By Way of the South, Going Home

Opening tomorrow night, Saturday, January 12, 2013 at the Guerrero Gallery in San Francisco. The last show assembled by the late Justin Van Hoy.

JRF for Poster Child Prints 2013

The fine folks at Poster Child Prints recently invited me to concept and design another print edition for 2013. As usual, the subject matter, format and color palette was completely open and I chose to create a follow up the graphic theme of my 2009 release, Untitled (Borders Series). In extreme contrast to that four color print, which were precisely mixed by hand, the 2013 edition, Mono (Borders Series) is a simple one color print; black on white.

Whereas the film for the Untitled (Borders Series) was actually rubylith, hand-cut at 100% scale, the film for Mono (Border Series) was created digitally, using a coarse halftone screen to achieve the illusion of multiple densities.

The edition is limited to fifty pieces, each 18" x 24", and individually chopped, numbered and signed and will be released exclusively through Poster Child Prints on January 9, 2013.

Vinyl Revisioned: Gang of Four/Entertainment!

Gang of Four's debut 1979 release, Entertainment! is an underground classic that I never tire of hearing. Oddly enough, I only just discovered it a few years ago and for someone that is a huge fanatic for just about every other UK punk, post-punk and new wave band from the same era, I am still shocked that I was not exposed to it much sooner.

Perhaps it was the fact that the Gang of Four lacked a particularly, dynamic or iconic visual element associated with it, compared to a band like the Buzzcocks or the Sex Pistols. Those albums are so ingrained in my mind as the pure forces of that musical era. With that in mind, I set out to tackle a redesign of an underground classic, that was new to me.

Appropriating a contextual cue from the original album artwork, I incorporated both stereotypical imagery of "Cowboys and Indians" and topical information such as newspaper headlines. I have designed a visually dissonant work that echoes with themes of disillusionment and alienation found amongst the content of the lyrics.

Vinyl Revisionists

I'm proud to be one of the exhibiting artists in Vinyl Revisionists. Opens Friday, March 30, 2012 at Warner Brothers Records in Burbank, CA.

JRF for Obey Clothing/Artist Series

JRF x OBEY from OBEY CLOTHING on Vimeo.

From PiL: First Issue

Lydon's anthem that cast aside the Pistols' legacy and declared a more interesting and more sophisticated group, Public Image Limited.

From 1979.

PLINC Exhibition Chapman University

The folks at House Industries and PLINC have an upcoming exhibition at Chapman University, which opens February 6, 2012. Details over at the PLINC site.

Fanatical Mechanical: Photo-Lettering and the Paste-Up Era
Opening: Feb. 6, 2012, 5:30 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.
Opening Lecture: Rich Roat of House Industries, Feb. 6, 2012, 7:00 p.m.
Place: Chapman University Guggenheim Gallery, Orange, Calif.
Exhibition Runs from Feb. 6 through March 9, 2012
Open Monday through Saturday 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.

House Industries celebrates the craft of Photo-Lettering’s past while presenting it in the context of contemporary relevance. David Dodde’s prodigious hand-printed panels and substantial scrims mingle with custom lithographic layers and fascinating alphabetic fixtures by fanatical fabricators Marc Wiegers and Roger VanTill of Greenwood Studios. Sprinkled throughout the exhibit are carefully excavated and curated historical Photo-Lettering components including original films, rare specimen books and ceramic artifacts.

Eames: The Architect and The Painter

The missus and I ventured out to an early Sunday morning Laemmle screening of The Architect and The Painter a few weeks ago. It's a new feature length documentary on Charles and Ray Eames, and I highly recommend it.

Thankfully for you, PBS has recently posted the entire film over on their site. Check it out here.

Bill Daniel

Bill Daniel is a pretty interesting guy. He's most well known for his documentary, Who is Bozo Texino?, which is an amazing film about a nearly-extinct slice of American subculture.

Daniel has also spent years wandering the country, doing still photography, hand-crafting silver gelatin prints, making zines and generally doing good stuff. Check him out.

DDC-051 "Philadelphia Freedom Poster"

I'm a fan of DDC and the personality behind it, Mr. Aaron Draplin. He does great work, cares about the history of his medium and is funny as hell.

I guess Draplin's been doing a lot of speaking engagements/lectures and knocking out amazing prints to promote and accompany the various venues.

To summarize: support this dude. He does kick ass shit.

LOUD FLASH: British Punk on Paper

A little late with this posting, but above is a small sampling of 'Loud Flash: British Punk on Paper' exhibit from Honor Fraser Gallery in LA. It's a well-curated and very rare selections of prints, flyers, zines and other ephemera from the personal collection of Brit, Toby Mott. No doubt, THE most impressive presentation of the era that I've ever seen...most of which, in terms of design, is absolutely brilliant.

Press release from Honor Fraser:

Honor Fraser is pleased to announce Loud Flash: British Punk on Paper, opening Saturday July 16, 6 to 8pm, and on view through August 27, 2011.

This exhibition is a compelling portrait of a particular moment in British popular culture, at the bitter end of the post-war period. It tells its story through a unique collection of several hundred posters, flyers and other ephemera assembled by artist and erstwhile punk, Toby Mott. With the passion of a true fan and an artist's eye for an image, he has gathered the evidence of the short life and premature, messy end of British Punk. There are iconic images by artists such as Jamie Reid and Linder Sterling, as well as flyers, gig posters, and zines, crudely cut and pasted by anonymous hands. A fascinating collection of political material supplies further context of a nation of unrest, torn by extremism, recording attempts by political extremes of both left and right to co-opt the power of youth.

Ephemeral and throwaway as each of these objects were, collected together they tell, in uniquely immediate and visual terms, a part of the history of Britain, the history of ideas, and the history of art. Punk has always exerted a fascination, but perhaps never stronger than at this moment. The legacy of punk has permeated modern culture and society, and its visual vocabulary infuses much contemporary art, while the punk spirit resonates in particular with the anti-elitist, DIY ethos of today's young, blogging artists and musicians. This exhibition recalls the anarchic spirit of authenticity and amateurism, the volatile and ambiguous celebration of negativity, creativity, violence and protest that was Punk.

PLINC Catalog

I'm a huge fan of the boys (and girls) over at House Industries in Yorklyn, Delaware. Their latest project, the digitization of the overwhelming Photo-Lettering (PLINC) archives, has been online for a few months now. If you're a designer, be sure to go check it out...and be sure to sign up for their new printed PLINC catalog.

Above images House Industries © 2011

REFERENCE LIBRARY/Taliban Don't Surf PT. 2

My previous post, below, showed some of the content and concept of the Taliban Don't Surf print. Above are a few aspects of the craft of the design; from first thumbnail sketch (dated 2/21/11) and notes, to illustrating type specimens and creating other analog elements for use in the collage. After a few dozen digital comps, films are ripped, screens are coated and burned, inks mixed, paper trimmed and registered and squeegees pulled.

The final product, a two color, 18" x 24" screenprint, on 100# archival, black stock is available now (6/30/11) via 1xRun.com.

REFERENCE LIBRARY/Taliban Don't Surf

A few pieces of digital ephemera that serve the story of the upcoming Taliban Don't Surf print, available June 30, 2011, exclusively at 1xRun.com.