new New York and a little East Bay

Pete Glover invades New York City with work in two awesome art exhibitions. First up is the touring Scion Installation 5: Self Portraits exhibition, which is screening my collaborative film with David Choe, 23 Short Films. It is at The Showroom NYC, 117 2nd Ave (2nd Floor). This show opens on Thursday, May 7th, with a boozed-up party from 7 to 11pm. This exhibition is up until May 21st.

Two nights later will be the opening of A NY Print Show (aka Printed Matter 5) at Giant Robot NY. For those who are mathematically challenged, that is Saturday, May 9th, from 6:30 to 10pm. GRNY is at 437 East 9th St. in the East Village. This show runs until June 3rd.

For the Print Show, I finally got to use some old telepole stencils I had cut a while back but never printed. After spending a day in the yard with various papers and half-used cans of spray paint, these are what emerged...

Telephone Poles as Dusk

Telephone Poles at Night
You can click on the images to see larger versions.These are all artist's proofs rather than part of an edition. I wasn't able to frame them, but I think they will work pretty well within the group show. There are no promises that all 7 prints will be in the show, but I left specific instructions for how each group should be hung so I'm positive it will rule. And, as always, they are priced to be owned (by someone other than me)... like $20 each. If you cannot make it to the show but are interested in owning one or more of these, GR is really good about making all their exhibitions viewable and buyable online, so hit them up.
And for those in the Bay Area, both Narangkar and I will have pieces in the 9th annual 21 Grand benefit art sale. The sale starts Friday May 1st, but there is a preview at 6pm on Thursday. It is cash and carry so you had better get there early cause a lot of art goes in the first 20 minutes. 21 Grand is at 416 25th St. in Oakland. You can check out Narangkar's painting for the show on her website, narangkar.com. I'll be dropping this badboy for public scrutiny:

And, in related news, Darren Jenkins, who curates for 21 Grand and has always been a workhorse for the Bay Area art scene, invited me to join him for a live radio interview on KALX (90.7 on your FM dial) for their Arts In Review program on Thursday (tomorrow!) at 12noon. You can listen online through iTunes or whatever here. Tune in and here me tell it like it isn't!

presently...

Sunset out the window.
We have no less than four avocados growing in our yard. Avocados take almost two years to grow, so we hope some more get started this summer.
I recently spent an afternoon taking macro-pictures of the bees that hang out in the lavender growing next to the skatepond.


Speaking of skatepond, I've also recently been doing some patching and hope to get it repainted this spring. This photo shows 5 different paint layers! From bottom to top: red, light green, olive green, then 2 separate coats of the blue.I think we are going to repaint it with the same blue and yellow.
And, finally, a portrait of Snickers with her all time favorite thing in the whole world, the Fishy Toy. Snickers is pretty much fully grown now but still looks and acts like a kitten.

cut down trees

I've will have a new drawing exhibited tonight as part of the "Regime Change" group show at Swarm in Oakland (celebrating their 3 year anniversary)...

What's that you say? You want me to write about all the boring details of the creation of this work and my own interpretations of it? Well, if you insist:

This piece is titled "One Morning I Woke Up And I Knew That It Was On". That is the first line of lyrics from the Crosby Stills and Nash song "Carry On". update: I guess I got the lyrics wrong. Apparently it goes "...and I knew you were really gone". Oh well, I like my version better. I was listening to it while walking around Mountain View Cemetery on fine morning and it stuck. I used it the first chance I got. I also posted that one-image blog about it below. 

The drawing is the standard gouache and ink on paper bag affair that I have been into for a while now. I've been drawing trees for a long while and have experimented with incorporating stumps here and there. I've done sketches of similar trees growing from stumps in the old sketchbooks and this seemed like a good opportunity to put it out there as a final drawing. I really like the symbolism of the stump, and then with new growth. I see it in the yard all the time, except usually only with plants that I'm trying to kill. The plants I want to thrive die and the plants I want to kill keep rising from the dead. It's a new tree, but still the same tree.

I think it works in the context of "Regime Change" with the simple application of this symbol to the American presidential administration changing this year. American pride (or whatever) seems all chopped down, but here it begins to grow anew. Frankly, that's pretty thin, but it works good enough for me. 

Here are some images from the days of sketchbook past. This was before I realized that trees tend to create new growth from the outside, rather than right in the center of the rings.

Also at Swarm this evening is the opening of our buddy John Casey's solo exhibition, "Distant Cousins". Should be fantastic. There are also great shows from several other pals opening tonight all over the city. You see, this is why having everybody wanting to do their thing on First Friday can be a problem. With that in mind, Rowan Morrison will be having their next opening, "Small Ruins" by Hannah Henry, tomorrow (Saturday) night. Here is a little preview image of part of John Casey's installation in progress: