Saturday, June 21, 2008

Jingletown Open Studios - 420 Gallery

Well 2008's East Bay Open Studios have come and gone and the crew at 420 Gallery - 420 Peterson in Jingletown, Oakland - had a great time. We were "the place to be" these past two weekends. Hanging out in the sun with beer, bar-be-que and friends is a perfect way to spend two weekends. It didnt hurt that so many of my friends came to support me and I even sold 5 pieces - mostly frogs! Thanks to all of you! You can see my frog mosaics in a few previous posts - they're turning out to be very popular.
Here is the cast of characters at the gallery: Jill Gibson, Nicole Lanzotti, Brian Mason, Selamawit Mekonen (pictured at our table), Bill Silveira, the lovely Heather "my eyes are falling out" Whitehead, Kyle "x-rated" Siler, "Blue-Tape" Susan Parish and me. This is Cynthia - the unofficial and beloved Mayor of Jingletown.
As she says: "If you think I did it, I did!"

Watch for a tee shirt with that slogan on it coming soon!
During the beer-drenched festivities, one idea bandied about was that Jingletown secede from the country to become it's own principality. To that end, it's own currency - JBucks - were minted and handed out. The denomination is 100 JBucks and everything in Jingletown will cost 100 JBucks. Simple! And of course, guess who's picture is on them?This is the Viking Death Machine owned by junk artist and car nut, Bill Silveira.
It drew the people in and was a real conversation piece with folks checking out every nook and cranny
and even hopping into the driver's seat for photo ops.Heat stroke gave Susan, Cynthia and I a great idea:
let's run over tee shirts and sell them.
Here we are testing out our brilliant idea. It's simple: Lay the tee on the street, paint the tire, and then run the car over the tee. VOILA!! Bill has a new tee shirt! He wore it proudly the rest of the weekend. He will need to wash it soon though - two days of sweating in the hot sun is enough for any tee to endure.Watch for the blossoming of this idea as the summer progresses.
There are major plans in the works for Jingletown Skidmark tees.
Some possible slogans:
"I Got Hit By a Car in Jingletown and All I Got Was This Lousy Tee Shirt!"
"Jingletown Speed Bump"
"Jingletown - Life In The Fast Lane"
Our friend and fellow artist, Delaine Hackney, enjoyed a good laugh about the tees with the rest of us. We're assured she was laughing with us and not at us! ha ha.As Cynthia, our Mayor, rides away to take care of Jingletown another day,
we bid you a fond adieu and invite you back for more art during our Holiday Art Walk,
sometime before Christmas 2008.
See you then! In the meantime check out the Jingletown website for
more information about this zany cast of characters!

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