See Kim's Art at the Annual Postcard Show

It's time for the annual Postcard show at The Lab (2948 16th Street in the old Labor Temple building in the Mission). Every year The Lab rings their gallery with bins filled with small artworks by dozens of local artists ranging from $1 - $50, to give people access to inexpensive original art for holiday gifts (or whatever).

This year I've gotten into veggie drawings and watercolors, and will have those plus some other graphics, like the floral collage on the left. I get so busy with other things, that I really appreciate this chance to get some small pieces of my own out there. The show opens the evening of 12/4 and goes through the weekend.

Documentary - 24 Pages

24 Pages is a 15 minute documentary that follows what happens during 24 Hour Comic Day, an international challenge where an artist of any background must complete a 24 page comic, written, drawn and inked, within 24 hours. Filmed October 3 & 4, 2009 in San Francisco at the Comic Outpost and Mission Comics and Art by Gary Buechler (co-owner of Comic Outpost).

Once Upon a Dream at the Cartoon Art Museum

Once Upon a Dream: the Art of Sleeping Beauty - Cartoon Art Museum, San Francisco (July 18, 2009 – January 10, 2010).

This excellent exhibition at the Cartoon Art Museum celebrates the 50th anniversary of the release of Disney’s visual masterpiece Sleeping Beauty. On display are concept paintings, model sheets, cels, production drawings, color keys, photos and other ephemera that tell the story of the making of Sleeping Beauty from design concept through the finished film. Sleeping Beauty was a Disney milestone: a Technorama 70, 6-channel stereophonic vision of the Perrault fairy tale that took over five years and $6 million to make. Stunning as it was visually, the film cost so much to make that it lost money when it was released in 1959, even though its box office take was only beaten by Oscar-winner Ben Hur. The film had a comeback with the 1979 & 1986 reissues, when it finally took its place among the rest of Disney’s classic (and money-making) films.

Unlike many Disney features, the visual style of Sleeping Beauty was driven primarily by one man, supervising color stylist/inspirational sketch artist Eyvind Earle. Earle was a painter and greeting card designer that was hired at Disney in 1951. Earle painted backgrounds and concept paintings for shorts like The Little House and Toot, Whistle, Plunk, and Boom and the features Peter Pan and Lady and the Tramp. When Walt Disney decided he wanted to do something with a completely unique look, he took a chance on Earle, and gave him unprecedented control over the project.

Earle created a “medieval tapestry” inspired by the paintings of Durer, Van Eyck, Breughel, and 15th century French illuminated manuscripts, especially the Tres Riches Heures de Jean, Duc de Berri, as well as Persian miniatures and Japanese art. Another influence was the minimalist, streamlined style of 1950’s graphic design. Many of Earle’s concept and background paintings are featured in this exhibit. I was spellbound by the contrast of the stylized sharp angles, rich color palette, and dense detail work. At one point in the exhibit, there is a concept drawing by Mary Blair for the cover of a Sleeping Beauty storybook, and it’s interesting to contrast Blair's whimsical style with Earle's, and imagine how different the film would have looked based on Blair’s designs.

Many of the animators, which included the famous Nine Old Men and Production Designer Ken Anderson, were concerned that the backgrounds were too cold for a romantic comedy and that the detailed backgrounds would swallow the characters. This struggle is mapped out in a series of model sheets and character concept sketches that show the amount of work that went into finding character and costume designs that would stand out against Earle’s grandiose backgrounds. Of particular interest in this section of the exhibition were drawings of Princess Aurora, who was loosely based on Audrey Hepburn. The princess presented special problems as she has only 18 minutes of screen time to establish herself as the sympathetic heroine before she's fated to meet up with that nasty spinning wheel and sleep through the rest of the film. On top of that, she is living in the forest when the character is introduced, and is dressed in a muted wardrobe that echoes the natural surroundings. The drawings show the character's progression from forest maiden to a princess regally attired in blue or rose colored gowns. Also of interest were different versions of the 3 good fairies, a photo sheet of Maleficent’s two-horned “devil” headdress from every conceivable angle (the animators had a really hard time drawing it), and photos of the "live cast" who acted out the characters for the animators, enabling them to achieve more realistic movement in their drawings.

Much of the work featured in this show is drawn from the collection of Ron Dias, a Disney artist/illustrator whose first professional job in the animation industry was as an in-betweener and clean-up animator on Sleeping Beauty. Dias went on to become one of the most highly-regarded and sought-after background artists and color stylists in the business. The exhibition includes a spotlight section with a selection of Dias’ own work, such as background paintings and color concepts from The Secret of Nimh, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, and The Little Mermaid.

Photo: Production cel of the evil witch Malificent (animated by Mack Davis) and a concept drawing of Sleeping Beauty's castle by Eyvind Earle, courtesy of the Cartoon Art Museum.

Beyond High & Low in the IJOCA

My article Beyond High & Low: How Comics & Museums Learned to Co-Exist, has been published in the Fall 2009 edition of the International Journal of Comic Art. Thank you John Lent, for finding my piece on the "paper table" at PCA/ACA New Orleans last year and inviting me.

Beyond High & Low is about art world politics, modernism, and how The Comic Art Show (Whitney, 1983), MoMA's High & Low (1990) and Masters of Comics (2005) built on and responded to each other, as well as a few lesser known shows and some exhibition strategies. Since I wrote this article, I've done extensive research and interviews about The Comic Art Show. This was the show that brought Art Spiegelman, John Carlin, Brian Walker and Ann Philbin together, and helped launch Sheena Wagstaff's career, as well as being the first show to display comic art and fine art as equal works in New York museum setting. I was beginning this research when I presented at SDCC in July, and will be presenting on the finished paper at PCA/ACA in St. Louis in March.

IJOCA articles are not published on line. If you like, you can download a pdf on my art consulting page (below the slideshow). If you are interested in a hard copy or subscribing to the IJOCA, their site is here.

The Genesis of R. Crumb's Genesis

This Halloween, Marc and I went to see R. Crumb, in SF to discuss and promote his epic illustrated work The Book of Genesis. Presented at the JCCSF’s intimate Kanbar Hall, the format was “a conversation” between Crumb and New Yorker art editor/author/publisher Françoise Mouly. Half biography and half discussion of the new work, a frank and often humorous exchange between the two old friends followed.

As this image of Crumb at 13 was projected behind them (thanks artolog for posting this photo), Crumb told the story of how he lost his front tooth in that photo. He said he’d seen an older boy flinging large pieces of cinderblock over a wall and thought, “If anyone was over on the other side of that wall, they could be hurt.” Before he knew it, he found himself on the other side of the wall, and sure enough, he was hit in the mouth with a piece of concrete. He went on to talk about how he began drawing, and the influence of early New Yorker cartoons.

Crumb told many stories about the evolution and making of the Genesis project, which he originally estimated would take him a year and a half, and instead took four years of intensive work and study. The story of the “begats” was particularly funny, as Crumb decided that each descendant needed to have an individual portrait. “If it was just a block of text,” he said, “people would skip right over it.” The “begats” were an important element of Genesis, he explained, because this was how people traced the origins of the tribes, possibly going back to the oral storytelling tradition.

In a discussion of how the illustrated Genesis came to be published, Crumb mentioned Denis Kitchen, and said that Kitchen called him and said, “Norton will give you a big advance for your Genesis book.” Crumb said he was excited by the deal and the money, but his enthusiasm faded as he realized how much work it was really going to be. I asked Denis Kitchen about this and he told me the following story:

“The background is that in 1998 I was visiting Crumb in the south of France when I was still the publisher of Kitchen Sink Press. I generally made an annual trip there to discuss upcoming projects. We talked about a variety of things, mainly his Devil Girl candy that was especially popular for us at the time. But then I asked him if there was any project he’d really like to do that, for whatever reason, he hadn’t. He told me he had been thinking about doing Genesis. That surprised me, but I shared his fascination with the stories in the Old Testament and encouraged it. We left with a handshake on it... But that year my company, after thirty years, was seriously struggling and there was no practical way to take on the Genesis project. By the start of 1999 Kitchen Sink Press was under and I reinvented myself as, among other things, a literary agent.

In 2004 I had a lunch meeting in New York with my agency partner and an editor at a major house who happened to inquire about what R. Crumb was up to. “I’d love to do something with him,” he said. I mentioned the aborted Genesis project and his eyes lit up. “Oh, I’d jump on that one,” he said. He said it with such relish that I had to call Robert to see if he was still up for the notion. “

Kitchen went back to Crumb and the two of them outlined a deal that Crumb felt he could commit to. With this information in hand, Kitchen “went back to his partner and we decided to hold a mini-auction with three target publishers. W. W. Norton came back with the highest bid. When I passed along the news, he was pleasantly surprised, we formalized the deal, and he began to clear his schedule. Ultimately Genesis was a grueling task, requiring much more research and time, something he periodically blamed me for, and it ultimately took him over four years to complete. But, in a strange way, this could also end up his magnum opus ---it’s by far his single most unified work, and one with probably the widest appeal. And, ironically, given the longstanding sexual and racial controversies over his underground comix work, his Biblical stories could end up the most controversial of all.” Kitchen could be right about the controversy, as excerpts of Genesis published in the New Yorker generated many irate letters from readers. Crumb delighted in these and read several to the audience.

The audience itself was actually pretty interesting, as this was Halloween night in San Francisco. At one point during the Q&A period, an athletic blonde Amazon, perfectly attired in a “Crumb Girl” outfit (braless, tank top, short Catholic girl plaid skirt and low heeled pumps) appeared at the microphone to ask her question. When Crumb invited her up on stage to show off her costume, she bounded up on stage, loomed over him (he was sitting) and said “Now that I’ve seen you, I don’t know if I should ask a question or give you a piggyback ride.” She finally leaned over him and asked her question directly into his mic, and was he was visibly overwhelmed. As the next person asking a question said, “I really don’t know how to follow that…”

... the Garden Grows at Dominican University

Went to the opening reception for Karrie Hovey's show ... the Garden Grows at Dominican University (San Rafael, CA) last night. It was absolutely gorgeous: gardens, bamboo forests and other "natural" environments created from an astonishing array of recycled materials. According to Hovey she used primarily "plastics, paper, cardboard and display materials that have been cast aside by retailers ... upon closer examination the construction materials emerge to reveal their origins in the brand name goods we recognize and covet."

Included in the show was a wall of "violets" Hovey created while doing an artist residency in Spain. "I was surprised they had such pretty lavender and purple trash bags over there," she said with a smile, "all we get here is black and white." We were happy to see a good turn out for this lovely show in spite of the horrible traffic caused by the temporary closure of the Bay Bridge (grr... arg... thanks for driving, Denise).

There's an artist talk, Wednesday, November 4, 2:30 - 4:00 p.m. The show is installed at the San Marco Gallery, Alemany Library at Dominican. Hours: Monday - Thursday: 8:00 a.m. - 10:30 p.m.Friday and Saturday: 9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. Sunday: 2:00 - 10:30 p.m through December 23. Directions: www.dominican.edu/directions info: 415-485-3251 event page with installation photos on facebook.

Yerba Buena Gallery Walk 09

The annual Yerba Buena Free Gallery Walk was this past Saturday (11/24) in San Francisco. This year 14 SOMA galleries opened their doors and provided drinks and munchies to wandering art lovers. SF photographer Wendy Crittenden joined me in having a look at about 80% of them.

We started at SF institution Crown Point Press and once we dragged ourselves away from their addictive bookstore, we found lots of interesting art. Among the works on display was a special exhibition by London based painter Tomma Abts, who had done a two week residency at CCP in the fall. Her etchings with color aquatint were gorgeous.

From CCP, we went downstairs to 871 Fine Arts, who had a special exhibition of paintings, watercolors and books by June Felter. We oooed and ahhed over a lot of her work. She often did still lives that include a newspaper open to a comic strip in the middle of the table, in this case Calvin & Hobbes, although I’ve seen pieces that feature Krazy Kat and other strips.

Around the corner from these two galleries was the Sculturesite Gallery which featured a joint show of works by Bella Feldman and JP Long. Neither Wendy nor I had ever been to this gallery before, and we were impressed by the range of sculptural works on display both inside and out in the courtyard.

Next we worked our way through the cluster of galleries around Mission and 3rd Street. We stopped at Chandler Fine Art and Baer Ridgeway across from SFMOMA. At BR, we enjoyed Brendon Lott’s quirky oil paintings, and were fascinated with the sound/film installation by Maurico Ancalmo in the downstairs gallery (still on the left). In the center of the room was a sculpture constructed from old film projectors, which cast 3 movies amongst the stills. Alternating between a group of traditional African singers and footage of classical pianist Vladimir Horowitz, we were both taken by the contrast. We also loved their bookstore! A great selection of artist made books in all price ranges.

Catherine Clark Gallery was host to Sandow Birk’s impressive American Qur’an series, an ongoing project to hand-transcribe and illuminate the Holy Qur'an with scenes from contemporary American life. These are intricately detailed and colorful, sometimes humorous and sometimes heartbreaking. There were also a few works from Birk’s Disasters of War series, commenting on the Iraq War (with a nod to Goya, of course).

We were blown away by the exhibition upstairs at SF CameraWorks, An Autobiography of the San Francisco Bay Area - Part 1: San Francisco Plays Itself. Wendy and I both agreed that it was one of the best we had seen there. I’d like to point out 2 artists doing work on labor themes that really stood out: Jona Franks Uniforms series (photos of workers in uniform immediately after finishing their shift) and Ken Light’s mid-1970’s series of workers in heavy industry.

We had a look at Topher Delaney’s model train installation at the UC Berkeley Extension Art and Design Center Gallery, and then went on to the Modernism Gallery. The featured artist in the front gallery was Jerry Kearns, whose large acrylic paintings depicting Jesus in ironic situations really cracked us up. Here is his Lowland Drifter ( 2008, acrylic on canvas, 72 x 112) on the left. Among the other works on display were some by Kasmir S. Malevich, and a selection of small works by Le Corbusier. We were most fascinated, however with the gallery office, which was basically a large desk ringed with towering stacks of art books. Reminded me of home, although we are a little better at hiding the piles (ignore all that research piled in laundry baskets under the dining room table…). After this we toasted the Pied Piper mural at Maxfield’s (Sheraton Palace) and fortified ourselves with wine and cheese.