NYU Comix Culture Video

Lookie lookie!
I'm featured in this video story about New York Comix Culture, along with other Brooklyn artists like Dean Haspiel! It aired on NYU last week and apparently it's getting vetted by CNN on ireport soon. Written and produced by Lisa Qiu. And please excuse the fact I'm wearing a very unprofessional-looking tube top! I had a terrible sunburn and was dousing myself in aloe...



I'll post some more drawings next week, I promise!

Currently Reading: (audiobook) Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

Cr(n)ude Drawing follow up...New York Times!

My Cr(n)ude Drawing event at HiChristina last week was FEATURED IN THE NEW YORK TIMES! They wrote a lovely article which you can read here. And here is the photo they feature...

Before living in New York I never could have thought that I would be part of such an distinctly artsy Lower East Side scene, let alone hosting it! I talked about different artistic styles for folks to experiment with and provided a variety of art materials for folks to use both on paper or on skin. Here are some pics, please pardon the pink censoring hearts...

We were lucky enough to have a couple talented musicians giving us a soundtrack...

And the models rotated as human canvases...


Here's one of the works on paper. This one made by Ben X. Trinh...

Here are all of us models together...

And before sharing all our drawings in a casual critique, we took things outside...running around Eldridge Street! Fritz and Christina (who run HiChristina!) are starting to wash themselves off in this picture...

This event was also selected as a Critics' Pick by TIME OUT New York. And you can see MORE PICTURES from the event in the Facebook photo album.

In other news....
This week I had ANOTHER cameo in the New York Times! I was pictured in the style section with my friend Jules at a Dances of Vice Party. The article was about Shien Lee who organizes DOV, you can see it here.

Currently Listening: Mumford & Sons...Sigh No More

Rooftop Photo Shoot

A couple weeks ago, 2nd Skin (me and my friend Matt) got to do an amazing photo shoot on an East Village rooftop with photographer Robert Feliciano! Talk about a nice way to spend a beautiful springtime afternoon. You can see more pics on Flickr.




....and here in this photo I have absolutely NO idea what a bad sunburn I am getting!


Currently Reading (audiobook): When You Are Engulfed in Flames by David Sedaris

Next week: Cr(n)ude Drawing

Hear ye, hear ye!
Next week I'll be hosting an amazing event at HiChristina!

Cr(n)ude Drawing
Before the internet teenagers used to sneak into libraries and scour the picture books for a glimpse of nudity. But imagine if instead of flipping through the dry pages of an art history text, you could turn to Joe's back or Amanda's neck to see the work of art. Not tatooage but paint ON THE BODY!

Draw on a pad of your own nice white paper or choose one of the many shades of skin to be your canvas tonight. Volunteer to model with the HiChristina Pros or just come to draw, or do both.

I will be your hostess and will lead you through three different drawing phases: realist/cartoonist, cubist/abstract, and dada/surrealist. Expect novel and strange poses inspired by the ghosts of art history's past.

HiChristina!
Thursday April 22nd 8:00pm
163 Eldridge Street
(just north of Delancey in the LES)
BYOB $20
Event on Facebook

Puppets & MOCCA

PUPPETS

Back in the summer you might have heard me talk about helping out with some puppet stuff, but I never showed any photos because my puppetmaster friends Matt Lesser and Adam Jones were keeping everything under wraps for a while. Well, the time for show-and-tell has come! The photography is by our talented friend Aaron Epstein.

I was helping operate the puppets for photos to be used in a TV pilot pitch STUFFED. To see more pictures check out the facebook album. This was super fun to hang out with puppets all over Wiliamsburg! These particular puppets are Red, The Cleaner, Cecil, and Licky.




And I also painted the set for Emo's room...


MOCCA

This weekend I went to the MOCCA festival (Museum of Comic & Cartoon Art) which is like the more indie version of ComicCon for those of you outside New York. Guests included Frank Miller, Jamie Hernandez, and David Mazzucchelli. Next year I'll be promoting my book there, so this year I could just relax and enjoy all the fun comics and artists!



Currently Listening: The Best of Echo & the Bunnymen

Paige Report

How is my graphic novel coming? Well, I'm...



(Click images to see larger)

Currently Listening: Jónsi...Go

Art History Pub Quiz

This past week I was a guest quizzer for the visual round of the Rocky Sullivan's famous pub quiz, hosted by Sean Crowley. Since I was asking questions about art history, I tried to keep the questions pretty mainstream.

If you'd like to test YOUR knowledge I invite you to give my quiz a try! I hope you find it amusing and informative...

QUESTIONS:

1. Filmmakers often make nods to the visual artists who inspire or amuse them. Tell me what film these stills are from from and what artist the filmaker was directly referencing.



2. What artists said these following 5 quotes:
1* “Everyone will be famous for 15 minutes.”
2* “I donʼt do drugs. I am drugs.”
3* “I saw the angel in the marble and carved it until I set him free.”
4* “My garden is my most beautiful masterpiece.”
5* “You know what hip-hop has done with the word 'n*****' - I'm trying to do that with the word vandalism, bring it back.”

3. The art world has had their share of power couples. Iʼll show you a painting by a famous artist, you will name this artist AND their significant other.



4. The Mona Lisa is universally agreed to be the most valuable painting in the world. It was insured for $100 million back in 1962. So how much would that be now?
a. $350 million
b. $470 million
c. $540 million
d. $670 million

5. In 1917 Marcel Duchamp signed WHAT object and placed it in art show as a “readymade”, establishing it as one of the most influential artworks of the 20th century. Bonus if you can tell me what name he signed on it.

6. Art vandals have been known to stab, spray paint, urinate on, and shoot at famous works of art. This painting was vomited on in 1996 by Jubal Brown (a Canadaian art student) after eating colored gelatin and cake icing. Tell me what artist created this painting and what color was the vomit.

7. Vincent Van Gogh once said that he’d exchange ten years of his life for the opportunity to gaze at this painting for a fortnight. It’s called “The Jewish Bride" and it currently hangs in Amsterdam's Rijksmuseum. Tell me the name of the artist who created it. Bonus point if you can name this painter’s HUGE 12 x 14 foot masterpiece that hangs down the hall, which is perhaps his best known work.

8. In 1937 Hitler declared war...on art. He confiscated 5000 Modernist artworks from German museums that were considered too non-German and displayed many of them in the now notorious Degenerate Art Show. (Modernist art includes Dada, Cubism, Expressionism, Fauvism, Surrealism, Impressionism...) Name up to 5 artists whose work was confiscated, ridiculed, or banished from Germany at the time because they were considered “Degenerate.”

9. Individual Question! (first person to guess it right got a free drink) Zoos have started selling the artwork created by their animal occupants to raise funds, perhaps most famously by elephants. This painting here was made by an animal artist named Pinto at the Brookfield Zoo outside of Chicago. What animal is Pinto? (Hint: the type of animal also starts with the letter P)


ANSWERS:

1. Labyrinth...MC Escher.
Rocky Horror Picture Show...Grant Wood.
Psycho....Edward Hopper. (I find this connection really interesting...)

2. Quotes: Andy Warhol, Salvador Dali, Michelangelo, Claude Monet, Banksy

3.Friday Kahlo/ husband was Mexican painter Diego Rivera)
Jackson Pollock/ wife was abstract expressionist Lee Krasner)
Georgia O' Keefe/ husband was photographer/art promoter Alfred Steiglitz)

4. D: $670 million...WOW!

5.Duchamp signed a urinal as "R. Mutt" (The piece was titled "Fountain")

6. Piet Mondrian, blue vomit

7. Rembrandt, "The Night Watch" (which has actually been attacked by vandals with a bread knife and with acid)

8. The more famous degenerate artists included Pablo Picasso, Vincent van Gogh, Salvador Dalí, Marc Chagall, Henri Matisse, Max Ernst, Paul Klee, Fernand Léger, Juan Miró, Wassily Kandinsky, Piet Mondrian, Kurt Schwitters, Käthe Kollwitz's, Edward Munch, Ernst Kirchner, Max Beckmann...to learn more click here.

9. Pinto was a pig! (a Yucatan miniature pig to be exact)


Currently Listening: Peter Gabriel...Scratch My Back