Monday, January 02, 2006

The Shinola Factor

I'm contractually bound to provide self-indulgence here at Ye Ol' Bloggy-Blog, so today I intend to deliver.

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A couple of years ago I did a wee little art show called "Shinola", which was presented at a storefront gallery/hair salon in San Pedro. It was the promise of a good scalp massage and trim that brought the people in droves --gotta have a gimmick. The idea was to re-produced a selection of my best found photos into enlarged (16"x20") silk screen prints. I prepped some of the prints with an underpainting wash with the screen-printed image on top.

the hi-tech screen burning laboratory
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And the results :
(click any image for large version)







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the originals:

the absolute best orig.
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Lessons learned: The Shinola show wasn't exactly a huge success, although it didn't stem the tide of business for the salons' daily grind of perms, dyes, and hair extensions. At the opening, a pearl-necklaced art matron asked me, "why would anybody want to put a picture of you and your girlfriend up on their living room wall?". She was referring to the image of the guy grabbing the woman's ass (above). That snipe alone made Shinola a minor artistic triumph. In retrospect, I'm surprised that there were no riots.

I really didn't know jack about screen printing and I taught myself as I went along. [Don't use the water-based ink, like I did --use oil-based] The bigger issue was that the original found photos are so outstanding that it was like a sacrilege to mess with 'em. The analogy would be Ted Turner colorizing Citizen Kane. The screened images DO look better than they've reproduced here and they're OK, but still.

Nothing sold but I gave a few prints away for love purposes.



6 comments:

Anonymous said...

hey, what are you doing with a photo of ME? Where did you get that?

Joey Polanski said...

POINT #1: "Stabbr Pals" shoud be retitld "Vito & Carlo take out th Sheik."

POINT #2: Th propr response to "Why woud anyone want t put a pitcher o you an yer girlfren up on their livin room wall?" is "Cause me an my girlfren dont do live apearances."

Anonymous said...

your alter-egos?

http://bloggy-blog.blogspot.com/
http://bloggylog.blogspot.com/
http://myblogginess.blogspot.com/
http://www.sindylee.com/blog/
(my favorites:)
http://www.hollyy129.blogspot.com/
http://www.jeremyandclaire.blogspot.com/

You're wierd, collecting photos of other people.

Geritopia said...

Wow, yeah, that other bloggy-blog: jeremyandclaire.blogspot.com

Get a load of them photos... see "chris still w/ a broken leg","amy had a birthday at Barrgan's with 2 dollar margarits", "KILL showed some great drawings", etc... these guys are having a shitload more fun than I am. It's like they were groomed on MTVs "Real World" with a chaser of Diesel commercials and they actually manifested it into reality! And, look, they're from LA... they're much more hip and representative of the scene here. The Tattoos! Of course, I have none. They probably live in the Silverlake area I'd guess.

Blogs are so idiotic.

Anonymous said...

Party blogs are the best. Show us your boobies.

Right? Show us your boobies, huh?

simple said...

I can see that the anonymous 'list' is extremely relevant to the original post. I was a little ill after viewing that one link. Glad you spent the time researching it.

Aside from that, I was happy to see the 'behind the scenes' part. I enjoy other's photos. I'm looking forward to seeing the whole TV documentary on A&E.