use" my button packaging idea: if you're too lazy to think of your own ideas, you're probably too lazy to execute mine. There's a lot of work that goes into producing a tangible thing. It's not like you can just order something like that, you thieving piece of phlegm. 

WTF IS THIS?!!

To the mother/daughter team of noodle-brained mouth breathers: my button machine is not indestructible. You can not insert the coin you found in the garbage disposal and expect it to work. It is barely recognizable as a quarter. You can also not get away with being inconsiderate to the owner of this machine. I am not Walmart. I do not have unlimited resources to reverse your idiocy. Some day you will encounter the right person on the wrong day and you will have your eyes opened.

THE SAME NEW THINGS

It's that time o year again. Busting out hard for ZINEFEST HOUSTON 2013, and then a table show at LONE STAR BAZAAR. Then I'll be taking a small break til the BIG ONE! STAPLE Independent Media Expo in Austin! I can not wait for these three shows! I only did one table show this year so that I can actually produce some new artwork. Hopefully a new solo show is on the horizon because its really piling up.

These past few weeks I've been dedicating time to zine creation. Not only Psychoplasmics#6, but also a big issue of 22Veins#3, a new book of Rene Cruz's great airbrush portraits,  and an illustrated short story by Pizo Meyer. Lots of great stuff. I even started an unfiltered Vine account. Shit! I just started an Etsy Store, and this weekend I'll be launching a new revengeoftheworld.com! Fuck I'm tired! Uh, OH! I just did some work for the GREATEST COMEDY PODCAST IN THE WORLD! THE BIG 3 PODCAST! From that I got hired to do a gig for a podcast out of Phoenix called The Brickwall Sessions. Fuck I'm tired. I'mma go to bed now. Good night!

THE BRICKWALL SESSIONS!

My number one listen every Friday!


Workin it! Four hand cut prints each!

RETURN TO WASTELAND

So about a year ago a friend of mine said he was buying a house and asked if i wanted to do an art show there.

 "where is it?" i asked.

"Pasadena" he said.

"OK" said i.

Well he didnt end up with that house but he did get one eventually.

This was going to be so cool because i had'nt had a solo show in over a year but i've been doing group shows and building up a body of new work and welcomed an opportunity to show it as part of my entire collection. Since my bio says i come from the chemical wasteland of pasadena, i named my show "return to wasteland'.

The day before the show i made this sign for the place so people could see it from the street. I hope it comes in handy again mr tapia. 

Of course the first people to show up were my family. this was my nephews first art show. he's cute as fuck! anyway i was pretty nervous at this point because a lot of work and money had been put into the show and i had no idea if people were going to show up. now that i'm thinking about it, this is the first show that i was responsible for! i promoted it, and set it up, and took the financial risk! of course i had help, but it was my failure to make. 

 No failure happened. AT ALL. lots of people showed up, bought work, had laughs, got drunk, and didnt break anything or burn the house down. Success!

Minus the two people holding solo cups, everybody in this pic bought at least one piece of art! craziness!#humblebrag

This is the cake my badass girlfriend had made for the show. its tres leches from el bolio. the black ink stained everybodys fingers and mouths but it tasted yum-my!

This little kid named Gordo ate the biggest piece of cake i'd ever seen. i told his mom he was going to shit the bed if he didnt sleep in the bath tub. who knows what happened. 

This is Natalie Irish talking to Jose Tapia. she's going to be on conan soon. best o luck kid! 

quick! look elsewhere! 

i wish i had taken pics of the backyard where people were mingling around the keg. lots of laughs were being had. oh well, i had a good time. i raffled off a little box of merch in between beers. among other things was a paddleball i am now officially sold out of...finally.

 It was all just so exciting!

Pasadena has a lot to offer in the way of art appreciation after all! i had such a good night! thanks to all who helped me put it together. i realy appretiate your support. also thanks to all the people who bought my work. without you guys and gals i wouldnt be able to do half the shit that i do! EXCELSIOR!

PS, if you would like to talk to mr tapia about hosting a show, let me know.

WOOT!

"I was looking at your blog this morning and i saw that picture with everyone in the living room and it hit me that there was a picture of my house on the internet having an art show and how bad ass Saturday really was. I guess seeing all the behind the scenes stuff and even when everything was going on I'm walking around checking on stuff it never really sank in how great everything turned out and how successful your show really was."

-Jose Tapia

EXCELSIOR! EXCELSIOR!

 

Summer Street Art Market

I took part in a huge art show Saturday the 14th. There were lots of great art...vendors? There was a fashion show and open studios upstairs, live bands and DJs complete with dubstep, free booze, and lots and lots of people.

Here are a few views from my table. i am slowly growing my setup to show more of my art. I bought a second table and it really helps a lot to have the extra space. Its cool that i can show up somewhere in my two-door coupe and have an art booth set up in about 10-15 minutes!

This was a fun gig. There was a $10 cover to get in so there were some avid art fans coming in to check things out. Almost everybody was excited to be there and very friendly. I like meeting new people doing these things. I cant say that enough.

I want to do this more. My calendar is free starting in August so if anybody out there knows of something going on let me know!

I been busy...

I've been doing a lot of little cons and fests and taculars lately. So much so that my drawing output has slowed way down. But thats about to change as i have a couple weeks between shows. My next gig is April 14 at Summer Street Studios. Should be fun!

I put these together especially for my table gigs. They wont be on my bigcartel since i only made five of them and havent found a source to buy more lamps from.

Craftacular at Hello Lucky on Studemont. I got a nice mild sunburn.

Minicon!

Looked like it was going to be a sketchy show at first so here i am uptight and set up in front of an old matress.. It was so dark and humid in this place and in the hood too. But the people there were super nice and i sold more art there than anywhere else! Dont judge a book by its muthufuckin cover yo!

Wholefoods Day1

Man! I sold a painting before this thing even started! This was such a nice show, with the perfect weather and the art fans milling about. There was plenty of traffic all day long and i got to meet some cool artists.

Wholefoods Day 2

Since there were fewer artists set up, they moved us to the front of the entrance. Pretty much anybody that went in to shop got to see my stuff. There were a bunch of laughs had this day. It seems like older people are really tickled by my sense of humor. One guy stood in front of me and freaked over one piece. He had been to prison at one point in his life and i guess i touched something in his brain. I'm meeting people from all walks of life at these things and its just amazing to get the chance to do it.

The Big Enchilada

Yeah, I might have overlooked why i started this blog. In February I had my first solo show (see first post). I have yet to fully put together my thoughts on the event as I got pretty drunk, but the whole experience was maybe the highlight of my life.
So maybe three months prior, Russell Etchen of DOMY BOOKS invited me to do a solo show there. I had kinda been expecting the invite because friend Rene Cruz had said he would suggest it. I had been really putting in the effort to sharpen my drawing skills as well as grow a body of work for about four years. If ever you asked what i was doing on any particular night and i answered "art night", that was pretty much the standard answer to all of my friends for about four years straight. I basically dropped any other opportunities to do anything else. It's hard to really take something seriously and keep your friends and work a full time job but I was passionate about art and I understood some sacrafices had to be made. My best friends understood this and even supported me through it and came to see me! I fucking love them!

But I digress. Lets fast forward to a few days before the show. I took the week off of work and showed up at Domy right before closing time. I had been asked to paint a mural and i was so nervous. After penciling a projection on the wall and straightening out crooked letters (thanks Bucky) I was ready to paint. I am not an acrylic man. I am an ink and watercolor man. I had done all this work and this little mural scared the shit out of me. I didnt even know to add water to make the paint much more workable. Thanks to Brennan Burch for setting me straight. So three days of work and this thing looked better than the abomination i was expecting.

A couple nights before the show the dream team of Rene Cruz, Angel Garza, Sebastian Forray, and myself began work hanging my 100 peices of art. This went suprisingly smoothly and didnt take nearly as long as i thought it would. We had some laughs, jammed some Maiden and ate an incredible pizza from Brazil next door.

Now for the nerve racking part. If you'll recall (if you heard about the show) there was quite a bit of online buzz about this show added to the blurb in the houston press. i really didnt know what to expect but i was hoping this show would have viewers and viewers that enjoyed what they saw. This was afterall my first solo show and i had put in the effort to do the best i possibly could in every aspect i had control over. looking back i really dont know what i was worrying about. everybody was so fucking cool and my whole family showed up. all my friends old and new showed. even people from my job came. But the badass thing is, tons of people i didnt know came! and i met and talked to a bunch of strangers that night! i even made some new friends that i love to death!
All in all, my first solo show was a huge success. i sold a couple dozen works, made the gallery some bucks, made enough to fix my ride, and pretty much used this as a launchpad to do everything else! its also ignited a passion and drive that i had really been lacking in my life. i mean, i've always drawn but its always been a casual thing. this whole experience really has changed my life for the better and i welcome the hard work to come and any other opprtunities that come my way.

Art Crawl 2011

So i fanally wiggled my way back into Houston Art Crawl. El Rincon Social was kind enough to host me in their gallery show and give me a couple of tables to exhibit my wares! They are a great group of people and i really cant say enough nice things about them. Good vibes the whole time i was there!

So in preparation for this big show i once again wanted to do something really special and i had been rolling around the idea of packaging my new 1.5 inch button in a matchbook cover. It took some developement and some late nights of cutting and folding and stapling but i think they came out pretty nice! I call the button: Yetti/Bigfoot Alliance. They fly the flag of tresspassers!

 I also had a huge stock of single 1" buttons that i broke into sets of five. Packaged in big matchbook style bag cover thingies. Luckily i had the help of my very smart girlfriend or i would have been in trouble.

I had picked up this little shelf off the side of the road a couple years ago. A few days befor the show i spraypainted it blue and hand painted the lettering on it. This would have scared the shit out of me had i not already painted my first skate deck a couple weeks before.

So overall i'd say it was a pretty good showing. I offered original art to the right, and the "gift shop" on the left. People were very friendly and lots laughed and had a good time looking at my work. I made some bucks to fund the next thing and maybe even made some new friends. I love art crawl. It allows artists direct access to people there to appreciate the art. I'd do it again in a second. 

PS, seeing my stuff in different formats makes me feel happy. Its a lot of work but i genuinely love giving fans an affordable option to buying original art. I've been comparing myself to Gene Simmons but the difference is my stuff started and will end in imagery. Should i start a band as a vehicle for my art? hm...