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...

TEXAS COMICON 2011

San Antonio highways are pretty nuts so obviously we're going to get messed up even with a GPS! What a happy accident to come uppon Carlitos Way! "lets get the fuck outta here!"

So we load in and get set up after getting to the show and being moved. No problem, I've never done this before, but I'm sure it happens all the time. In a couple of hours i have sold a bunch of toys and my Frankenstein display making almost enough to cover the cost of the trip. Thank Christ i brought my junk because my art sure didnt sell! By the third day we were laughing at everything. Probably stoned off of our own success, but I digress...

Ok I'm only human, i get bored like anybody else. The nice lady that bought Frankenstein was missing four bucks so i traded a pack of horror trading cards from 1987. They were pretty sweet but more importantly there was a stick of gum that was broken into three pieces. There just happens to be three dudes at my booth! We all pop a piece and the pain begins. First it felt like i got tazered in my jaw, then my face started hurting, so i followed a boothmate to the trash can in the middle of the floor and we spat in the can for a bit.

This is Brennan Burch. Boothmate and brother-in-law. He kicked so much ass drawing zombie portraits! All of his customers were really pleased.

Friday night after the con i laid plans to rule.

When i saw this crowd the adrenaline started pumping and i got that nervous tornado in the pit of my stomach. Time to show some love! My self appointed job was going to flyer the shit out of this crowd and make peole smile and laugh. My costume is good for doing that. Little did i know this would be an orgy of awesomeness!

This guy was in a KISS cover band and was stoked to see me for some reason. He might have been wasted.

GOODY GOODY TWO SHOES! GOODY GOODY TWO SHOES! For such enlightened futuristic people, they looked at me like my dick was hangin out!

Best enseamble cast of characters ever! Chaplin being there blew my mind!

This young lady was hot as hell!

"i like your costume"

"i like yours too"
*giggle*

This guy's cool. Marching around owning his costume!

I met a dude named Jon David Guerra and his wife Nicole. He was drawing some little cards at his table. I had to pick some up. Dope.

www.nightmareprowrestling.com

I bought these rad prints from Mike Fisher Saturday. Sunday i heard there was a UFO documentary showing next door. So I go over and guess who created it! I wanna be just like Mike when i grow up!

Check out his stuff at

www.goofaman.com

Finally, i came across this guy and his work. Pretty good stuff. This piece hit me so i bought it.

www.nassodesign.net

GEARING UP!

Guess who's doing their first comic convention! I'm teaming up with some fellow artists this coming weekend for Texas Comicon in San Antonio under the guise of my sub-official Ghostfish Publishing company. rumor has it Lucha Madre will be promoting with flyers and taking pics with people, and Brennan Burch will be doing Deadite portraits of convention-goers. I've been working my ass off to make our booth THE place to go for limited edition art goodies. We will be looking for after-parties to go be obnoxious at. This should be a blast!

biz cards and stickers!

1"buttons

me as deadite

i think i've printed about 150 art zines to sell! STOKED!