Tetris on the Brain

I was invited to show at the second annual 8-Bit art show at Family Affair this year. I did a collab piece with Delton Demarest last year that set the bar high for us as individual participants this time around... Because my solo show at DVSN West was only 2 weeks ago, I wasn't sure how much time I had to devote to a concept, but I knew I wanted to elaborate on the brick patterns I already created. At first my heart was set on making a dimensional Super Mario Bros brick/block, but I couldn't decide on which version to use. Then after floating around on the web I found photos of an awesome Tetris Art installation in Sydney, Australia called "One More Go One More Go". Seeing that gave me new inspiration, and although my piece would be created on a smaller scale, the spatial possibilities of the shapes from Tetris became more intriguing.

"One More Go One More Go"  photo: ellabarclay.com

I have been collecting metal remnants and things from my friends and while walking around in odd places, so all of the material I used the fabricate my Tetris block (tetrimino) was free. The shape I chose could be considered an "s" or a "z" shape, depending on the way it's displayed. I gave the piece full xyz dimensionality so it looks like a cage or skeleton, it begins to create additional geometric images than what would normally be there if it was just flat, I enjoy angles and geometry. Over the course of 10 hours of cutting and polishing and welding, I created "Anatomy", its just under 2ft tall and will make a nice piece for someone's home in the future... It will be on display at Family Affair (denver) for the rest of the month, 2049 Larimer St.

There is a very informative Wiki about the origin of Tetris, it's worth a read!

October Catch Up

Having a full-time job again has been good... I can pay bills, buy food and gas, etc. without so much worry.  I haven't been blogging lately, but I've been actively Tweeting when I have a quick thought.

At the beginning of the month, I had the opportunity to submit artwork designs to Tyler Coomes aka Tycoon, he is a music producer on Dr. Dre's Aftermath label... Tycoon released "The Dark Side of Tycoon" (my last blog post), an album based on audio samples from Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon." I drew up a few concepts for the cover art, all playing off of Pink Floyd's original artwork.

^^^This concept has the prism being wrapped with audio cables of various sizes (all black of course) and audio cables matching the colors of the rainbow exiting out.

^^^This one has replaced the prism with an MPC machine, which many beat producers have used over the years (a staple instrument in the hip hop biz), rainbow light or audio cables shooting out as before.

My concepts didn't make the cut...  Either one of these would have been fresh to create for the album, I still plan on making the first concept into a piece in the future, just for me~

The Bogeyman artshow (10-6-2011) at the MAC SPA was fun, it was my first time to show with Eric Matelski, an artist and friend that has been promoting 100+ artshows each year for the last 5 years...

The space looked great and Eric was grilling up fajitas for the patrons.
I didn't get a chance to meet Stan Yan, but I was still highly entertained by his illustrations, my favorite indeed!

Good times~

My studio-mate Delton invited me to help him bomb/tag a lobby for a wine tasting and release party. Infinite Monkey Theorem is a Denver-based winery, they just released their line of keg-wine called "Monkey Shine," a witty spin-off of the alcohol, moon shine...

We painted for 8 hours in the fumed out room, tags over tags over tags, multiple colors and styles gave the room an urban feel. Delton spent most of his time painting IMT's Monkey logo as the centerpiece to the madness...

The party was the following night of the Bogeyman show, on the rooftop of the historic "Ghost Building" on 18th and Stout in Denver, the cops stopped by a couple times so IMT was doing something right!

People were drinking wine out of mason jars in the spirit of the Prohibition days~
Last but not least for October, Delton and I came together on our first real collaborative art piece in two years! We rocked a Nintendo Entertainment System and converted it into a custom wall-mount arcade.

The finished piece consists of a CNC-routed acrylic cabinet, aluminum, MDF, flatscreen tv, and of course and original NES unit. Painted by Delton, and assembled by me. The unit was part of an 8-bit inspired artshow at Family Affair on Larimer Street in Denver. Please visit my Flickr page to see the piece built from start to finish. Thanks to Alexi for assisting us in the CNC-router department!

Delton and I have been discussing the rebranding of Broken Bread Arts, which we are going to be turning into Studio 72, this arcade unit is just the beginning of our collaborative efforts...  Stay tuned, and happy Halloween!