Map of Guadalupe

Today is the feats day for the Virgin of Guadalupe. Back in 2007 I made this image of Her entirely out of maps from many of the place she watches over. It’s 12”x24”. There are also prints available of this piece on Society 6.

When Creating Art is an Act of Historic Preservation

Over the years, while working on collages, I began to see how using source material from a certain period could “date” a piece. I do not mean to imply that by “dating” a piece it’s somehow out of fashion. But rather I am using the term “dating” in the sense of freezing time. When I use older source material in a contemporary piece, I am creating something akin to a time capsule. So much of the material I use is destined for landfills and recycling bins. When I repurpose the material for a work of art, it in turn also becomes preserved in a way other than the placing it in a drawer or mylar envelope.

A collage can be a way to preserve various ephemera. Even after a little cutting, you are setting the material in some sort of glue for the ages. But when I start cutting, there is usually little of that kind of preservation going on. I tend to work with small pieces — thousands of small pieces. But even after I cut material into little pieces and reconfigure it, what I still do preserve is the color. And color can really change over time. Some shades of a color are very distinct to a certain time.

For example, when you see a distinct shade of a color it can trigger a memory. The color may bring an image to mind or specific point in time. It happens when you see a color like the original blue on a classic car and immediately realize that particular blue was only used on cars during the 1960’s. Memory triggering color may also be associated with clothing, household objects, old photos or printed material. It might be the shade of baby blue or pink that reminds you of a vintage telephone. There are distinctive shades of red and blue that were used as backdrops in advertising photos in the 1950’s. The olive green and harvest gold kitchen appliances of the 1970’s are unmistakable. Dig deep in the closet and something in a very bright yellow or purple (or both) might fall out. It’s probably a shirt that hasn’t seen the light of day since Daddy Bush was president.

As I cut up things like old maps, atlases, vintage postcards and discarded magazines and books my first purpose is just to make a work of art. I work in the present. But, I also understand that I am preserving color palettes that are disappearing.

Some examples of some Palette Preservation can be seen above and much more is at tofuart.com.

The Big Pink Dinosaur

How can you not love a big pink dinosaur? I went down to Yerba Buena Center for the Arts to have a second look. This time I took along my neighbors, 4 and 6 years old. They agreed — the dinosaur is cool. The dinosaur is made out of hundreds of recycled pink plastic bottles. The installation is the work of the team of Indian artists Thukral & Tagra. It’s my favorite part of YBCA’s current show The Matter Within: Contemporary Art of India.

International Mail Art Exhibition

It’s time for another show up in Vancouver at the Richmond Art Gallery. Last year it was Artist Trading Cards, this time the theme is mail art. The three 5”x5” mixed media pieces above are from the Trailer Series that was mailed up to Canada

More about the show is below and on the gallery website.

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Richmond Art Gallery

7700 Minoru Gate

Richmond BC, V6Y 1R9, Canada

November 18, 2011 – January 15, 2012 


Opening Reception: Thursday, November 17, 7–9 pm



Artists from all over the world have contributed their work for the Richmond Art Gallery’s International Mail Art Exhibition and Swap. This exhibition is intended to be a cultural exchange, where artists exhibit their works and receive new works as part of a swap. This shared enterprise is free from the rules of the art market, and yet we asked artists to respond to the theme of “economy” in all its forms.

Mail Art (aka Postal Art) is an art form where artists exchange artworks and correspondence through the mail to one another. The historical roots of Mail Art can be traced back to the artist Ray Johnson and his New York CorresponDANCE School that formed in the 1960s. Based on the principles of barter and equal, one-to-one collaboration between artists, Mail Art has become a worldwide cultural movement for artists to share visual art, poetry, or any other art form through the postal system.

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Below is an image from the show's opening

Meatyard

One of the roles an art museum can play is exposing the public to artists and work that they are unfamiliar with. The blockbuster shows with the big names we all recognize serve a different purpose. When the Picassos are packed up and take a trip around the world, it’s an opportunity for everyone who can’t make it to Paris to see famous works of art. At the same time, as an artist, I often find myself truly appreciating a museum when I get exposed to something completely new to me. Yesterday I went to the de Young and saw a show of work from the photographer Ralph Eugene Meatyard. It is a good example of why I visit museums.

Meatyard died young n 1972 and his work has remained somewhat obscure. The show at the de Young has over 50 photographs and is titled Dolls and Masks. He staged his photos. Many contain dolls and the models often wear masks. He usually used his wife and children as models for the masks. The photos are typically set in overgrown gardens and ramshackle, decaying buildings. If one was to classify his work, the term Southern Gothic immediately comes to mind. Some of the photos feel as if they are meant to illustrate the works of writers like Carson McCullers or James Purdy.

Dark images of broken dolls and rubber masks on children could be a recipe for a disturbing body of work. At first glance, the first word that comes to mind is creepy. But that reaction quickly evaporates as you look closer at the work. Perhaps because he worked with his own family, there is something innocent about Meatyard’s work. It’s hard for me to express why, but this work comes off as oddly pleasant. On the other hand, I can imagine if Meatyard’s contemporary Diane Arbus had come down to Kentucky. If she taken photos of the same subjects. I am certain I would have had that uncomfortable reaction I usually do to her work.

Even though I just discovered Meatyard yesterday, I keep going back to this photo I took a few years ago. It's of an abandoned doll down the street from my apartment. That day I may have been channeling. The Meatyard show runs until February 2012 and it’s one I need to see a few more times.

Finding The Art of Wayne Quinn

In September 2011 I went to the annual sale put on by the Friends of the San Francisco Public Library.  I usually avoid this, as some of the book buying and hoarding public can be pretty vicious.  Some volunteers advised to come on the last day when things would be more mellow.  They were correct, by Sunday everything was priced at one dollar and there were still plenty of books. There was a crowd, but in general it wasn’t too crazy.  And I did find some more atlases for further adventures in map art. 

I think the real reason I was meant to go to the book sale was to find this one overlooked book titled The Art of Wayne Quinn.  The book was published in 1977.  It was from a San Francisco publisher house called New Glide Publications.  Online there is no reference to New Glide except in listings for books for sale – all published in the 1970’s.  Probably their most notable book was Word is Out, a companion book to the documentary of the same name. 

The Art of Wayne Quinn has 95 pages of excerpts from the artist’s journal with color images of about 20 oil paintings, including detailed images.  Quinn was a realist. The clothing and hairstyles in some the portraits are clearly from the 1970’s though there is an out-of-time quality to much of his work.  Clearly ignoring many of his art contemporaries, Quinn worked in a style that seems more in place among America’s Regionalist Artists of the 1930’s.  It’s work that brings to mind such artists as Andrew Wyeth and Grant Wood.  One can imagine if Grant Wood had lived to a ripe old age and finally fled Iowa for San Francisco, these would have been the sort of paintings he would have been doing in the 1960’s and 1970’s.

Finding the book, made me curious to learn more about Wayne Quinn.  The book itself offered little biographical information other than that he was born in 1941 and raised in Upstate New York and had lived in San Francisco since 1963.  35 years after the book was published, the internet would provide me with some answers.  Wayne Quinn was nearly nowhere to be found except for this one brief blog posting. 

Considering Wayne Quinn was nowhere to be found online, lived in San Francisco, and was born in 1941, I assumed the worst.  I found Quinn’s 1987 obituary from the Bay Area Reporter on the GLBT Historical Society’s database.  The obituary was brief with few details.  Two of his friends have recently added a few remembrances of Quinn.

Further searching on his full name, Wayne Douglas Quinn, these items online:

• A reference to an honorable mention award he won at an art show in Palm Beach in 1973. 
• I did find reference to another book of his work called Fourteen Line Drawings published in 1973. 
• He also did a painting of Mt. Sutro. 
• His work was shown at the Jehu-Wong Gallery.  The Upper Market gallery operated from 1971-83.  Some documents from the gallery as well as two of Quinn’s paintings are listed in the Smithsonian’s archives of American Art. 
• One of his paintings is at Cornell University’s Johnson Museum of Art. 

All said there was not very much information out there.  If you come across this blog entry and have things to share about Wayne Quinn, please let me know.  The book was a real find, and I’d like the opportunity to preserve Wayne Quinn’s memory.  He is an artist who should not be forgotten.

Update June 2017:

Thank to a commenter on this post I discovered and just finished reading Mark Abramson’s book Sex, Drugs & Disco. In 2015 Abramson published his diary documenting his wild life in San Francisco during the late 1970s.   Mark was an admirer and eventually became friends with Wayne Quinn mentioning him a number of times in the diary.  He even refers to the Wayne Quinn book that started this blog post. Mark modeled for a nude sculpture Wayne did. There is also a 1979 photo of Mark at an opening of Wayne Quinn’s work at the Tyson Gallery in San Francisco.  He mentions meeting the collector who bought the sculpture and says:

“I could tell right away that he was disappointed to see me in the flesh.  He probably had fantasies about that body on the statue he bought, and I didn’t match them at all.  I wonder what he’ll do with it now.  It must have cost him a lot of money.  Sorry.”

I really want to see a photo of that sculpture, where is it now?

Mark mentions further modeling for Wayne Quinn.  The diary also mentions gallery shows in New York as well as Wayne’s work appearing in Architectural Digest in 1979 (I plan to peruse some back issues at the library). I am glad Sex, Drugs & Disco is out there, it’s a fascinating read, plus offers a few more, albeit brief, glimpses into Wayne Quinn’s life.

Update September 2017:

A reader named Alan shared an image of this Wayne Quinn painting he owns.  It is signed and dated 1965 and appears to be in its original frame.  This was likely a very personal work by the artist.  Alan told me that attached to the back of the painting is a small plastic bag with a lock of red hair.  Will we ever know the identity of this handsome red head?

Alan inherited the painting from a friend, who said told Alan had bought it at a sidewalk sale directly from the artist.  The idea that Wayne had needed to sell this work on the street just makes me terribly sad.

Update September 2019:
A new book titled Queer Holdings: A Survey of the Leslie-Lohman Museum Collection  is available from the University of Chicago Press.  The book features one image of a Wayne Quinn painting.  The book does not include any additional details about Quinn or his work.  The museum's database does not include any images or Quinn's work, including the one featured in the book as of September 2019.

Regarding Purchasing and Selling 

I occasionally receive inquiries and comments about selling Wayne Quinn’s artwork.  I am not an art dealer nor an appraiser and have no thoughts on the monetary value of his work and venues where it would be appropriate to sell his work.  I recommend seeking a qualified art appraiser, perhaps through your local auction house.  If work you plan on selling ends up on an auction house website or in an online auction (e.g., eBay), feel free to email me the link via my website (tofuart.com) and I can post the link.  (Disclaimer: I take no responsibility for any information or claims made in any auction/sale link about Wayne Quinn's work).

Don't Step on the Cracks

Superstition & Exquisite Corpse is the show I am in this month at the Tangent Gallery in Sacramento. I have the piece called "Don't Step on the Cracks" in the show. It's a 12"x12", mixed media photo collage (see above).

Tangent Gallery is at 2900 Franklin Blvd. in Sacramento. The opening reception is Saturday, October 8 from 6-10 p.m. The gallery is open Saturday's 12-3 (or by appointment).

Art at A.P.E. - 2011

This weekend is one of San Francisco’s better art weekends. It is time for the annual Alternative Press Expo (A.P.E) in San Francisco. A.P.E. gets bigger every year and might be reaching the point where it is too big. It’s filling most of the Course Exhibition Center now.

I always get some new art at A.P.E. and it’s good opportunity to meet the artists too. Officially A.P.E. is am alternative comics and graphic novels shoe. But the event would be better described as being a show for artists who do alternative comics and graphic novels with an emphasis on the art and artists.

I found quite a few things that I like including some of the artists listed below:

• Jenny Parks had some of the best cat art and clearly takes the prize for cats meet Dr. Who with her Doctor Mew series. You’ll like it, even if you don’ t care for Dr. Who.

• I love sushi art and I love glitter art. And when you can bring them together. I met Charlene Kelley who works in glitter and even had a few pieces of glitter sushi art.

• A new letterpress printing company called the Oakland Printing Company was showing some beautiful work including some hand-bound books with covers from retired army blankets.

• We met Los Angeles artist Lonnie Millsap selling his very funny books My Washcloth Stinks and the new I Hate my Job!

• I bought a copy of Fuck You Sun from the artist Rigel Stuhmiller. She illustrated the hilarious book by Matt Cole. If you’re out all night and never say goodnight to the moon, this is the walk-of-shame storybook for you really bad kids.

• My favorite find had to be Casey Storm’s very demented zombie hats. I am pretty much over knitting. But then there is this incredibly creative and hilarious work. The hats have an eyeball that pops out and hangs by a sinewy red yarn tendon from the eye socket. Guaranteed to scare the more sensitive kids on the playground.

A.P.E. is all weekend and if you haven’t had your fill of art, open studios begins this weekend as well. If you’re finding this blog after the fact, go to A.P.E.’s website and be sure to mark your calendar for 2012.

Urban Repurposing – Sunday Streets as Conceptual Art

Fulton Street - Sunday Streets - September 11, 2011

I have to confess that I had a lack of enthusiasm for Sunday Streets when it started back in 2008. I kind of assumed it was just another street festival. San Francisco loves its street festivals. You can find one happening just about every weekend for nearly six months of the year. And while they vary by theme and neighborhood, they all begin to feel the same after 20 years. Actually, that was my reaction after living five years in San Francisco.

Sunday Streets is a very different thing altogether. With Sunday Streets you get a whole piece of a neighborhood closed-off to traffic. Usually about 20 blocks are emptied. Street Festivals are much more compact and usually very crowded. It’s a different energy at Sunday Streets. While there are small crowds of activity at different spots, there is none of that get-me-out-of-here feeling most crowds give me.

A few friends have asked me “What’s there to do?” It’s hard to answer. It’s more just about hanging out and enjoying the space. Running into friends and neighbors. There are tables here and there from different community groups and there are some fun activities for kids. There is some music and dancing. But unlike the street festivals, the bands that choose to play, might find their biggest crowds come from toddlers. Yesterday, across from the police station on Fillmore Street a band called Rin Tin Tiger was playing (good band name). Their Facebook Page indicates they often get hassled by the police for playing on the street. It was nice to see them getting to perform without trouble across from the station. It’s kind of the essence of what Sunday Streets is all about — repurposing the streets for play.

If you have ever perused the library’s historic photo collection, one thing you quickly notice is how empty the San Francisco’s streets used to be. I live on a busy street with three lanes of traffic. It’s one of San Francisco’s one-way, “freeway” streets. Photos of the street from the 1920’s show a street with plenty of parking spaces and few cars. Could the City of the past be the City of the future? Not that I see Sunday Streets as being anti-car — it’s more about showing us an alternative. Streets without cars.

The removal of cars and emptying of streets for other purposes, even occasionally, transforms the space. San Francisco has many people who feel they are quite clever heading up to the Nevada desert and installing an urban space called Burning Man every year. For me, the real act of art is creating open space out of urban streets.

The Monster Pals

Some Collage Monsters I created earlier this week for the 2011 Project have inspired a bigger piece, this one is 10"x10". Prints are available from Society 6.

Zine Fest 2011

The annual Zine Fest that happens in San Francisco is becoming an event that is getting a permanent spot on my calendar. It’s growing, yet is still small enough to feel accessible and manageable. I am not a fan of massive events. Labor Day Weekend is one of my favorites in San Francisco. It feels like half the City is at Burning Man. The rest of us have the place to ourselves and get to have this really cool event.

There were some familiar artists at this year’s Zine Fest but quite a few I had not seen before. Some of the highlights of this year’s event include:

• The disturbing and very wrong (and hilarious) work from Poopy Lickles.
• After recovering from that, at the next table was the cool mail art from Jennie Hinchliff.
• I really like Charlene Fleming’s work. She is filling small sketchbooks with beautiful San Francisco illustrations. A few are available as prints. Hopefully there will be an art book in the future that is essentially a reproduction of one of her sketchbooks.
• I couldn’t tell if Ray Sumser had crashed the event. Not that anyone seemed to mind. He was set up outside with his rather obsessive and wonderful work titled The Comicosm. (But I am never one to criticize obsessive behavior when it comes to art).
• If I were going to select a Best in Show award it would go to Josh Ellingson. I just loved the image (seen above) from his BART poster series. You can buy a print from his website.