winters & wertz at the dolores park cafe

Dear Friendlies, Jim Winters and myself are having a show of screenprints at the Dolores Park Cafe, and we’d love it if you could come down for the opening. The opening party is Friday, August 2, from 6-8 pm, at the ever-lovely Dolores Park Cafe (501 Dolores St x 18th St) in ever-lovin' San Francisco.

There will be prints for sale, a set of music by the Argyll Adventure Tree, and snacks. Snacks.

You will see: vanitas, op art, cityscapes, bulls, dogs, our limited edition collaborative book entitled ‘Queen For Two Weeks’, and a few portraits.

See you there? The show runs through August.

xm

michael wertz at oakland's first friday

dear friendlies, i'm thrilled to announce my first show of artwork in a long while. nat swope at bloom press and i have been producing prints together for a few years, and this will be a showing of a few of the work we've produced together (among other things). the show will be at bloom press, 2310 telegraph avenue, in oakland, on may 3, from 6pm - 9pm sharp. i hope to see your shining faces there. the image below is a preview of one of the prints that will be available.

xm

september 2012

Friendlies: so much is going on. So. Much. Is. Going. On.

First, there's this: Mac @ ARCH Art Supplies asked me to design a poster for Papergirl SF, a "a community art project that distributes submitted art pieces by bicycle, freely and at random, to people in the streets of San Francisco, American paperboy style".

Here's a lovely little video of the poster getting printed. These posters will be distributed free this Friday night at the DeYoung Museum.

Making of the Michael Wertz Papergirl SF Poster from Papergirl SF on Vimeo.

I'm working on the new Camper Van Beethoven album packaging right now. The record is called La Costa Perdida. Have I heard the record? Yes, and it's their best record since Key Lime Pie. I can't wait for you guys to hear it. In the meantime, here's "Camper Van Beethoven" and "La Costa Perdida" in Hebrew:

כמפר ון בטהובן camper van beethoven

לה כוסתה פרדיטה la costa perdida

Here's this year's Campout poster. It'll be available on my site after the Campout.

camput_2012

This summer I worked with my friends Babs & Steve at Hard Boiled Industries to make an e-Book version of Dog Dreams. Get it on iTunes! You can have me read the book to you and say the word "hurtling" 100 times in a row. Fun! The post below (the video of me at the SFCB being goofy-looking) is included as part of the e-Book, so you can watch me pretend to make prints on the Vandercook again and again!

What else. Oh, it was a lovely, lovely summer. Spent the 4th of July weekend with our good friends Earl & Samuel in Port Costa. Stayed at this beautiful old hotel : these spots (without strip malls) are hard to come by in the Bay Area. Did the yearly family trip to Tahoe (this was our 24th year ; we've somehow managed not to kill one another), and prepared for my teaching gig at CCA. I'm teaching Digital Tools to 20 students in the Illustration department. There's only been one class thus far, but so far, so good.

OH MAN. Also! In the "Cool Stuff I get in the Mail" department: Chris Rathman sent me a Plastic Bead version of the Space Bear from this year's Campout Poster! Behold!

space_BEAR

Thank you so much Chris!

xm

See Wertz Pull Prints in Public!

My Darlings, my presence has been requested as part of the All of Us or None poster show at the Oakland Museum, and I'm eager (yet full of trepidation). A good friend recently pointed out that my current level of neurosis is rather high, and I think it's because I keep on making public appearances in very public places. Like, for instance, in museums and bookstores. And I don't just appear, darlings, I do things in public. Like sing, or, in this case, pull screenprints that will be given away to the gathered masses for free.

I usually spend a good deal of time by myself with just a pencil and some paper and my dog to talk to, so you understand. Things could go wrong. Terribly wrong. My good friend (and collaborator*) Jim Winters will be there to help out if we have to clean out a screen or extract a squeegee from my eye socket, so that's good.

I'll be pulling (about 50) prints in the gallery from 5:00-6:30 pm on Friday, April 27, 2012, in the galleries of the Oakland Museum. It's free, I think.

Here's the mantra for the evening : IMPERFECT = REAL. Write this on your hand with a sharpie, and come on down to the galleries to see me pull prints. Directly afterwards, I'll be signing the large Peace Sign OMCA Prints at the OMCA Store. See below.

Hope to see you there!

xm

Here's a preview of the print I'll be pulling:

Here's the OMCA Peace Sculpture Print:

Here's me mixing colors for the OMCA print:

* Plus the guy is an amazing artist, and got me on the road to silkscreen - I should be there supporting him, not the other way around.

new prints & books & tees up in the shop!

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

2010 halloween posters are here!

I AM SO EXCITED. The Halloween posters are done, and they look great! Thanks to Nat Swope at Bloom Press for another amazing print job. 18 x 24", blue, orange, and GLOW IN THE DARK inks! These posters commemorate yet another fabulous Driveway Follies in the Glenview district of Oakland, CA. Do you want one? Yes you do! Go directly to the Wertzateria shop and buy yourself one. As soon as it arrives, put it under some bright light and then get in a totally dark space. Say "Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary" in a spooky low voice, then open your eyes to see the Magical Glow of this poster!

BWA HA HA HA HA HA!

If you're in Oakland for Halloween, join Aunt Grandma and Jitters, won't you?

Celebrate Halloween with Aunt Grandma and Jitters, Hosts of Driveway Follies 2010! Glenview's Free Marionette Show and Yard Haunt! 3854 Greenwood Avenue, Oakland.

October 30: 7-10 PM: Puppet Show Only.

October 31: Show begins at Nightfall and repeats throughout the evening.

Adults without children welcome after 9 pm.

See you there!

xm

The Haiti Poster Project

Dear Friendlies, the poster I did for The Haiti Poster Project is now on sale. It's a 18" x 24" 2-color screenprinted poster (printed by Nat @ Bloom Screen Printing Co.), and it's a goody, if I do say so myself.

The Haiti Poster Project was launched three days after the January 12th, 2010 earthquake in Haiti. The project is a collaborative effort by the design community to help effect change through our work. Signed and numbered, limited edition posters have been donated by designers and artists from around the world. All money raised will be donated to Doctors Without Borders.

xm

cvb apothecary posters are up in the shop!

dear friendlies, the cvb/cracker apothecary posters are up in the shop. two colors, 18 x 24". printed by nat at bloom press. yummy.

xm

p.s. these posters travelled all the way to st. louis, where they got signed by both bands. go get one if you're at one of the shows. also: there's a good interview with david lowery talking about cracker's recent trip to play for the soldiers in iraq here.

EDIT 1.13.10: the first 150 posters of the edition sold out at the first four shows of the tour! i'll be sending another 30 out for the show at the highline ballroom in NYC. there's a small stack available at the shop as well.

doris fish silk screens!

hey there, ladies. today jim winters and i spent a bunch of time spray painting and silkscreening these prints of notorious drag sub-lebrity doris fish. doris fish is most famous for her film "vegas in space", and, for those of you who have never seen it, it's a goody goody. go rent it.

now. the screens. daniel, a friend of jim's found them on the street. we're pretty sure that doris herself made them. so we decided (with the blessing of phillip r. ford and miss x) to make prints from the screens to sell at sugar valley this year. half the proceeds (and the screens themselves) will go to the doris fish archive.

this is the first in a series. we made a few of these gals, and they look good, if i do say so! there's a few more silkscreens left for us to do - we'll be doing those next saturday.

xm