Tiago DeJerk's Roller Derby paste up.

Just posted a batch of pics from Stencilada's install and Saturday grill out. I was busy running around and taking care of things so didn't pull out the camera much. Hope to post more pics from a few other people soon.

Thanks again for a great unveiling!

No joke here. Finally uploading over a month's worth of submissions and personal photos. Have another batch on the way, mostly from the Stencilada unveiling here in San Francisco.

From Europe:

• Baloo (AT)
• MO PI exhibit photos
• Germany (thanks bender)
• Poland
• Croatia

From elsewhere:

• A1one
• SOT (Iran)
• DRI with MDE (Brazil)

From USA:

• DC
• CA
• MA
• NYC (thanks Jon for the great 80s stencil)
• SC
• TN (thanks blamb)
• VT
• Tiago
• SWOON (great piece here in SF)

From San Francisco:

• Stencilada
• Mission Dist.
• Valencia St.
• Financial Dist. 

Hope to see some of you on the road this Spring and Summer. Onward to days of uncertainty and sketchiness. Onward to days of more stencil art!

Stencil Nation California +1 Spring Tour 2009

≈≈≈≈APRIL≈≈≈≈ 10 (Fri) at 7:30pm:: Northtown Books, Arcata, CA 15 (Wed) at 7:30pm:: CounterPULSE, SoMa, San Francisco, CA 17 (Fri) at 7:30pm:: Avid Reader, Davis, CA 19 (Sun) at 2pm:: Avid Reader, Sacramento, CA 21 (Tue) at 7:30pm:: Booksmith, Upper Haight, San Francisco, CA 26 (Sun) at 2pm:: Rock Paper Scissors, Oakland, CA (presentation and workshop) 29 (Wed) at 7pm:: SWIV Tackle Circus, Oceanside, CA 30 (Thur) at 6pm:: Groundwork Books, UC San Diego, CA

Three days only!

Please join PIXNIT Productions for a full day of events at the ICA!

(BOSTON) The Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA) and Boston Chapter of the AIGA, the professional association for design, present “Design as Social Agent,” a daylong event on Saturday, April 4 from 10 am to 5 pm. Bringing together speakers from the fields of design, street art, music and politics, the event frames Shepard Fairey’s work within the context of grassroots civic action, punk rock and 80’s graffiti and skate culture. A series of presentations, conversations and gallery talks will explore how concepts of appropriation, plagiarism, legality and process have been exploded.

Tickets for each of the five main stage talks are $25 or $15 for ICA and AIGA members as well as students and seniors. Ticket holders will have free access to additional programs, including gallery talks, and presentations in the Bank of American Art Lab on a first-come first-served basis. In addition, anyone who purchases tickets to all five main stage talks will receive free admission to an upcoming ICA public talk or AIGA program, subject to availability. Tickets can be purchased at www.icaboston.org or by calling (617) 478-3103.

Main stage Talks in the Barbara Lee Family Foundation Theater

10 am Culture and Resistance
With Kevin Grady, Caleb Neelon, Vanessa Platacis (Project Director for PIXNIT Productions) and Elizabeth Resnick

Shepard Fairey's work distills many elements, drawing from the seemingly distinct worlds of music, skate culture, street art, graphic design, and fine art. Designer Kevin Grady, and Boston- based street artists Caleb Neelon and Vanessa Platacis (Project Director for PIXNIT Productions) provide a cultural orientation to frame Fairey's work, while designer, design curator and author Elizabeth Resnick explores how his work fits into a diverse and powerful history of dissent in design.

11:30 am Elegant Dissent and Anarchy
With Elliot Earls

Designer Elliott Earls presents his perspective on establishment and anarchy. How does one visualize dissent? It can take the form of a sophisticated challenge to dominant ideologies- political, religious, or cultural-or the opposite: an anti-establishment counterculture with no message. How are people responding to or acting on these images? Are designers defined by a "design canon" which determines the way they operate? Should they look beyond traditional sources of inspiration or court contradiction and chaos to produce relevant, resonant, and prescient design?

12:45 pm The Obama Effect: What Art Did for Advertising
With Pete Favat and Nicholas Blechman

“OBEY GIANT" and the subsequent "Obama HOPE" poster catapulted Fairey's work into the worlds of politics, corporations, and the mainstream media. These images were consumed and disseminated by people across the globe with startling voracity, and the establishment changed their thinking and their strategies for communicating with people previously "unreachable." Pete Favat, Arnold Advertising's Chief Creative Officer, and Nicholas Blechman, Nozone designer and New York Times Book Review art director, discuss how guerrilla marketing has taken hold and what it means for the way artists, designers, and the media operate.

Much thanks to the Metal Shop at CELLspace for hardware install, spigot move, and an amazing Metal Mural to accent!

Thanks to Chris Benfield for helping out, Flora Bora for encouragement, and all the artists for their time and talent! Mando, Victor, Tiago, Dave X, and other CELL peeps pitched in in various ways as well. Oh, muralist Mona Caron gave great advice on coating the panels, and Lily and Dia have expressed interest to be the next artists lined up to paint murals on the CELL walls.

The grill gets set up around 1pm today and we'll hand out food while it lasts. If you come later, bring your own and we'll throw it on the fire!

Now What by James S. Cell panel art by Hugh D'Andrade, stencils by Russell Howze For the Win by Crystal Townsend

Graffiti judged low priority in S.F.

C.W. Nevius

Saturday, March 28, 2009

Five years ago, Gideon Kramer was thrilled to be appointed to San Francisco's graffiti advisory board.

"I really thought I could make a difference," the graphic designer and 30-year city resident said Friday.