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Gold Cartridge: Behind the Motherboard

The  Gold Cartridge Show is upon us. It has been a long road with a lot of thinking and planing and talking and planing and emailing and waiting and emailing and some foot work and finally a little bit of hanging. And of course when it came time to release the show onto the public I had double booked myself for the weekend so I missed it all. Luckily we will be hosting music and partying every Saturday while the show is up. Either way, figuring out our first fully independent art show has been quite the experience. Making it all happen isn’t as hard as people will tell you it is, especially when you have a group of cool cats all working towards the same goal. Things got a little loosey goosey in the middle when no one wanted to take the reigns, but everyone handled their own and finished their parts of the project with flying colors. Here is a link to a video the Wildes put together as a teaser for the show.

We gave ourselves a two month window to complete this project and it seemed to be a perfect amount of time for our first attempt. As we put on more shows certain steps will get easier and more attention will be placed on promotion. The two most important aspects of coordinating an art show would be having art and a place to hang art. So getting the word out to all of the artists and social media outlets as soon as possible is pretty key. Of course the artists will all be submitting pieces that are still drying and without proper hanging devices no matter how much time you give them. Being in a small town, one of our key pieces of local promotion was our fantastic window display that was largely directed by Jen Fletcher of REVAMP. She brought us a large collection of old TVs to decorate and it couldn’t have turned out better. Our largest problem was dealing with all of the illiterate crack heads that were upset we weren’t an “old TV store.”

Being a printmaker, I am all about selling high quantity (and quality) at an affordable price as opposed to investing in one piece and hoping it will sell. For my entry I screened a limited run of one color prints featuring one of my favorite video game characters, Donkey Kong. It was my first run of non-garment screenprints since college and I loved printing them. It is so much faster than printing linocuts! I compiled and modified some old clip art to create an imagined end screen from the original Donkey Kong. I also chose to paint up one of the prints and mounted it to some fence planks so that I could have something colorful to hang next to all of the other great work. This piece turned out fairly morbid as I chose to show Mario as a monkey exterminator who has already succeeded in ridding the world of Diddy, Dixie and Kiddy Kong from the Super Nintendo franchise and is about to drop the hammer on the big Donkey. I think it turned out pretty well and apparently a lot of the people at the reception did as well.

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New to 2011

This year has seen some new changes in Tuolumne’s old art scene. CSAC and the George Post Gallery has a new home under the traffic light in down town Sonora. If you haven’t seen the In Focus photography show they have up right now I suggest you do before they take it down. “Boots” by Mark Bergstrom, show here won first place for color photography. I don’t quite agree with their choice, but then again I am not a photographer. Go check it out and see them all for yourself.

David Garcia of the Annex/Ventanna Gallery has extended into the old George Post Gallery space so we ought to be seeing more high caliber art fill those walls as well. I spoke with Mr. Garcia on Friday and he said that they will be having an opening at some point this coming March. That gives us at least three large galleries in the downtown area now which makes the Night Out for Art that much better. Oh yeah, and if you didn’t know every second Saturday of the month the galleries, restaurants and some shops will stay open later and serve wine and cheese and all that good stuff.

I spent last Saturday night in Backspace listening to Minor Birds live and hob knobing with the other attendees. They have started selling an exclusive line of shirts designed by Corey West and printed by yours truly. They are planning on having me print a lot more stuff for them in the near future so go and visit them for more information. They are working really hard to help build a lively and interesting retail scene in our dusty old down town.

The coming months will also see some movement in the new art scene. The second coming of Alley Art at the Black Oak Casino is in talks and this time we will be seeing some entries from some of the more established local artist like Don Hukari. I am very excited at the possibilities of making this an annual show that people can look forward to every year when they come to see the Pro/Am Bowling Tournament that Black Oak puts on. This time around I look forward to displaying the pieces of art in the prominent and professional manner that they deserve. Hopefully I can get a velvet rope to keep the old people from groping the pins with their pruney mitts this time around. Even little kids know not to touch art, COME ON!

Also group of eager artist and community members (Job Stauffer, Michelle Steranko, Chelsea & Joel Wilde, Jen & Thabo Fletcher, Mindy Marlowe and I) are also working on a video game themed art show titled Gold Cartridge. We will be releasing the call to artists soon and are currently working to secure a venue to display the show. This is fixin’ to be an awesome, full video game culture immersion event that you will not want to miss for any reason.  Our current plan is to open it in down town during one of the Night Out for Art Saturdays so stay tuned for more information as the story develops.

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ProArts


(Dignidad Rebelde activist printmakers/mixed media artists)

The ProArts Gallery of the East Bay Area is putting out a call for entry for artists in the Greater Bay Area. I believe “Greater” being a loose term for most places in Northern California. If you go to their Call for Entry page you can get the info and applications for their latest annual events. Check out the ProArts site and and see what they are all about. They might be something you are interested in participating in. Here are some or the artists that caught my eye while browsing their members:


(Anthony Holdsworth painter)

Here is what they are saying about one of their events:

Show your art to the largest and most diverse art audience in the region. The Directory of East Bay Arts and East Bay OPEN STUDIOS is a straightforward way for artists at any stage in their career to get their work seen by art patrons, curators, other artists, business leaders, community leaders, and art enthusiasts. After nearly 30 years, the annual East Bay Open Studios (EBOS) continues to bring visitors from all over the Bay Area to local artists’ studios for the opportunity to see the best art made in the East Bay today, likewise, the publication, Directory of East Bay Art extends the reach of the event and provides a year-long reference, a Who’s Who guide for artists.


(Christina Koci Hernandez Photographer)