Monkey's Paw

Its been awhile since my last update, I've just been working away on my upcoming show, working away on the comic and doing some other miscellaneous pieces... This friday at my favourite bookstore in the city, The Monkey's Paw, I'll be showing some of those miscellaneous pieces... A bunch of us designed shelf labels for the store, nothing too insane, but they were a lot of fun to make and I'm looking forward to the reception... Come by, look at some reaaaaally small drawings, browse through the stock of old, rare, and bizarre books...

Below is the press release and scans of what I drew...

Also, another update is coming soon, it will have some more drawings, new comic stuff, photos of piles of firewood that I chopped at my parent's cabin... Also, I just decided that I'm moving to New York in September for four months to work on the center piece of my upcoming show... I'll be there all autumn, if anyone wants to meet up or see the studio or whatever, email me cause I imagine I'll be a bit on the lonely side while I'm there...

Ok, here is the press release, I hope everything that I wrote makes sense, I just woke up a few minutes ago and my brain is still in idle...

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13 NOTABLE ARTISTS CREATE WORDLESS SIGNAGE FOR PECULIAR BOOKSHOP
July 23 - August 10
Reception: Friday, July 25, 5-9 p.m.

Next week, Toronto's most idiosyncratic secondhand bookshop hosts an unprecedented site-specific group art show: the Monkey's Paw Section Label Project.

Responding visually to the cultural content of an entire bookstore, 13 Toronto artists have created (very small) section labels for all 52 subject categories throughout the Monkey's Paw. Their work will be mounted on our shelves and on view from July 23 to August 10. A public reception will be held at the shop on Friday, July 25, from 5 to 9 p.m.
THE ARTISTS
All participants are regular visitors to the Monkey's Paw, and bring to the project first-hand knowledge of the shop's aesthetic and cultural bent. In style, they range from literalist illustrators to austere conceptualists; but all share a demonstrated fondness for whimsy, pathos, and subversion. They are:
Stephen Appleby-Barr
Katie Bethune-Leamen
Diane Borsato
Shary Boyle
Nicole Collins
Nicholas Di Genova
Kristan Horton
Michael Maranda
Olia Mishchenko
Jenn Murphy
Lauchie Reid
Derek Sullivan
Jacob Whibley
THE PROJECT
The Monkey's Paw differs from other bookshops in a number of ways, not least in its imaginative organization and complete lack of signage. Although the books on the shelves are carefully arranged by subject, the shelves themselves are not usually labelled. Nothing interrupts the organic flow of one section into the next, so browsing becomes an act of exploration and discovery: "bookshop as narrative."

The Section Label Project sets out to interpret, or re-interpret, that narrative. These thoughtful works add new dimensions of significance and mystery, and deepen the complexity of the relationship among books, browsers, and environment. They look damned cool, too.

All 52 section labels are available for purchase at a uniform price of $150 apiece. In addition, the Monkey's Paw is publishing a full-colour Section Label Project catalogue in the form of a limited-edition poster/shelf map. Both the original artwork and the catalogue will be offered for sale beginning Wednesday, July 23. We hope you can join us for this uncommon event

We remain,

The Monkey's Paw
1229 Dundas St. West
Toronto

416.531.2123

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Ok, here are the tags...sorry the scan is so bad, but it does get bigger if you click it...

Andrew Wilson Interview

My good friend and assistant Andrew Wilson was recently interviewed by his buddy Ben Dugas... I was in the room too so I say a few things, but I sorta come off as a tool... Its a good interview though, a couple shots of Andrew's art and a few shots of our studio... I think Ben really has a talent for this.... Anyway, check it out here!

GizMag

I have my work featured in the first issue of GizMag... here's the link...

the family is growing...

So its almost summer which means it's co-op student time... Last year Niki was my co-op, and we got along pretty well, so she's still working for me... This summer Bryce Huffman will be helping us in the studio, he's actually a bud of Niki's from school... He's been in a couple of times so far, he's a good dude and definitely has skills...



His first job was to dig through the garbage so Niki and I could take photos and laugh at him...




His work is good, I'll post a link once I figure out where he posts stuff...

My old bud Adam is helping me out in the studio for a bit too, he just moved back from Italy and has no cash, so he's building some stuff for me around the studio for the next couple of weeks... He used to assist me way back, around 5 years ago as a volunteer... I met him around the same time I met Andrew... I feel a bit weird about him helping me out around here, just cause he's way smarter and way more talented than me...



The family is growing in another way too... My cousin Sogna got married on Sunday... She and I are the two artists in the family, shes an amazing painter and photographer, so I feel especially close to her, and her new man is a great guy... Anyway, Congratulations Sogna and Jason...!

InquiringMind Feature

I was recently interviewed by my good friend and fellow artist Tyler Hilton.... The results of the interview have just been posted on InquiringMind Magazine, a pretty fantastic publication...

Check it out here.

recovery

Ugh...I had my last 2 wisdom teeth taken out on Friday.... Anyone who knows me personally has probably heard me recall the horror story of last time I tried to have my teeth removed... The doctor didn't get proper xrays, did not realize until he started that they were complicated and didn't actually know how to remove them, took about 3 hours of me being awake to take out half of one tooth, uh...it was really, really painful and scary...

Well, I finally gathered enough courage and money to try again, but this time the doctor I went to was awesome... i got knocked out, woke up once during the operation but was so messed up I didn't know what was going on anyway... The teeth were fused to my jaw, and the area around them was infected, so recovery has been a bit of a bitch so far, but its almost over... I have a scan of one of the teeth with a part of my jaw stuck to it, but I think its to gross to put on here... If you want to see something disgusting, email me and I'll send you the image...

Anyways,s that stuff is expensive, so I'm broke again, but Im almost always broke so it ain't no thing... I'm trying to work in the studio, but these painkillers are making it a little tough to get anything done...

Ah fuck it, I'm going to post that picture of the tooth, sorry if it grosses you out... Its the top one, the bottom one had to get smashed... Its all black and gross and shit, but it wasn't actually rotten, just really stained... oh man, I swear that all of my teeth don't look like this, if you ever meet me in real life, my teeth are all normal now...

I scanned it at 1800 dpi, so if you click it you can see lots of detail...



On a much less disgusting note, here is my new Road of Knives... it's entitled Double Suffocation...

in silent pursuit

Ok, so I'm back from Berlin, settled back into my studio, and I'm deep into working on my next solo show... It will be in September 2009 in NYC. I've started working on the centerpiece and I figure it will take about one year to finish... working everyday on one piece of paper is sort of weird... then there will be 18-27 smaller pieces I think, all black and white...I'm really excited about this next show, I've never had so much time to work on one body of work before...

Sooooo...that means this blog won't have tons of new art on it for awhile... I will be keeping up with my Road of Knives pages, I'll do mylars and a few art fair pieces on the side, but for the most part my work will be underwraps until next fall...

I'm still going to updated this blog with the other work I produce, some studio shots and anything else I can think of... But when you don't see very many new pieces on here, don't think I'm sleeping...

okok, here is my most recent Road of Knives page... things are picking up with the comic; Zak, Shawn, and I are going to exhibit it in October in NYC during Zak's solo exhibition...