Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Baby Tattooville Wrapup

I’ve been meaning to post a few photos and sketches from Baby Tattooville, the pop surrealism art event held at the Mission Inn two weeks ago in Riverside, California.

The gathering is the brainchild of Bob Self, above, publisher of Baby Tattoo books. Forty-five collectors and 11 lowbrow artists convened to talk, eat, collaborate, and doodle in sketchbooks. Shown here are Yoskay Yamamoto and Tara Macpherson, a returning guest artist.

I took a shift at the Art Jam alongside Miss Mindy, with BoingBoing cofounder Mark Frauenfelder shooting video and Buddha supervising.

The painting also included the brushwork of Greg Simkins, KMNDZ, Yoskay Yamamoto, Michael Hussar, Molly Crabapple, Buff Monster, Liz McGrath, KRK Ryden, Travis Louie, Gary Baseman, and Audrey Kawasaki. Photo courtesy of Arrested Motion.


My contribution to the painting was this bemused bug-eyed fellow named Ollie the Observer, wearing a party hat decorated by Buff Monster.

At the opening celebration of the “Son of Baby Tattooville” exhibition at the Riverside Art Museum, Mr. Monster could see that I was shortchanged in the hair, tattoo, piercing, and moniker departments, so he kindly loaned me his shades, a small coolness upgrade.

Every artist signed the “11-in-One” print, which was given out to each of the attendees, along with a goodie bag that included toys, books, prints, and originals.

My own contribution, in addition to a poster, will be one of the original Explorer’s Journal sketches, which I’m finishing up this week.
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Official Website on Baby Tattooville and the Son of BT Museum Exhibit
Lots more coverage of the event on Arrested Motion.
BoingBoing post by Mark Frauenfelder

8 comments:

Unknown said...

These are wonderfully creative, as always! Where do you come up with such names??

It would be great if sometime you could do a video of drawing with watercolor pencils (unless I have missed one you did in the past?)...

Thanks for sharing these

Unknown said...

"Mr. Monster loaned me his shades, a small coolness upgrade."

I hope that once we can loan in your shade to get a small (or large) talent upgrade...

eric said...

james dont believe anyone who says your not cool, if you would have walked in there with your shorts and trademark grey socks pulled up they would have been blown away by all your coolness!!

haha, awsome post, i hope to see as much details and photos about your other visits during that week....especially Blizzard!!

Anonymous said...

As for coolness, nothing beats your Gallery Flambeau outfit!

Chinami said...

I love that you, James, ( one of my favorite artists and a huge inspiration.) are collaborating with "contemporary" artists! ( Audrey Kawasaki is also one of my favorite artists as well,)

It's really interesting to read about Baby Tatooville from Audrey kawasaki's perspective on her blog and from your perspective on this blog. I love the internet!


Just to be clear, you were connected with all of these different artists just through Baby Tatooville?

Thanks so much for sharing this James!

Chinami

James Gurney said...

Chinami, yes, I met this particular group of artists through Baby Tattooville, except for Travis Louie, who is an old friend who lives just one traffic light away. We often have breakfast together. The kinds of collaborations we were doing are very familiar to me from my friendships with comic artists.

Chinami said...

Thank you for elaborating James. It really delights me to hear about collaborations between artists from different "genres".
When I interned for an International Art fair in Tokyo this year I was really surprised by the pretentious atmosphere which surrounded it. I think because art curators, and expensive art gallery owners were involved in the event, they gave me the impression that artists who have been deemed the specific label "contemporary artists" look down on and/or refuse to associate with other types of artists. I actually came away from that event with the feeling that "contemporary artist / art" = pretentious.

Which seemed absolutely ridiculous to me, so I'm very glad to hear that its not true. :D

P.S. we have Dr.Sketchy in Tokyo as well.

Unknown said...

So excited to see you again this year James! It was a total pleasure meeting you and painting with you in 2009 - Let's have some fun... & bring our shades. ;)
love, Miss Mindy