come and see v 2

I was fortunate enough to be admitted into another art fair. This one is in Saugatuck, where the well-monied Chicago folks come for idyllic Michigan summers on the lake. Hopefully, I will make a chunk of change. And hopefully Will Gibbons and Anna Lisa Schneider will come visit me in my tent.

our venue is secured

phew. what a relief.
Gordie and I have officially secured a venue for ArtPrize. This is very good, because I was really starting to worry. We had been offered a spot right off the bat by a very strong venue, but those turds who shall remain nameless renegged on their offer, in a manner most unprofessional which wasted a lot of our precious time. That left me scrambling to find a new venue, from the less civilized western parts of Ireland, no less.
Fortunately for me, Gordie and I are both alumni of GRCC, and a former professor of ours hooked us up with some nice real estate on the library patio at Grand Rapids Community College. I like this venue because that patio is perched at the very top of the hill in Grand Rapids, so our piece is going to be set against a really great view of the city. And, although it is a little bit of a walk from the busiest parts of ArtPrize, school will be in session, so at the very least GRCC's 20,000 odd students will be exposed to it.
You can now view me and Gordie's proposal on the ArtPrize website here.

dispatch from Ireland

filed under inspiration,
I give you these

it's been awhile, hasn't it, team? I apologize. I've been frazzled getting ready for that art fair and now I'm overseas, so I haven't been as productive of late. I promise to do better when I get back from Ireland. I'm doing a wee bit of sketching here and there, but at the moment I am mostly trying to get inspired and calling that work.

here is a bit of the inspiration I have been finding here:

my booth is awesome.

Hey team,
remember that whole thing about me going to that exorbitantly expensive graduate school in the already expensive New York City?
Obviously, I need to work hard this summer to raise funds.
So today I participated in the Newaygo County Council for the Arts Fine Art Festival in Fremont, MI
. . . and it went well!

I had some trepidation about doing an art fair at first. I had never done one before, and I wasn't sure I would be able to recoup my investment. I had spent some money on fabric and yard-sale furniture and, of course, the entry fee. I was worried that it might be disappointing, because I wasn't sure anyone in Fremont would be interested in say . . . a pseudo-spiritual portrait of a filipino dude they have never met, and my Philistine mom had admonished me repeatedly that "nobody in Newaygo county will want a picture of a topless mermaid with a pirate jamming a pistol into her crotch!"
And since I had never done one before, I was a bit worried that I would look like a tool compared to the art fair pros I would be parked next to. My worries turned out to be unsubstantiated, and my booth looked awesome.

That's my booth.

I got a lot of really good compliments and only one old dude who told me that I was a sick individual and that my art gave him the creeps. I believe the best gem of the day though came from a woman who said she loved the paintings and asked where I had gone to school. When I told her I had just graduated from CCS she smiled, made a knowing face and said "I thought this didn't look like Kendall."There we have a bunch of my old prints looking for new homes.
And that is my ribbon for BEST IN SHOW. In addition to my modest sales, I won a modest cash prize for having been named Best in Show by the jurist, which will make a lovely feather in my cap for the old resume.

At the end of the day, I didn't get rich, but my investment was recouped and I passed out a lot of business cards to people in whose ears I put bugs about getting portrait commissions done by me. I also was able to leave a few of the pieces that didn't sell with NCCA who will place it in the gallery for the summer and try to sell it on consignment.

So remember team, recommend me for portrait commissions and other stuff, so I can pay my rent when I get to Brooklyn :)

fun with textures

Hey team,

as you may well know, I am entering ArtPrize with Gordon Zalewski of Legion Design. I would prefer not to get into the specifics of what we will be doing until all of the artists' proposals and registrations are finalized, but I can tell you that we will be screenprinting a lot of animal textures. Feathers, fur, scales, more feathers. SO here for your viewing pleasure: a preview of some feather patterns I have been inking.

come and see

Next Saturday (June 12th) I will have a booth at the Fremont Art Fair. I will be trying to unload some paintings from my senior wall, as well as linocut prints on fabric and the "illustrated furniture" I have secretly been working on in my mom's garage. You should come!

Also, some notes from the CCS Student Exhibition:
-Yesterday I went to campus to disassemble my senior wall. It was a wee bit sad.
- All my business cards were gone. I hope this is a positive indicator of interest in my stuff.
- I recieved a Faculty Merit Award for Zenstar Paradela. They choose only ten pieces in the department for that award.
- Scarecrow sold for a handsome sum. In fact, I outsold all my classmates in one fell swoop with that sale. Now I just need to find out who the buyer was so I can thank them and add them to the Christmas card list.
- I was able to trade The Medusa for a superdope illustration of dear friend Patrick Tausney that was executed by other dear friend and one of my favorite CCS illustration weenies, Brian Remillard.