Design
What do Designer Trevor O'Neil, Architect Mark Verwoerdt, Illustrator Aaron Miller and Painter Michael O'Briant have in common? TOJO Gallery.
During the group show opening night reception on the evening of June 5, O'Neil will unveil his most recent furniture piece; Verwoerdt - one of Chicago's hottest architects, will share his eye for truly raw material with his drawings and portraits; and Illustrator Aaron Miller will exhibit his illustrations for the first time in more than ten years. Round out the four-strong artistic Chicago force with the paintings of Michael O'Briant, and collectors and dealers should expect to experience some serious aesthetic "Va-Va" in front of the VOOM.
Good friends of mine, Greg and Jim Zimmer from Grid Gallery, are doing a collaboration project with Mike Genovese and will be unveiling it Friday March 14th at their gallery space. Beverages will be flowing. Limited edition prints and merchandise will be available.
Someone cue up that naughty Blue Danube Waltz - played at double speed thank you very much. Galactic Suite aims to get a jump, or launch as the case may be, on the space tourism industry we were all promised back in the 70's. Their target date is 2012, a seemingly ambitious goal when you consider that they're intending to develop the spaceport, spaceship and spaceresort.
While it sounds like a really cool idea, I have to wonder what the insurance waiver will look like. I guess when you've got $4 million to spend on a vacation (complete with tropical-island based training) then you can afford to have your attorney give the waiver a once-through. Meanwhile, I'm still waiting for the Jet Pack I was promised.
Tally Ho!
I recently gave the "opening speech" for a show and book signing by artist, "low-brow" queen, illustrator, comic artist, poster artist, indy rocker and all-around Wunderfrau, Tara Mc Pherson. I'm posting it here because I think her artwork is great, crosses and ignores "important" borders, and because she and her colleagues have successfully and marvelously managed to create their own supportive artworld.
Tara McPherson, who comes from Los Angeles, California, lives in New York City in the US, is a painter, poster artist, comic artist, freelance Illustrator, toy designer, book author and more. The artist also plays bass in a band and loves tattoos. In short, she is a multi-tasking, immensely creative artist straddling the line between popular art and fine art. Or better said, totally ignoring that line, which is admirable.
A few months ago Dan Peterman and Connie Spreen hosted an open house at the still-under-construction Experimental Station, acknowledging the fifth anniversary of the predawn fire that left only a shell of brick from what was then mostly called "the Building," and which had formerly housed Ken Dunn's Resource Center and most recently served as Dan's studio and hosted a number of other community-based concerns.
I was surprised to learn it was only five years ago, April 2001. It seemed much more time had gone by. I remembered hearing about the fire from Stephanie Smith of the Smart Museum. She had just completed a project that featured Dan's work, and being on the south side, where the Building stood on the south edge of the University of Chicago's domain, she knew about it before most of the rest of us did. She wrote urgent letters to everyone she could think of who might help. Dan needed all that help, as apparently City of Chicago workers had showed up at 9 am the day of the fire with demolition permits in hand. Regardless of the cause of the fire, it seemed pretty clear someone wanted that place, and whoever that someone was had no idea of the integrity and tenacity of the admittedly ramshackle building's owners, Dan Peterman and his wife Connie Spreen. The help helped, but it was Dan and Connie that made the Experimental Station happen.
Rick Geary is an illustrator living in San Diego. Something about his work makes me chuckle. I've been a fan of line art for a long time - adept practitioners demonstrate a nice sense of economy. And yet, for such a low noise-to-signal ratio, good caricature works very much like language.
If you're behind on your gift giving like I always am, here's a nifty little site called Fantamos38000 that sells a wide variety of posters, including a large selection of Italian and Spanish horror-sleaze posters, as well as Hammer studio posters.
Find it HERE.
