OBEY in Cincinnati and Print Collection Vol. 6

For months I have been wanting to see the current Shepard Fairey exhibit that has been making its was cross country, and this weekend I will get the chance. I thought about going to check it out at the Warhol,(since this past year would have been my 3rd bi-annual pilgrimage) but time and money didn't allow it. My family and I will be spending a day in the Newport/Cinci area to check out among other things, the Supply and Demand show at the Contemporary Art Center. It closes August 22nd I think, and I was afraid that with all of the things going on in my life right now financially, and personally, that I wouldn't get the chance to see it when it was going to be at its closest. So I am sure there will be more to report when I get back on Monday.

Did you see the image above? It is quite a coincidence that I am going to Cinci this weekend to see this show because according to the Obey website, Saturday the 7th is the release of a new print on the occasion of the closing of the show. It is printed on canvas too, much like the current string of Obey print releases. Hopefully it won't sell out in 24 hours and I can add another Obey print to my print collection, and have a nice souvenir of my trip to Cincinnati and seeing the show.

The last time I was in Cincinnati, I was working, and ended up going to a great record store called Shake-It records. They were selling concert posters by a company called Powerhouse Factories (WWW.PHFDESIGN.com). It was a tough call because a lot of the posters were very well designed and printed, but I didn't like the bands, while others were bands I liked, but the design work was not as impressive as some of the other posters. I think I found a happy medium and got a Matt and Kim poster. It has a pretty basic-yet solid design and great colors. The layers are not too complex, and the colors are pretty much laid down one on top of the other without having to wonder how they will overlap, and what the sense of space will feel like. One of my favorite parts of this piece is that it fit perfectly into a frame without it being custom made. This so rarely happens.

New Shepard Fairey Print

Shepard Fairey is releasing a new print on the 13th of someone very special to us Louisville folks. Muhammad Ali! Very cool image. It looks like Shepard is heading back towards a more rough style with his prints. It seemed like everything done around the time of the Obama poster was very clean and looked very digitally put together. This print has a mixture of both, the dripping background but still has the look of digitally separated cleanness. If I had $70 I would totally buy this print!

I feel like I kind of owe anybody out there who reads this thing an apology. I've kind of been out of it for the past few weeks in regards to keeping up with this blog. There hasn't been too much to report in my personal art life, and I haven't kept up with the art blogs much.

I pretty much moved back to Louisville from Nashville and went right back into working retail full time, and trying to recover financially from the 2 months of free work at the internship. I sold some comic books, my drums, cashed in some savings bonds, and worked about 40 hours a week since I've gotten back and I am still barely staying afloat with my bills. Student loans man, Student loans.

But in art news, I did go to the grand opening of Louisville's own local letterpress shop Hound Dog Press. Very new looking materials and they had a show of contemporary letterpress work which was very cool. They have a couple of small presses in the shop and I don't think they do too much other than invite sized work, but it is still exciting to think that the move to the new location could bring them the business they need to upgrade to a Vandercook proofing press.

I'm Going Back To Cinci

Shepard Fairey's Supply and Demand Retrospective in Cincinnati!

Let's GO!!

Creator of Famous Obama Image Disappointed in Obama

FROM THE OBEY WEBSITE HERE

---------------------------------Happy holidaze----------------------------

The escalation in Afghanistan, the weak health care reform, detainee abuse not being shared with the public… on a number of issues I’m very disappointed in Obama. I hate being in a position where I’ll either be characterized as having “turned” on Obama for speaking out, or for being a “brainwashed cheerleader” if I give him more time to get it together. The last thing I want is to do is de facto strengthen the Republican’s position by attacking Obama, but I think he needs to be pushed. I don’t think Obama is a bad human being, I just think he is not being brave enough. In some regards I think Obama is just the messenger, letting us know he’s caved in to corporate and political forces we have all done too little to keep in check. I must qualify that by saying SOME people like Robert Greenwald and his Brave New Films team and MoveOn.org have certainly done their part to make righteous efforts. I’m disillusioned with the whole two party system. I’m baffled by some of Obama’s moves and many of the Democratic party’s moves. I’m confident that only campaign finance reform and vigorous participation from citizens, not corporations will change things for the better. Let’s all turn our dissatisfaction into positive action… talk-action=0.

Happy day of good will and peace on earth from a proud agnostic humanitarian. If a god made all this, he or she was quite mischievous if not mean-spirited.

-Shepard

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