Room with a View

 

It's almost November...  The leaves are changing, the air is cool, soon winter will be here!  I broke down and finally joined #Instagram, I won't post a lot from the app on my blog but please feel free to look me up @stereoabstract.  Anyway, this is the view from our new studio in downtown Denver!

Thanks to the photo filters on Instagram it looks pretty cool, I could have done this with film if I had the time...  Our studio is located at 2222 Broadway, if you're in the area and would like to see what we're up to, shoot us an email! We plan on having shows in the space in 2013 so keep in touch-

Thanks!

Photo by Steve Pamlenyi

My show was last night at DVSN West, and I am pretty happy with everything I put on display! It sounds weird but only because I've never shown art like this before... I had mounting complications with my neon pieces, but everyone was excited about my new dimensional works. (**For folks out there that plan on showing art in a space, make sure you know how you're allowed to hang work in advance, so you can plan accordingly!). I really appreciate everyone that was able to make it to the opening, I think everyone had a fun time!

Me

The Westword did a blog post prior to my show, that was really nice, and thanks to Amber Taufen for the write up. Here's the link if you would like to read it: http://blogs.westword.com/showandtell/2012/09/harrison_nealey_on_beauty_is_d.php

Steve Pamlenyi

That guy, Alexi High, once again changed the whole vibe of my pieces by making the time to help me by cutting parts on the flatbed CNC router at his work... I know it was my concept, but that's worthless sometimes without someone else's expertise! I raise my glass to you

Alan Bader

I did two late night photo sessions with my friend, Alan Bader, we produced a nice set of photo prints of the neon pieces and series of used mops (graffiti markers). I'll eventually add those for sale on my art page, by the end of October I assume. I think Alan did a supreme job working outside of his normal photography settings and his ability to adapt and shoot was captured in the photos he chose to print. He is actually getting close to starting his own business called Omni Creative Development, doing professional product design and product photography from his residence in North Denver. He is currently an employee at Omerica Organic, where he operates CNC machinery and takes photographs of the organic wood jewelry and accessories the company produces. I have to show a lot of love and gratitude to Alan and I hope he does well moving forward with his solo endeavor. Thanks!

Steve Pamlenyi

Thanks to Matt Feeney (Magnet Mafia) for bringing those trick silicone baking molds for a sweet set of fridge magnets. Sorry you missed the opener but we'll hit it up soon!

Thanks to Joel DeJong and Todd McMurry of DVSN West for giving me a show in their boutique and I hope they enjoy the art as much as I do... Sell some pieces fellas!

I want to thank my girlfriend and my son for putting up with my late night sessions of working on all of the pieces and parts of this show. Thanks to the rest of my friends and family that encouraged me and offered their support. And thanks to my studio mates, Dan Castillo and Delton Demarest for making sure I succeeded on my mission with this show...

For those that want to see the work, it will be on display until the end of October. Have a good weekend everyone!

Updates

Hello folks! long time no see? I've been active online (mainly twitter), but blogging can be a pain sometimes... But my friends have been telling me it's time for an update.

First things first, I got a jobby job working at Demiurge, which some of you may or may not be familiar with. It's a sculptural metal fabrication outfit that has done some pretty awesome work in their days... I was hired during the second production of "nail birds" for New York artist, Will Ryman, and for my first month on the job I spent my days preparing thousands of nails for the bird. Here's me learning how to TIG weld...

 I don't think I have permission to post photos of what I do exactly but please feel free to do some research. It's really nice to work on art of this scale, although it's not mine with my name on it, this kind of creation keeps me satisfied during the day.

My studio (Studio 72!) mates and I made the decision it was time to get a bigger space in March. We stayed in the Wazee Union building, tripled our square footage, and have stayed extremely busy! Please come visit us on May 12th for our monthly Second Saturday's open studio night, we will have new work on display from Delton Demarest, Karma Leigh, Alexi High, Dan Castillo, Alex Tischner (no link), and myself.

I sold another large painting in Feb/March, one of the paintings (The Traveler) I originally created for the Rackhouse Pub when they opened their doors. "Beneath the Surface" which I previously thought had sold at the Heart Art Auction, did not sell because nobody paid for it at the end of the night... So that is still in my possession.

The Traveler

I created 10 new pieces for an April show at the Yellow Feather Coffee shop on Santa Fe. None of them caught anyones fancy, but I blame it on the lighting... I really just think the pieces were the wrong color for the walls.

@ Yellow Feather

Luckily I have a May show at The Laughing Latte which has different color walls and different lighting that are more complementary to the same work. I hate to recycle my pieces so quickly, but if they get seen more it can't be bad! I did begin working on a new series that was originally meant for Laughing Latte, but I found myself running into the same situation with wall colors not completenting the art and vice versa... I think I will start researching wall colors before creating art for a space to avoid this in the future. I feel color is more important to my work because it is abstract and not imediately accepted or relatable or whatever makes less abstract portraits fit in more places. I felt bad at first that I couldn't hang my newest piece up, but the fact is it was simply wrong for the environment, and I think it would disrupt their business.

Progress photo of the latest.  Acrylic, aerosol, and oil pastel on wood. (found object)

Cast iron border. (found object)

I showed it to a boutique in LoHi that was very interested to have it, and I posted photos on my FB page, and I'm pretty sure I sold it to one of my friends over the phone today!

The public art project (wall thing) that my fabrication partner (Brian) and I landed is beginning to pick up a bit of steam. We are working up color samples and material samples that will be used in the fabrication of the wall, they need to be presented to the client and to the city for approval and probably permitting. More on that when it goes down!

I have been busy making signs and fabricating other cool stuff with Brian, our latest clients are DVSN West, The Pour House, Rackhouse Pub, Arts Street, Go Lite, and AIS Industrial & Construction Supply... Please visit our website to see some of our older work: Monolith Fabrication Studio

Painted logo graphics on brick.

Other updates? I think my son may become a sculptor... After he's done conquering the world, of course! he likes to make things out of my scraps, pretty amazing things, so look out for him- 

Rusted steel and glass. 2"x2"x1/4" (found objects)

Thanks for visiting and sorry for the hiatus!

Score!

Remember when I mentioned I was working on a concept for a public art piece in Denver? Well I just heard back from my partner Brian (@Monolith Fabrication Studio) that our concept won! I'm not quite sure when we will begin fabrication, but I would hope to start in the next few months...

The piece will be installed in front of a parking lot where headlight glare is a concern. The client wanted to solve the issue from an artistic approach; functional, pleasing to look at, recognizable. Our concept is a 60ft long wall that produces a low-fi animation (similar concept as a zeotrope) when driving by, and a static image when one stands still. Here's a few photos of the 1:5.6 scale concept:

^^^Detail of the business branding portion of the wall. Vector files were made to scale of the wall for pricing out our materials and also to laser-cut a bunch matboard to make a physical mockup... Lasers are fun btw!

^^^This is scaled down dramatically from what the real wall will be, but it's still 11ft long and tricky to move around. Shown here with red matboard to simulate rusted steel.

^^^Video cameras on skateboards... If I ever get it edited, I'll post it.

I wanted to thank all of my friends that encouraged me during this last month of agony figuring out the inner workings and research for this project... There's a lot more to this idea than I had originally imagined, but now it's one step closer to reality! Good job Brian!

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!

inspirations

Three-and-a-half years ago, my friend Matt and I (collectively known as the Magnet Mafia) took a flight down to Arizona with suitcases full of paint, painted magnets, and empty spray cans...  We exhibited our work on the inside and outside of the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art (SMoCA) for their May Magnet Month.  It was an awesome show and experience, we made a few friends and did a lot of art.  During our stay, we drove down to Phoenix for first Friday where we were pleasantly surprised with how much support artists received from their community.  Imagine Denver's Santa Fe Art District, except it was on Kalamath or Inca...  A real raw vibe!  This is where Matt and I met S. Arden Hill, hailing from Winnipeg, Canada...  Somehow we wandered into the vinyl toy shop where he was exhibiting and the rest is history!  Arden showed work in Denver at Abecedarian Gallery earlier this summer, good stuff.   I'm glad to be able to call him my friend and an inspiration with his latest editions of artist books...  Check him out-

http://ardenhill.ca/

2012 dates

So far I have 2 shows next year to look forward to...  I'm looking to do at least 4 though, hopefully do a little traveling art also, maybe D.C. or Chicago or S.F.

• Yellow Feather, Denver, CO (Unofficially) April 2012
• Dvsn West, Cherry Creek, CO (Officially) September 2012

Please email me if there are any places in particular you think I should show, locations and contact info would help too!  Thanks

Evan Siegel at Spark Gallery

 

www.evansiegel.com

Plein Air

I went on a field trip with Delton yesterday and tried my hand at plein air painting...  It was sort of like live painting at events, with people all around asking you what you're doing or telling stories of their art experiences, but it's different.  I'm used to doing abstract work, but I really wanted to try to translate what I saw into something tangible yesterday...  Painting next to Delton makes my work looks like child's play, but I'll continue painting with him because it will only help.  Today is the last day of the Denver Plein Air Arts Festival hosted by the Golden Triangle Museum District, I'm not sure if I should get my piece stamped and try to submit it into the competition, I would rather submit an abstract...  Maybe I need another board to paint!

2010 Estria invitational - Denver's Own Represent!

Very inspirational... Good job Jher!

Estria Invitational Graffiti Battle 2010 from Estria Battle on Vimeo.

Estria Invitational Graffiti Battle 2010



Documentary Short

Produced & directed by Thenmozhi Soundararajan



Interviews of:

- Estria Miyashiro

- Marc Bamuthi Joseph of Youth Speaks

- Nate1/MPC - 2010 Judge

- Crayone/TWS - 2010 Judge

- Jason Mateo / EIGB Producer

- Vogue/TDK - Oakland

- Siloutte - San Francisco

- Jher/RTD KOG (2nd Place Winner)

- Twick / ICP - San Franciscso

- Prime / 808 Urban - Honolulu

- Dime / Visual Element - Oakland

- VyalOne / KOD COI - (1st Place Winner) Los Angeles

- Weyland Southon / Hard Knock Radio



Sponsored by Youth Speaks Life Is Living Festival & Montana Colors North America

The Big Draw on Westword's Blog

The Big Draw: No flyovers, no marching band, no more tears. And put a magnet on it.  Abecedarian Gallery and Magnet Mafia doing things again.

Old friend

Good to see you again...

old footage from broken bread gallery

thx to Eric Seetwist for the film

bridge to skate

I was invited to paint a skateboard deck for this organization...  My deck and others will be on display at Black Book Gallery for another week, if you're out on first Friday, stop by!

Here's a sneak peek.