Little Paper Planes

The Wassaic Project Residency is accepting applications!

2010-01-05T08:41:00.000-08:00

The Wassaic Project Residency sounds like an amazing one to go to. You get to make work in a barn! How great is that! I would love to apply for this one if it didn't start in May, but for all of you that can go, you should apply! The deadline is February 1st.

The Wassaic Project Residency Program has been created to cultivate and support community for emerging and professional contemporary artists. Housed in a historic re-purposed livestock auction barn, the Residency Program offers eight artists the opportunity to live and work in the heart of a rural community and offers three local artists studio space. The Wassaic Project seeks a group of artists working in a diverse range of media who want to produce, explore, challenge, and expand on their current art making practices, while participating in a grass roots, community-based arts organization. In the final month of the residency, artists will either complete an installation or contribute work to be included in The Wassaic Project Summer Festival 2010.

For more info go to http://wassaicproject.com

Society For Scientific Inquiry Of Paranormal Atmospheric And Cosmic Anomalies Zine

2010-01-05T07:03:00.000-08:00

This week the Little Paper Planes store brings you, among other things, a very graphically-beautiful zine about UFOs by Vanessa Lam. It's inspired by scientific journals and looney ufologists alike, and is full of hard data and statistics, glitches, and conspiracies. Plus it's printed on smooth, silvery-seeming newsprint. Fly over here for more info and images.

an opportunity with Triple Canopy

2010-01-04T07:26:00.000-08:00

I first became aware of/excited about Triple Canopy back here. Soon they'll be commissioning ten projects spanning five areas—including original research, new-media journalism, Web-based artwork, and public programs—to be published in their magazine and presented to live audiences in the next year. Submissions are due by February 15, 2010, and more information can be found at their commissions page.

Tyson Anthony Roberts

2010-01-03T16:22:00.000-08:00

Friday Harbor 3 (San Juan Series), 30" x 40", Acrylic on canvas, 2009

Victoria, BC, 21" x 22", Acrylic on wood panel, 2009

The Gardens, 24" x 36", Acrylic on canvas, 2009
(prints of this are available at 20x200)

Tyson Anthony Roberts is a Seattle-based painter of "moving landscapes." To me the paintings don't move so much as condense into fruity columns strewn around a nondescript space. It's an interesting new way to look at existing places, though. I would agree that Victoria, BC's harbor is mostly blue with some red accents.

Of his work Tyson says: Elements of abstract expressionism, color-field painting and spontaneity are merged to form rural and urban scenes that appear to be in constant transition, taking the viewer from what was to what may be. It is through this idea of continual movement by which my work suggests that the places we know are always changing whether we are ready or not.

Bring in January 2010 with our featured artist of the month-Christine Kesler

2010-01-01T18:09:00.000-08:00

Christine Kesler and I started emailing a couple years ago. I was smitten with her work the moment I saw it online. A year later, my studio was next to hers in graduate school at the California College of the Arts here in San Francisco. It has been really amazing to watch her work grow. I think we both have a similar dialogue and hopefully in the near future there will be a collaboration between the two of us. Though for now, I am so honored to have Christine's work on LPP! We are offering not only 1 exclusive print but 9 prints to choose from!!

Jess went down to Christine's show that is currently up at NOMA Gallery in San Francisco. They had a great talk about poetry, intuition, finding objects for installations, New York, and where we find inspiration to create art. Please go and read it!!
Interview!

To view and buy the print shown above go HERE

For more information on Christine's show, Noma Gallery

To see more of Christine's work, www.christinekesler.com

Twenty Ten!

2009-12-31T07:27:00.000-08:00

photo by Joshua Martinez

photo by Kenneth Josephson

Hello to new you, and so long to the first decade of this millennium. Those photos above are saying: we hope you have a brilliant New Years Eve, and a blossoming 2010. Also, it's a full moon, and the last of 4 eclipses of 2009 occurs tonight! All of Africa, Europe, Asia, and Australia will be able to see this minor partial lunar eclipse. Only a tiny sliver of the Moon will be in the Earth's umbral shadow, but there should be a clear darkening visible over the southern end of the Moon's surface at greatest eclipse, as the Moon moves through the earth's umbral shadow. The show takes place in Gemini, and the greatest eclipse comes at 19:23 UT.

Have fun, be safe, and we'll SEE YOU NEXT YEAR!

Jess, Cortney, Kelly, Yuki, and Willa.

Kazuo Nakamura

2009-12-30T07:00:00.000-08:00

Suspension 5, 1968

24X22" oil on canvas

This image courtesy of James Rottman Fine Art.

Spatial Concept, 1968

37.01X31.1" oil on canvas

Ages Past, 1953

27X38" oil on masonite

Kazuo Nakamura was a pioneering Canadian abstract painter of the 1950's who died in 2002. He was a founding member of the Painters Eleven, who banded together to collectively exhibit their work to the city of Toronto, which was apparently shocked and dismayed by their abstract zeal. But Nakamura didn't work with the expressive fury of his community at the time. Instead of dealing in automatism or action/reaction, Nakamura experimented with few colors and refined lines. As I read here, "a re-evaluation of Kazuo Nakamura's art in terms of his interest in science and mathematics reveals the core of his creative inspiration: the inevitable tension between the ideal of objective observation and the specificities of culture, politics and the limitations of human understanding." The introspective-mathematician/artist-plumbing-flat-surfaces-for-the-divine is my favorite kinda abstract painter, and Kazuo Nakamura was an important one (even though word doesn't get out of Canada so much sometimes).

Visit Christopher Cutts Gallery for more images.

Lance Letscher

2009-12-29T06:00:00.000-08:00

"When something is designed as a utilitarian object, decisions are made in its construction that give it a voice – what fabrics are available – and I am trying to invest the work with a structure that has an underlying logic of craft that is expressive of something else: a personal and intimate experience in making it," says Austin-based Lance Letscher (as found here at d berman gallery).

My friend Donald insisted I check out Letscher's book, which he thought I'd love, and I do. I appreciate how Letscher's work inevitably enfolds history through his use of materials/remnants, and his patterns may be massive and vibrant, but are built from modesty, time, and gradation as well. For me the most inspiring thing about this work is the topography and sense of space Letscher creates with nothing but bits of meticulously-applied paper that are allowed to remain just that. Also, some of his work is mural-sized (but still composed of the same small pieces).

It was interesting to find (in this Fiberarts article) that Letscher originally worked with wood and stone before arriving at collage. His first collages were made by the layering on cardboard of small realistic tree branches he had drawn and then cut out. It's like his 3d proficiency imploded into a page!

Land of Talk - It's Okay

2009-12-28T11:38:00.000-08:00

Land of Talk - It's Okay from Saddle Creek on Vimeo.

Gosh this is beautiful.

Have you seen Herb and Dorothy?

2009-12-26T08:03:00.000-08:00

"The incredible story of a postal worker and a librarian who built a world-class art collection" was almost better than Christmas. Herb and Dorothy Vogel's basic love for art and each other shows, making this movie not so much about conceptual and minimal art as much as relationships, passion, and extreme hobbies. Herb and Dorothy Vogel built an enigmatic world of their tiny apartment, shoving thousands of pieces of work everywhere, while spending every scrap of their free time skillfully and charmingly accumulating more. There are also cats in this movie, by the way.

Check out the official site for more info. The film appeared in theaters last summer, and the DVD released this month.

Happy Holidays!!

2009-12-25T14:40:00.000-08:00

Wishing everyone a wonderful holiday!

With love,
The LPP Family
Kelly, Cortney, Jess, Yuki and Willa

Arturo Herrera

2009-12-24T07:03:00.000-08:00

Come, 2008
Collage, mixed media, graphite on paper
Triptych, each part 79.72 x 57.09 inches (202.5 x 145 cm)

Waiting for Siegfried II, 2008
Graphite and acrylic on paper
88.39 x 59.06 inches
224.5 x 150 cm

Arturo Herrera, one of my favorite artists, is currently showing in a group show with Matt Connors and Merlin James at Sikema Jenkins & Co., in Chelsea, through January 23. If you're around you might want to have a look. The works above are in this show.

If you're on the internet more than you're in New York City, Almost Home is an interesting diptych-investigating website project by Herrera. Here he combines cut and pasted printed paper and paint to craft images bulging with both perceivable referents, and open-ended suggestions. I would say he has lifted Disney outlines from their niches, extruded them through the feel of Fantasia, and floated them into the rogue compositions below. It's interesting to see that his current work (in the show) delves further into abstraction, while still maintaining hints of a Disney daisy here, a pointy Disney elbow there...

Art in My Coffee

2009-12-23T07:00:00.000-08:00

skeletal swan

happy cat

coffee-breathing dragon

With so many artists working as baristas these days, the tops of beverages are being momentarily repurposed as makeshift canvasses more and more of the time. Art in My Coffee is a tumblr blog that logs some of this quality ephemeral work.

millergoodman

2009-12-22T16:58:00.000-08:00

This is the brilliant work of a creative duo working out of Brighton, South coast of England. Zoe Miller and David Goodman make wonderful kids' books for the Tate Gallery and launched their first product, ShapeMaker in 2008.

the year in view

2009-12-22T07:03:00.000-08:00

This week Caitlin Keegan supplied the Little Paper Planes store with a stack of this 2010 calendar. Its concentric pattern and natural colors resemble a tree trunk, growing wedge by wedge, month by month. Or maybe it reminds you more of an easy-on-the-eyes game-show wheel? In any case, this beauty is 16x16", with space to write important dates below each month, and is printed using soy-based inks on a heavy recycled cover stock.

Roger Ballen: Boarding House

2009-12-21T00:04:00.000-08:00

It is difficult to explain this place except that I think it exists in some way or another in most people's mind.

--Roger Ballen

Roger Ballen: Boarding House

through December 23, 2009

at Gagosian Gallery (980 Madison Avenue)

Roger Ballen's current show at Gagosian displays theatrical photos taken between 2004 and 2008 in a 3 storey warehouse in Johannesburg, South Africa, which is "hidden among the gold mines... and inhabited by disenfranchised, impoverished families, fugitives and witch doctors. Lacking walls, many rooms are separated only by rugs, blankets, and metal sheets. In his visually complex tableaux, Ballen forgoes a strictly documentary approach and casts further doubt on their veracity, intervening to alter each room, and collaborating directly with the subject to create the sculptures and drawings that appear in the photographs."
Altogether, Ballen and his subjects explore fact, fiction, and the workings of the human psyche through drawing, sculpture and (square format) photography. The outcome creates "visual ambiguities as universal metaphors of the human condition." It could be called intentional obtuseness. It could be called 'meaning is subjective and ambiguous and so meaningful art oftentimes is as well.'

Visit Roger Ballen's site and other bodies of work here.

Rare Tongan Gospel

2009-12-19T21:20:00.000-08:00

David Barclay, musician (The Diskettes, The Endless Bummer), printmaker, and Little Paper Planes' community member, has recently recorded some amazing songs by a Tongan Gospel Choir. He has posted his recordings of 13 tracks for download and has offered his own perspective of his findings, which can be read on the blog, popsheep.

Listen to that guitar intro. Yes.

Shaun Flynn

2009-12-19T09:00:00.000-08:00

I came across Shaun Flynn while looking around Soundscreen Design, for whom he created an Artist Music Journal. I was stopped dead in my tracks by that afghanscape, and started gazing at his posters in different sizes with fascination, and thought you might want to also.

Shaun is based in Baltimore, and has been an active member of the city’s art and music community for the past 11 years. He makes show posters, sculptures, murals, installations, and conceptual projects, but percussion is his forte, and his first Baltimore band Cutter/Hammer once played for 60 hours straight in Times Square. Right now he's working on his first solo record as Vows.

Shaun is also a resident of the Floristree, a warehouse space in Baltimore that hosts festivals, shows, and a biweekly restaurant called Weedsnake. His book explores its visual history.

Belief and Technique for Modern Prose

2009-12-18T11:49:00.000-08:00

Michelle Blade gave this to me awhile ago which has always mad me happy so I thought I would pass it on.

Hirsch Perlman

2009-12-18T07:30:00.000-08:00

Operation Idiocracy, Roll 1, Frame 7/8, 2003
silver gelatin print
24 x 30 inches

Operation Idiocracy, Roll 29, Frame 1/2, 2003
silver gelatin print
24 x 30 inches

Operation Idiocracy, Roll 22, Frame 16_17, 2003
silver gelatin print
24 x 30 inches

I know nothing about this body of work by Hirsch Perlman, except that it's beautiful, was shown in 2004, and I'd like to know more. Images are from Blum and Poe.

Francesca DiMattoi

2009-12-17T13:38:00.000-08:00

Francesca DiMattoi's paintings create an optical illusion with the use of patterns, shapes, and colors within an architectural framework. They create a sense of confusion with the distortion of space while giving you the feeling they are invading your actual physical environment. These paintings provide a wonderful world of a fantasy and real with an abundance of detail, letting you crawl inside like Alice in Wonderland.

For more images, go to Salon 94 Gallery

**All images are from Salon 94 Gallery's website

Friday in SF: Pakayla Biehn at Gallery 6

2009-12-17T08:39:00.000-08:00

“Every Single Where” new works by Pakayla Biehn

opens this Friday, December 18, 2009 from 7 to 11pm at Gallery 6 (66 Sixth St, San Francisco)

The show runs through January 8, 2010, but Gallery Six is open by appointment only, so I highly recommend you come out to the blast that will be Pakayla's first solo show. Her work deserves your nose be just a couple inches away while admiring it.

Her most recent body of work concerns her congenital vision disability, called Strabismus. Pakayla's eyesight consists of mutually exclusive images trying, unsuccessfully, to bond into a cohesive impression. She uses her own embodied identity as a starting point for her paintings and installations. Her goal is to find a visual language to negotiate the intersection of imagery and create a similar perspective to give the viewer an understanding of her own optical condition.

Mutant Anxiety at Rosenthal Gallery

2009-12-16T19:03:00.000-08:00

LPP artist, Kelly Allen will be in a group show here in San Francisco, along with some other great artists:

Megan Whitmarsh, James Benjamin Franklin, Matt Furie, Jane Fine, Clara Fialho, Veronica De Jesus, R Nicholas Kuszyk, Kelly Allen and Derek Weisberg.

The show opens Saturday, December 19th and runs through January 9, 2010.

Michael Rosenthal Gallery
365 Valencia Street, San Francisco, CA

For more info go to, Rosenthal Gallery

**The image above is Kelly Allen's.

Giveaway!!!

2009-12-16T16:34:00.000-08:00

We partnered up with Jeff over at BOOOOOOOM! to give away one of our exclusive prints by the talented, David Linneweh!
Go on over to try to win it, but be prepared to tell us about your dream house!!
GO HERE!

Saturday in SF: Paul Madonna signing

2009-12-16T07:00:00.000-08:00

Electric Works presents ALBUM 01: book signing with Paul Madonna Saturday, December 19 2-4 PM

Paul Madonna's first collection of his strip All Over Coffee came out just after I moved to San Francisco in 2007. His beautiful ink drawings of San Francisco scenes gave me an even more impressive visual introduction to the city than my own eyes did.

He's now committed to creating a yearly "art book," and the first came to be last month. Join Electric Works, Saturday December 19 in celebrating the season and the publication of Paul Madonna's Album 01. Madonna will be signing and personalizing books from 2-4 PM in the gallery, 130 8th Street in San Francisco.

Also in the Electric Works gallery, swing by In What Era Will You Get Stuck?  a show of Madonna's large-scale (up to 50 by 60 inches) meticulously drawn pen and ink images of 1970s and 80s childhood-era toys.