Scan for Street Art

No Surrender!

If you are like me, you love to make street art but hate the hassle of being arrested.

Seriously, I've got better things to do on a Saturday night than sit in a jail cell and besides, I really don't look good in an orange jump suit. Just not my color.

But what's a boy to do?

The above QR scan links to the photo of the street art below

The answer: Scan for Street Art.

Utilizing the new QR scan technology, it's possible to let people see your street art without it really being there!

Here is how it works.




Step 1: Create some temporary street art, photograph it and then take it down right away before the po po show up.

Step 2: Upload photos of your street art to a website or blog.




Step 3: Generate a QR scan of the URL of your street art photo.

Step 4: Post flyers of your scan on telephone poles or poster friendly places. Rule of thumb, if little Johnny can post his "Lost Dog" flyer or grandma can post her "Garage Sale" sign, you're in good shape.

Step 5: Wait for the rest of the world to catch up with QR scanning.





Happy Street Arting!

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Class Set



Inspired by my trip to the National Portrait Gallery in DC, I'm starting a new series of paintings based on portraits of students.

The initial concept is to incorporate the portrait along with writings, scribbles, sketches, tweets and even Facebook status to create a mixed media portrait.. oh, and each student gets to pose with his or her favorite critter.



This first painting is a prototype of the series to be titled Class Set. The girl in the painting is Alex. The text and post-its are writings and scribbles from the previous Halle exhibit. I'm not sure who wrote what but since this was just a proof of concept painting, it's not really important. However, future paintings will contain scribbles and notes create by the person in the painting.

Coming Soon:

The one missing piece to this artwork is interactivity. I plan to incorporate moving parts, electronics and switches into each artwork. This will give viewers the ability to turn the art on and off and the artwork the ability to move and light up.



The Making Of:

The painting started by dropping torn pieces of scribbles, notes and post-its onto a piece of cardboard.



I painted over a photo of Alex. Since Alex is into photography, I thought it would be appropriate to incorporate her photography. plus, i'm really lazy. Why paint a portrait when I can paint by numbers?



So now I need to find some subjects.. Who wants to be painted??

I Met Obama... sort of

This weekend I visited the Smithsonian Institution's National Portrait Gallery in DC. We were on the way out when I wanted to check out one last room. i stuck my head through the entrance and right there on the wall was Shepard Fairey's hand-finished collage stencil and acrylic on paper version of the Obama Hope poster.





Seeing this poster as "art" is probably harder than most works of art.

First, you have to get past the image. When someone sees the much smaller sticker version, depending on their political swing, they have one of two reactions. Either they see hope and change or they are hoping for change in the next election.

Of course that is the purpose of the art... it's an iconic image.



I see past the political icon but get hung up on a second issue...

copyright infringement.

Even when I separate my political opinion of the man in the image, president Obama, I'm still left with my opinion of the second man, Shepard Fairey. The image reminds me of his conflict with the AP over the "borrowed" image.

As an art teacher, I'm constantly speaking to my students about copyright infringements.. Crime doesn't pay... Unless you "borrow" a photo from the AP and you're Shepard Fairey. The two parties recently reached an agreement to share all the proceeds from use of the image.



It wasn't till I turned the corner and saw the image in person that I was able to connect with the art.

It's a great piece.

Larger than I expected. Maybe 5 feet tall.

What you can't tell by looking at a two inch replica sticker is the background. The image was placed over newspaper and in some spots the ads and text are still visible through the ink.

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Zonkey Crossing

Critter Books



Critter Books, a hybrid of a real book and a critter.. but they need titles!

I retitled this book What If I'm Extinct?. Other retitles include I Might Be A Church Mouse (retitled a baptist hymnal) and Spark's Is A Tool (retitled the notebook).



Now i'm looking for some new retitles. The title need not go with the book, you can simply sugest a title. However, if you want to recommend a book to be retiteld, you can do that as well!




Post a comment with your retitle suggestion and check back soon to see your title on a Critter Book!



This is the next book I'm working on. It's a book about Nixon.

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Art On The Move 2011

Becoming a finalist for Art On The Move in 2009 opened up a whole new world for me. Before that event, I was an artist but I hadn’t defined myself. My art changed in style, media and even purpose. The image I selected for that entry was of a giraffe ducking to avoid a stoplight. It was that image merged with the placement of the art on a bus that brought focus and has been a driving force in my art since.

My art can be described as a mixture of street and interactive art. Though I have indoor exhibits, I prefer to create public art. The reasoning behind this choice is based on the fact that only ten percent of the population will visit a gallery or museum. By creating public art I can reach the other 90 percent.



Much of my art is interactive, allowing the viewer to interact with it in some way. This can be as simple as allowing the viewer to write on the work or as complex as forcing the viewer to make a choice or requesting that the viewer physically move and rearrange the art.

In this design, I incorporated one of my signature characters called a Zonkey. In life, the Zonkey is the offspring of a zebra and a donkey. In art, the zonkey represents the need for two (or more) people to interact and collaborate to create art.

Staying true to this idea, I wanted this design to be a collaboration of not only my work but the work of others. I asked my students at Apex High School to create the background. I gave them a map of Raleigh and asked then to find a street and write a sentence that incorporates the name of the street.

Some examples of their sentences include:

I want world Peace Street.
When I get nervous I Pace Street.
Baby you can drive my Carr Street.


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