Tag Archives: oakland

U.S.P.S.

I saw this artist’s first sticker just outside my house… the same speedbump signpost as our “remember: shame is a 4 letter word” sticker from Monday.  Recognize it? (Note yellow house in background.)

Since seeing this first one, I’ve seen other works by this artist all around West Oakland and Uptown.  I saw one the night of Art Murmur on the front of a stop sign (people more often slap stickers on the backs of traffic signs).  I saw several the other day on my ride down the Mandela Parkway greenbelt.

What’s cool about this artist’s stuff is that many of them are individual, original pieces of art.  He/she has a whole slew of stickers around that are hand drawn on various United States Postal Service labels (this one’s actually two), and then slapped up.  A unique little work of art with no reproduction involved.  I think this is so cool.

What’s also neat is to recognize an artist’s work as you move about town… I recognized other pieces by this same person after seeing only one because his/her style is very distinctive and he does a lot of faces similar to this one, with a wide square nose, oblong head, and various hats or hair.

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The use of thick lines and USPS labels also seems to be trademark.  Here’s the one I saw the night of Art Murmur…

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And for those of you who’ve made it this far and are twisted enough to notice or care, I’m fairly certain that’s chocolate frosting dripping off the stop sign, and not poo.

Stickem’ Up!

So I think the first time I even noticed sticker art, really noticed it… I mean, had an image stuck in my mind (no pun intended) and thought about it long afterwards, was during the Obey Giant campaign in the early 90’s, which made its way all the way to San Francisco from its origination in Providence, Rhode Island.  I had seen the stickers, stuck everywhere, for years.  It wasn’t until my friend Zak asked me if I knew what they were about, that I realized I had just assumed that “Obey Giant” was the name of a band and that these were promotional stickers for some rock group.  It had never crossed my mind that these might be art, and that the artist might be promoting something different than merchandise or an event…

As everyone now knows, Obey Giant was the creation of Shepard Fairey who achieved mass recognition and mainstream notoriety last year with his indelible incarnation of Barack Obama in red and shades of blue.  We’ve all seen it.  Fairey’s image became the publicly-but-not-politically-endorsed campaign image, and subsequently became the subject of a lawsuit regarding ownership rights of the original photographic portrait of Obama that Shepard used as his basis..  But I digress…

We were talking about stickers.

The Obey Giant stickers paired the word “Obey” with a graphic image of Andre the Giant, in stark black and white.  You can read all about the experiment in phenomenology that Shepard Fairey intended with this campaign, and more that you ever wanted to know about stickers in his essay on Sticker Art.  It begins…

“Sticker’s rule. When I pause to think about it, stickers have changed my life.“

And with that sentiment, I leave you with this lovely whimsical sticker, found along the Mandela Parkway bike route, which incidentally, was a great addition to my West Oakland neighborhood…

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Sticker Kick-off!

So last week I focused on murals, and believe me, there are many more to come… we haven’t even scratched the surface.  But I want to take a 180 this week and talk about the very different world of small-scale Sticker Art.

While murals can be produced by individual artists, more often they are the products of collaborative efforts, with students and community members coming together to contribute to large scale efforts under the direction of one or a few professional artists. They can take months or more in the planning & production, and often live on in the public space for years, even decades… note our “Oceanus” entry from last week, first produced over 30 years ago and still beautifying Claremont Avenue (with help from a restoration in 2003).

Stickers, on the other hand, are fast and inexpensive to produce… perfectly bite-sized projects for the solo artist.  They’re also easy to transport and affix in any number of places.  And compared to large scale murals, they have rather limited permanence (depending upon the materials used), and will often fade, disintegrate, or simply be removed within a relatively short period of time.

We’ll delve into more details as the week continues… how to make ’em, where to stick ’em, famous sticker artists, and more.  But for now, here’s my first entry:
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Someone graced the speed bump signpost outside my home with this one…  I love it!

It shows “2:AM” in the lower right-hand corner… don’t know if this signifies the artist somehow… these things are usually anonymous.

First Friday Frolic! ~ ART MURMUR

Ok… so I’m going to try something a little different for my post today. Instead of just focusing on one piece of art, we’re going to revisit all of the fun & fantastic happenings I experienced on my “first friday” last night… I’ll do this once a month and call it “First Friday Frolic!”

For starters, my girlfriend and I met at Flora for a drink. Flora is located in a gorgeous art deco building with stunning tile & faux-metal work, just across the street from the equally impressive Fox Theater (more on this in future posts…) Flora is, hands down, one of the (if not the) best restaurants in Oakland, and boy can they make cocktails! I had something called a Salt and Pepper which was a fantastic grapefruity concoction, rimmed with salt & pepper. YUM! My girlfriend had two cocktails (she is a lush) and was equally enthusiastic about both of hers. The bartenders are true artisans and it was educational and entertaining to watch as they shaked, stirred, strained, and dripped their delicious & beautiful elixers. We also had some small plate delectable snacks at the bar… and all I can say is, you simply must go.
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I had to duck out of Flora 1/2 way through my drink to ply my parking meter with quarters. Oakland meters are now functional until 8pm! Yes, you read that right, 8pm folks. It’s a drag, but hey… we need the cash. Don’t forget to feed those meters… I saw several tickets on cars last night.

On my way I walked past a slew of murals hung around a development site… they seem to be projects from various Art & Soul Festivals from years past. Really great stuff…
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I also made my way past the Great Western Power Company building which, I just learned, was converted into a rock climbing gym in early 2008. The building originates to the 1920’s and was a steam-powered generation plant into the 1930’s until it was bought out and decommissioned by rival PG&E.  Touchstone Climbing did a lovely job renovating the building, which adds to the growing list of historic revival buildings downtown.  The painted figures on the old smokestack are a relatively new addition… very cool! Didn’t I tell you Oakland was cool?

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Next it was on to the murmur… Art Murmur that is. Art Murmur as most folks know by now, is Oakland’s answer to San Francisco’s First Thursdays. First Fridays are way cooler…

We made our first stop into Mercury 20… highlights for me were the watery underworld abstracts upstairs (can’t find artist’s name), Mary V. Marsh‘s ink drawings on remants of old library cards, pieces of newsprint, etc., and finally the quirky and comical workings of Julie Alvarado… how can you not love a T-Rex playing the accordian? The music was quite good too… lovely stringed duo playing live.
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After that, we strolled on up to the clusterf&*! around Johansson Projects and Rock, Paper, Scissors. This is hipster central, where the real party is, though I’m not sure that’s the real draw of Art Murmur for me. There are a lot of talented artist’s in Oakland and I want to see what they’re doing. Of course, it’s fun to have cocktails at Flora first!

The alley between the two was full of artists plying their wares… some pretty cool stuff. But I have to say it was kind of hard to see stuff (or maybe I’m just old)… I think they need to string the alley with lights like on Belden Lane in San Francisco… give it that Euro-feel. It would be pretty!

I loved the work of artist Terri Saul. She had a little table of funky and beautiful paintings for really reasonable prices. If I hadn’t spent all my cash at Flora, I would have bought something. I will find her again…

We blasted through Mama Buzz and then passed this adorable little Art Cart on our way back to the car. They do art on the spot and have all kinds of supplies and little tables and chairs… it’s so cute! I feel a little guilty telling you that we did not stop and spontaneously make art. We should have. But we are old and we were tired.

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Oh.. I almost forgot to mention Luka’s. Luka’s is a staple. One of the first to brave the neighborhood which really didn’t exist a few years ago… there was just the Paramount and that was it. In fact, I remember the old Hofbrau that Luka’s is now housed in. Their food was terrible. I didn’t like it when my mom made corned beef, and I can’t say I like it when anyone else does either. But you went to the Hofbrau for the large cheap beers before shows at the Paramount. Now we are blessed to be able to get better beers, and much better food. Thank you Luka’s!