Last post of 2007

I'm going to take a break from the internet for about a week to reacclimate to the outside world, but I'm leaving you with glimpses of art past and yet to come. A couple of my favorite things to post are flyers and street art, and here are my favorites of the past year.


I'll be back early January with some zine reviews, great shows at Beep Beep, Foundation One, and MINT, and another HandJob Atlanta event at the Five Spot.

Medusa II by Epidemik Coalition

Epidemik Coalition stepped it up with thier new tee, Medusa II. Check out their blog to see all that went into its creation and everything else that they are up to. Buy one now, or any other tee from their site, and get a ThoughtMarker shirt by EC for free. ThoughtMarker even got a thank you on the inside on the new shirts.

art house

Art house has moved once again and this time they claim its permanent. They also seem to have narrowed down thier objectives. It seems they will be focusing on the nation wide art projects that they had success with and continue to have openings for these projects at their new space in downtown Atlanta. They've also redone their website and have several new projects ready to sign up for.

Sun Records/Kerri Boles/Beep Beep Gallery

Beep Beep and Youngblood for Atlanta Magazine.

ThoughtMarker Limited Edition Winter Tee Collection 2007

Some of you may have noticed some ThoughtMarker tee shirts showing up around town lately. I feel that its time I explain whats going on. To celebrate ThoughtMarker's first full year of existence, I arranged for four different tee shirts to be made. Each shirt was designed by artists and organizations that have supported and encouraged the site over the past year, and will be given away in a manor fitting thier creator.
Steven Dixey is among the first artists that I reviewed on ThoughtMarker and one of my favorite artists in Atlanta. His shirt was unvieled at his recent opening at Eye Drum and if you don't have one its probably too late.
MINT Gallery is a non-profit organization/gallery commited to art community building and balancing inclusive group shows with more focused exhibitions. I've been working with MINT as a board member for the last several months and got co-founder Andrew Bellury to design a shirt for MINT and ThoughtMarker. Instead of giving away the MINT shirts, we will be selling them for $10 with all of the proccedes going to the gallery.
Epidemik Coalition is a local design team that I discovered through one of their stickers near my appartment a while back. They printed their ThoughtMarker tees as bright as possible on the brightest shirt made by American Apperal.
Metatronic is the zine/art/philosophy duo of Mark and James of Beep Beep Gallery. They are a major part of why I started the site and there was no way I could leave them out. Your best bet for grabbing one of these tees is to come by Beep Beep's opening this Saturday.

If you earned a free shirt by commenting on that long ass post about art blogs a couple of weeks ago, email me your size and what shirt you want. [mike.germon@gmail.com] Same goes for those who want to buy a MINT shirt. If you want an Epidemik Coalition shirt, buy any shirt from their online store and tell them you want a free ThoughtMarker shirt.

Huge thanks to Andrew Bellury of MINT, Danger Press, Handjob Atlanta, and Leviathan Label who hooked me up big time by printing the majority of the shirts and designing the one for MINT.

(click for larger image)

Recent art show thoughts.

Last night was the big Sons of the South print show. I was more impressed by the overall concept and production than by any individual artist. Most of the prints were typical of the artist with a few exceptions. Tyson McAdoo strayed a bit from his predictably cartoonish work with a very creative piece. BORN, probably my favorite artist of the 11, showed the least interesting piece of the show. The rest I had either seen before, or could have guessed what they were to look like, but still very well done. I ended up leaving with a little print by Charlie Owens and my girlfriend got a very cool peice by Rene Arriagada.

At Foundation One's "Grind" last weekend, local artists really stood up well against the heavy hitters that were brought in, but I hope it is 3 years before I have to look at another show of only skate decks. Todd McFarlene, Shepard Fairey, and Faile all more or less phoned it in and were lost among 60 or so skate boards of varying qualities and aesthetics. Rene Arriagada's piece was clearly the best in the show (but why didn't he sand down those cuts in the board?) and Bethany Marchman's "Jackopolypse" was probably my favorite work of her's to date.

Alcove Gallery is an overwhelming wonderland of very similar looking artwork.

New Street Gallery is currently showing a bunch of art that I've already seen before. Joy Phrasavath's drawings from the Beep Beep show earlier this year were my favorites and a welcome rerun. I love the comic book excerpts by Saint, but I wish that they weren't always on giant, unframed, slightly crumpled pieces of poorly cut paper. Great artist though.

Dear Foundation One, start having your openings on the same night as New Street and Alcove so that I only have to drive out to Avondale once to see three shows.

Great paintings by Steven Dixey at the Eyedrum. Someone please buy me "Cain the Wonderer" or whatever it was called.

A Moonshine Christmas

Kerri Boles is stichin'!

A small preview of her Sun Records show Decmber 22nd @ Beep Beep. Elvis is bigger than Jesus!

13 Sons of the South

I don't know exactly what is going on with this, but I'll let you in on what I do know. Sons of the South is a coalition comprised of 13 (actually I think only 11 but it will be 13 eventually) emerging, semi-underground artists in the Atlanta, lowbrowish scene. As far as I know the list includes Dosa Kim, Tindel, Michi, Bethany Marchman, Rene Arriagada, Charlie Owens, Steven Dixey, Jason Murphy, BORN, Sam Parker, and Tyson McAdoo. Their print show this Friday (12/14) at the East Side Lounge will be the first showing under this title. Word is more events will pop up over the next year. This is something to watch.

This weekend...

I already posted about the shows this week and the MINT postcard show on Saturday, but here the other big shows going on this weekend:


A here is the deck that Bethany Marchman posted from the skate board auction at Foundation One. Very cool.

This week...

Here's some stuff going down this week. Weekend stuff to come.



More info on Epidemik Coalition here.

Happy Birthday!

to ThoughtMarker. One year ago today I posted about 3 shows coming up on one night. It was the first ever show from MINT, Steven Dixey and Matt Relkin at the now extinct Yo Yo, and Tes One at Foundation One Gallery. It looks like history is repeating itself this week with events worth attending on Wednesday (five spot), Thursday (White Space), Friday (New Street, Alcove), Saturday (Foundation One, MINT, East Atlanta Tattoo), and Sunday (Beep Beep).

Methane Studios Print Sale

I don't know much about this but it looks cool.

FF Blog

Felicia Feaster has a blog on the Creative Loafing's site with articles not appearing in the print edition including a shout out to Jackson Fine Art employees Dowda, Doo Doo, and Basehore:
http://blogs.creativeloafing.com/popsmart/author/ffeaster/

You're Latte ain't all that son!

MINT events

MINT has a couple of events going down this week that need to be checked out. This Wednesday is the first of a new monthly live art event at The Five Spot in little five points called Handjob Atlanta. Once a month, three artists and one DJ will perform on stage, making art and music with some theme in mind. This month the theme will be old school Nintendo and the artists are Chris Hamer, Ted Murphey, and Brett Thompson. These guys will paint their cartoon influenced/nintendo themed art while DJ Cameron Corey spins tunes and guests play 16 bit NES on the big screen. 12/5, 9:00pm, $5

If that wasn't enough, on Saturday MINT Gallery is hosting its second anual Postcard Pinup show. Its open submission, and last year had 60+ artists, check here if you want to submit art, and check the flyers below if you just want to enjoy it.

Local art updates!

Click Clique added a zine section to thier site, showcasing a run of little photo books they recently made. Evereman has uploaded an album of new products to his myspace page with all kinds of Evereman stuff that you've only dreamed of. Atlanta Creatives Project has added an extended interview with Charlie Owens to their blog. MINT Gallery is still looking for artists to participate in next weeks post card show.

Steven Dixey and Jason Murphy

Do yourself a favor and check out the openings at Eyedrum this Saturday. Steven Dixey, who was recently featured on Atlanta Creatives Project, will be showing seven new paintings while Jason Murphy also has eight or so new pieces.



Whoa! What is this?

Atlanta art blogging and the history of ThoughtMarker

Around this time last year, I was attending art shows regularly at a handful of galleries. I had just watched Beep Beep Gallery move out of their house and into the real world and I was beginning to realize that the art scene in Atlanta was more than just a bunch of galleries in Buckhead serving champagne to people wearing shiny shirts. I was also reading magazines and blogs such as Juxtapoz and Wooster Collective that were exposing me to thriving scenes of street, lowbrow, and DIY art in New York and San Francisco. I knew their level of success couldn't be reached by the typical word of mouth/flyer strategy that underground art generally employs. I wanted to create an outlet for the promotion and celebration of art in the scene which interested me. Thus ThoughtMarker was born; a blog focusing on promoting upcoming local shows in particular venues or by certain artists, with the occasional street art photo, lowbrow observation, local film critique, or art journalism rebuttal. I started the kind of blog that I wanted to read, a combination of what I was interested in and what I thought Atlanta needed.

Since then a number of other atlanta art blogs have surfaced, each with a similar overall goal, but widely varying approaches. The most similar at first glance is Artlanta Artnews, utilizing the most obvious combination of the words art and Atlanta that I thankfully past up months before. This blog posts flyers and press releases for seemingly random shows and events with no apparent agenda or theme. Attempts to contact them have failed. As far as I can tell it's run by an arbitrary art post generator. [I just examined the site more closely and realized that it is more or less an open forum that posts it's access info so anyone to contribute. That certainly explains my observations but changes my thoughts completely. It provides a forum for promotion that is the most democratic and self sufficient possible.]

The next closest blog to ThoughtMarker showed up this May in the form of Local Ephemera. The goal here is not so much to promote the art shows, but to give the artwork a longer lifespan and more attention through documentation and discussion. The author is generally light on critique, but intelligent and analytical in his observations. He also veers towards a slightly higher class gallery than I do, but there is good deal of overlap. Overall an essential piece to the Atlanta art blog puzzle and a blog I was very happy to have discovered.

Even more recently, a handful of promotion websites have reared their heads. The most interesting of these is Plug Atlanta. The central idea and major strength of Plug Atlanta is the commitment to showcasing flyers as art. The only problem is that the site becomes an internet junk pile, littered with too many flyers to sift through visually, and many made by people who have forgotten that flyers should be art. Since its launch, the site has already been revamped once, so my hope is that with more tweaking, Plug Atlanta will find the balance between current flyer art gallery and open promotion forum that it aspires to be. The other two sites, Out of the Tube and Art Relish, are visual art focused and, in my opinion, too comprehensive in terms of listings. Out of the Tube is a blog that posts short (but not short enough) video features of gallery shows. Out of the Tube also features an event calendar, gallery listings, and links to other blogs etc. Art Relish is essentially the exact same site only it appeared later. It literally pulls content directly from Out of the Tube. Why somebody felt the need to make a duplicate site to accomplish the same thing, I know not.

In terms of photographically providing exposure for artists, there is a fine line between documentation/journalism and visual art. Atlanta Creatives Project is the only blog in Atlanta to stand firmly on the art side of the line. By doing photo shoots of local artists and bands, ACP (why did they have to end up with the same acronym as Atlanta Celebrates Photography?!) looks to connect local artists visually with the community. Name and face recognition will lead to a stronger and more supportive scene. I sometimes wonder if dragging the artist into the realm of celebrity won't have adverse effects as well, but that discussion is for another time. Apart from anything else, the idea of supporting art by creating art is one to be celebrated to no end.

We all have our role to play in shaping and exposing the growing and changing art scene in Atlanta. Blogging is but one of the factors that will determine the future of our community. If you made it through this whole thing, leave a comment, its what makes blogging a conversation and hence more effective in connecting with an audience than old world journalism. The posters of the first few comments will get free ThoughtMarker shirts that I will be unveiling and giving away throughout December. Thank you Atlanta, for everything.

Young Blood Gallery: Seasons

As usual Youngblood Gallery packs in 40 artists for a themed, winter group show. Seasons opens December 1st from 7-11 and features some of my local favorites.

Thief Warrior Gladiator King

Go to the Plaza Theater on Ponce this Tuesday (11/27/07) to see the cult classic "Conan The Barbarian" on the big screen at 9:30 for only $7. Preceding the screening will be an opening for the sword and sorcery inspired art of Shane Morton (aka Professor Morte of Silver Scream Spook Show fame). Then after the movie, if you can beat me at Galaga, I'll tell you how to get a free ThoughtMarker shirt.

The Adventure

The Adventure is the newest short from Fake Wood Wallpaper, the film collective that brought you Bloodcar, which by the way is now available on DVD both from Blockbuster Online and Netflix. (Or purchase it from their website.) If you're a film festival person, be on the lookout. The Adventure is both eerily bizarre and beautifully shot, here's the trailer.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Stolen from here.

What do the following have in common?

Steven Dixey, MINT, Metatronic, Epidemik Coalition

Bean: The Encyclopedia Studies

This Saturday, November 24th from 8-12, Beep Beep Gallery opens it's most conceptual and process based exhibit to date. The Encyclopedia Studies by Bean Summer (aka Ben Worley) is a documentation/assimilation project of endless scope. In this installment, images from volume "A" of a 1950's World Book Encyclopedia are overlaid in video form, then recaptured and printed sequentially or creatively. For an idea of the aesthetic, check the video and flyer below.

MINT Call for Artists

Last December MINT hosted its first ever show, a Postcard Pinup Show at Tube with 60+ artists. Its almost a year later, MINT has its own space and The Postcard Pinup Show is back. Get off your ass and make some art. Here's the details:

MINT's 2nd Annual Postcard Pinup Show, a non-curated show open to all Georgia artists, takes place Saturday, December 8th at the MINT Gallery in the Virginia Cotton Dock Lofts. The exhibition will be from 7-11 p.m. and is free and open to the public.

Artists must hand deliver their work to the MINT Gallery on Friday, December 7th between 7 and 9 p.m. or on Saturday, December 8th between 1 and 3 p.m. Artists may submit up to 4 pieces but none may exceed 4" x 6" and they must be delivered unframed and unmatted. Artists can price their work individually or as a series to be sold as a set. However no individual piece may be priced over $50 and no series may be priced over $125. Artists must agree to donate 40%, 60% or 100% of the selling price to MINT. Those who chose to donate 100% will be recognized and honored at the show. Unsold artwork may be picked up on Sunday, December 9th between 3 and 6 p.m. The required application/release form is available at the drop off or via email from mint@mintgallery.org

MINT's address is:

684 John Wesley Dobbs Ave.
Unit B
Atlanta, GA 30312

Look out for December!

There are still a couple of shows left in November, but December shows are beginning to pile up. Look for several big group shows at East Atlanta Tattoo, MINT, Youngblood, Foundation One, East Side Lounge, and Lenny's. Not to mention Steven Dixey and Jason Murphey at The Eye Drum. Flyers to come.

New Photos at Atlanta Creatives Project

Check out The Atlanta Creatives Project for some new photographs of Atlanta artists Charlie Owens and Bethany Marchman taken by Atlanta Creatives sharpshooter, Neda Abghari.

Pabst Blue Ribbon Commercial

My friend Chuck likes to make low tech animation and unsolicited commercials. Check out this one that he made for your favorite adult beverage. PBR!

Weekly Street Art 9

Openings

More photography at San Francisco Coffee

400 Blows

If you have friends that went to film school, then I bet you've noticed that they won't shut up about 400 Blows playing at the Plaza:
"Only a few more chances to see THE 400 BLOWS on the big screen!

Monday at 7:30
Tuesday at 7:30 & 9:30

Then thats it! Gone forever and you'll be left with a crummy DVD on a tiny TV."

Sam Parker at Binders

Binders in Buckhead is hosting all kinds of demos and stuff this Saturday (nov.3) including a Montana spraypaint demo by local artist Sam Parker.

And more......

Aside from the ever amazing and fun Chomp N Stomp in Cabbagetown park Saturday, Tindel has a show at Sabra Gallery in East Atlanta, and thee's a show at Park Grounds in Reynoldstown:

Weekend Openings

Good stuff coming up. Alcove Gallery is back, but has moved to Decatur. Youngblood has a cool show opening up. Art.

Toby Sells on Dirty Jobs

Atlanta's own special effects guru/zombie enthousiast, Toby Sells will be featured on tonight's episode of Dirty Jobs. [Tuesday, October 30 at 9pm on the Discovery Channel] He has produced effects and gore for tons of local horror films including a handful of my favorites: The Signal, Blood Car, and Pushing Up Daisies.

Deconform Lives

The once defunct Atlanta underground art magazine is back. You can read all about its return here at Ghostmap Microwave, and read a pretty cool article about Beep Beep Gallery that didn't make the cut here.

Destruction Manifesto

Fears and Monsters

Halloween must be getting close. Art House is having a sketchbook show about fears at its new west side location this Friday and next Monday MINT is opening its "Monster Wars" group show of collaborative battling beasts at Apache Cafe.

Weekly Street Art: Evereman Production Party

Be on the lookout for these new Evereman tile/flowers made a couple weeks ago at Evereman's secret lair by him and a handful of lucky guests. Also check out this experimental Evereman tile that I made at the event.

New Paintings by Steven Dixey

Local artist Steven Dixey has been hard at work preparing for his upcoming solo show at Eyedrum this December. With the opening still over a month away, we are lucky enough to be able to catch a glipse of what he has lined up on his website, StevenDixey.com.

Works on paper?

I admit I was a bit skeptical when I heard that graffiti artists HENSE and BORN were doing experimental prints on paper for their show at Beep Beep Gallery tomorrow. I got a look at the work and lets just say you will not be disapointed. Go see this show. It opens Sat. Oct. 20th, 8-12.

What a weekend...

Along with Beep Beep, Rabbit Hole, and Nightmoves, there are several other chances to support local art this weekend. Keep-a-Breast Charity auction at Luxe Atlanta on Thursday from 6:30-10:00. And on Friday (7-11 at 678 MORELAND AVE, #7, LIL 5 PTS), an open house of work by Albino Mattioli who showed at New Street earlier this year. Speaking of New Street Gallery, tonight from 6-8 is a panel discussion with artist of their current show and social activist Ernesto Cuevas, along with three of the youth who are subjects of his paintings and the founder of the National Coalition for At Risk Schools, Jimmy Garcia.

Saturday Night

Would you rather go to an art show that wants to be a party, or a party that wants to be an art show? I may go to both.

EC sticker hunt for free stuff

Epidemik Coalition has announced that they will be giving away tee's and other stuff to anyone who spots their stickers and sends a pic to info@epidemikcoalition.com. I'll give you a hint. They're everywhere.