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They're in the shop. Fifty clams (since we only have a few left). UV-reactive inks. 3-color 18" x 24" posters. Edition of 80. Hand-pulled by Nat Swope at Bloom Press.
Good fun. Thanks to Peaches Christ for such a great gig.
xm
I ruv roo.
Exactly one year ago we adopted this 56-pound ball of pure energy named Blue. The photo on the left was taken by Amanda Jones about a week after we had adopted her (for a cover shoot for The Bark magazine), and we were still getting to know her. We still are. She is affectionate, exuberant, lovely, goofy, and frustrating. You know: a puppy. It's lots of work (naturally). Well, (as my dear Grandfather once said) Blue is two years old now. It's time that she get herself a job. Since she has no thumbs, she's going to have to get creative. To pay for her care and feeding (read: trail walks), I've started a redbubble shop featuring some of my designs. I've ordered a few of the products, and I'm happy to report that the quality is top-notch. Peep some samples below.
Friendlies: are you sitting comfortably? Good. Let me tell you a story.
Back in 2011 (my, how time flies), Jim Winters and I set out to make a follow-up book to his artists' book Queen for a Day. Jim Worked up a set of coats-of-arms, and I did portraits of my favorite queens. We hand printed the whole shebang at Inky Oxnard Studios on Rives BFK and trimmed and glued the prints into accordion-folded books. Behold.
On the left, my queens (interspersed with Jim's coats-of-arms) :
The B-52's. Siouxsie Sioux. Elizabeth Taylor from the movie Boom. Lynda Barry. Helen Lawson from the movie Valley of the Dolls. Pepper LaBeija. Rosalind Russell from Auntie Mame.
If you don't know who they are, then you haven't lived.
These are the colorful, talented, quirky, smart-as-a-whip ladies who inspire me to keep on making stuff every day.
My thanks.
Friendlies, I'm very excited. SomeWags has been printed, prepped, and hung on the walls of the oh-so-pink-and-pretty Glama-Rama Salon and Gallery in Oakland. The opening is this Saturday night, October 17, from 6-9 pm. The address is 6399 Telegraph Avenue near the corner of Alcatraz. It should be a hoot. I think there will be a short set of music by our band Special Ghosts (featuring AJ Pinecone and Isabel Samaras), as well as some uke and singing by my nephew Kellen Wertz. Punch and Pie! This is a show of new two-color screenprints created with paper stencils under a big tent on my back deck. PRINTING IN HEAT AND WIND CHALLENGE: ACCEPTED. To see some snaps of the work in progress, head over to m'Instergrahams to see #somewags in action.
See you there?
xm
stay tuned...
xm
Friendlies: I'm attempting a little experiment over here. We (the royal we) have created a monthly inbox zine called Wertzeen. If you sign up, it will arrive, like a magic mist, in your email inbox. Once a month, and no more than once a month. It is a zine without the paper: a zeen. We’ll keep you informed not just of our illustrative scribblings and meanderings but also of the happenings of the Bay Area creative community. It will be good fun, and it means you no harm. It is free and easy. If this interests you, click on over to this page.
I'm posting issue #001 tomorrow, and I can't wait.
xm
friendlies, our little uke band special ghosts (it's andy, isabel, and yours truly) is playing the burlington hotel on july 18th. if you haven't been to port costa yet, it's time to treat yourself. be sure to have dinner at the bull valley roadhouse before the show.
here's a flyer, and some images of isabel and i screenprinting little stuffed ghost pillows for sale at the show. thanks to bloom press for hosting.
xm
.. magotes. I had to say it. Apologies. The Rickshaw Bagworks totes I've been designing are showing up at Bay Area Whole Foods Markets (and they're still for sale at both Rickshaw in Dogpatch and the Ferry Plaza kiosk). More designs (Sutro Tower? Golden Gate Bridge?) are on the way. Go getcherself one! You deserve it.
xm
Friendlies,
the kind folks at Paxton Gate Curiosities for Kids asked me to show the original letterpress prints for Dog Dreams, so I've installed those prints plus a few extra in their front room. The show will be up through January 2014, so visit the Mission, grab some gifties, and check the shop out. It's a goody-goody. The framed prints (yes, the framed Dog Dreams prints are for sale) are priced to move! Paxton Gate Curiosities for Kids is located at 766 Valencia Street in lovely San Francisco, California.
Thank yous due to Carolee Wheeler for framing and Jim Winters for helping me hang the show.
Friendlies, I'm finally catching up with the work I've been doing in 2012. So TODAY! FOR YOU! there are four NEW! entries on the Wertzateria shop page. Work I've been designing (and printing) for the Oakland Museum of California, ALO, and the Camper Van / Cracker Family is all up now and purchasable through this lovely invention called PayPal. Have you heard of it? It's sweeping the nation!
All of these were lovingly printed by hand (by me) at Bloom Press in Oakland. Go check 'em out.
xxm
Hey kids, It's been a busy summer in the silkscreen studio, and finally I can share some of the work I've been producing. There's a mess of new stuff to peruse on the shop page: the collaborative book by Mister Jim Winters and myself, Queen for Two Weeks, numbered and signed and packed up pretty in a cellophane wrapper. The super-tall-and super-fifties Sutro Tower screenprint. The longer-than tall Lake Merritt (featuring the also-longer-than-tall Lake Merritt Monster). There is also a photograph of an attractive young man modeling the t-shirt design (it looks just like the Sutro Tower print) I did for therethere.
xm
