Hands in mud

Author: Russell

I feel the realness of an earth unfolding

Steam rises into bright white sky

And sweat beads and drips down my back -

off my nose.

The hands stuck, sinking

Getting closer to the moist dust of the universe

The muck of the mess we’ve left behind.

But, with eyes closed,

I can only see your caring face.

Shin deep you pull me up

and out of soggy life’s bottom

Hands freed, I hold you

touching neck and waist

beads of steam reflect off your wild hair

wind blows away and away and away

And together with wishes

Hoping for an end of the epoch of mud

the clouds float over uncaring.

There may be rain at some point,

smiling. stained. breathing.

And wondered where the rats,

the ones with antenna in their ears,

I wondered where the rats were.

Then walk on down to Pepe’s Opera,

mesmerized by the burning idols,

and I jumped through the fire -

Jumped through the wall of fire.

And then stood on the counter

staring at the orphaned mountain,

burning light night sky,

flames dancing through trees.

Motions past and touches present

Hand firmly on your hip

feeling the dreams

of gas cans and siphon hoses.

Tasting bitterness and heat,

remembering your hair,

touching my cheek,

and I touched your hair.

Thinking again of slices

shifting in where rats take calls

and only finding rattled bones

once overgrown by kudzu.

An Obituary for CELLspace

Author: Russell

Written by Devin Holt (I pitched in with info, editing, and whatnot)

CELLspace, community arts center, closed its doors at the end of 2012.

During the late 90s and early aughts, there was no better place to see the Mission District’s artistic, multicultural vibe than CELLspace. San Francisco prankster Chicken John was known to decorate the 10,000 square foot warehouse as a Las Vegas casino; the Flaming Lotus Girls created their first large scale fire installations in the CELLspace Metal Shop, and during Carnaval, the space would burst at the seams from the ritual drumming, colorful rattling costumes and sheer number of teenagers involved in groups like Loco Bloco and Danza Azteca.

Michael Sturtz was so impressed by CELLspace that he named his industrial arts school, The Crucible, after their art gallery.

“The name was inspired by the Crucible Steel Gallery, which was the CELLspace gallery at the time,” he said. Read the rest of this entry »

In the Facebook worlds, posting all this stuff is instant, and friends find things and post them. I take the trouble to pull things off of there for the Stencil Archive, my own archives, etc. and then maybe, just maybe, post it on here. I forget that some friends don’t do Facebook! And I have to remind myself that this blog belongs to me, as opposed to a multi-billion dollar corporation that is currently dot com booming the Bay Area. This site is also a great, long archive of my life here in San Francisco.

So back in late January, Regan Ha-Ha Tamanui stopped over on his way back to New Zealand and Australia. He’d been traveling the world for a year, but got stuck in Berlin for eight months. How unlucky. I got him four walls here in SF, and he took my photo after a day of wandering around the Tenderloin looking at street art. He cut a stencil portrait out of that photo, as well as the photo he took of my friend Monica that evening in Hayes Valley.

Icy and Sot, expats from Iran who now live in Brooklyn (leave Iran to have a street art show, go back to Iran and get arrested for satanism) were driving through. They all took my tour and I got them two walls to paint on. Regan collaborated with them. Icy and Sot came back to SF for an art show at a Noise Pop concert. I missed it (always seem to miss the good art shows!).

Here are photos from early Feb, with the stencil portraits thrown in.

Stupid, Again

Author: Russell

Spring time. Cherry blossoms. Nuns in drag. Giants baseball. And St. Stupids Day.

April 1 is always a day to look forward to. Yelling “Jump! Jump! Jump!” up to workers gawking out their windows is worth the bus fare down to join the First Church of the Last Laugh at Justin Herman Plaza. While infill condos continue to rake the skyline across the city (i.e., Dot Com 2.0), some things thankfully never change. Here’s a snap of me at the XXXV St. Stupid’s Day Parade (by Hanna Quevedo for the SFWeekly).

While I’m posting photos, here’s a portrait of me that Garry Bowden took for his Souls of San Francisco project

Sat., March 23, come on out to Kezar Triangle (in Golden Gate Park) while Chris Benfield and I (aka Lay it on Thick) play with dirt. Gopher dirt!

4pm to 8pm

Where is Kezar Triangle? Just down from the Circus Center: http://goo.gl/maps/cN3Un

Sponsored in part by the Friends of Kezar Triangle

kezar-poster_wip

UnEarth-things uses gopher diggings (the loose piles of soil left from gopher town tunneling) to make iconic, recognizable images that resonate with the history of Kezar Triange, what it is now, and what it may become. The basic concept is to work with what the gophers give us, using a “connect the dots” approach with their upward offerings. Like a sketch book, the images’s positioning, size, and motifs are brought about organically, creating a nurturing, nourishing interspecies collaboration.

A Mermaid Visits

Author: Russell

i had a dream this morning

a mermaid swam to me out of sunrise colors

and caressed my body

she kissed my lips

delicate like a light sea breeze

a string of blue clouds fell across my eyes

and the mermaid swam away

only to come back

more embraces and more kisses

her hands pressed and squeezed

her nose smelled

remembering my scent

the curves of my body

i rolled over into floating white sheeted pools

and like the sunrise colors

the wavy haired vision

disappeared in the waking morning

Dream: Captured No More!

Author: Russell

I get a new camera as a holiday gift and go on a quest to take a great photo. I bring a piece of art and have at least 3 siblings follow me on the shoot. We are in a very poor area where we keep walking up a dirt road. I lay the art down on the ground and attempt to take a photo. I am never satisfied with the frame in the camera. After walking by encampments, shacks, and piles of debris, my memory goes vague. Suddenly, two siblings are shot and killed from shotgun blasts. I black out.

I wake up in a dark room with 1 or 2 younger siblings. We are taped or tied to chairs. I do not know who has captured us. I eventually meet our new master, a famous author with a huge ego (I name him William Gibson). As he systematically breaks us down, he convinces us that he is our savior and wants to be our father. He lives in a bunker of a building and is crazy enough to probably kill us without question.

In one scene he gets into an argument with another man. He threatens to stick a machete in the man’s head, and the man picks up a box of sharp items to protect himself. He pins the writer’s arm to the wall with a huge staple. I watch this and then run to my back room and wake up my little sibling.

He spends most of his time in shock, sleeping, so I try to put some clothes on him and tell him this is our chance to escape. But the writer has freed himself from the staple. He’s very disappointed that we thought we could leave.

After years of being confined, the writer’s ego and assumptions cause him to become weak. He thinks that we are OK with being his imprisoned “children”. He is performing in a middle eastern music and dance concert and I accompany him.

A large group of friends and relatives are at the concert. I find a joint and smoke it while I talk to a female relative of the writer. I have told myself that this is my chance to free myself and my little brother. So I begin to directly and openly talk about being held captive.

The woman doesn’t really get it. She is in awe of the writer’s success and talent. In a larger circle of people, I boldly confront the writer. He accuses me of being addicted to pot and says he’s kept me for my own good. I disagree and tell him that he hasn’t even let me call my mother in 3 years. I begin to cry and babble that I want to talk to my mother and tell her I love her.

The writer become furious. Some of his friends are obviously becoming concerned about the situation. The writer continues to try to frame me as a junky. He grabs a green compost bin and runs towards me. He dumps it out on the floor in front of me and yells “Do you want to swim in the sutures again like you used to!!!??”

Three years of being held against my will brings me to my own rage. I stand up in the circle, feeling bold and brave, and yell “I don’t know what you’re talking about!!”

I wake up….

Infinite City…

Author: Russell

…wandering paths

over concrete, past wood

crossing asphalt

marked with paint, foot prints, spit, and history

faded and worn

renewed and re-crossed

steps where love was found

ran into

lost and sworn away from

ghosts pass by

voices for an infinite layer

upon layer

where tongues touched

eyes met

hands squeezed

buses hum

cars shush

and yells vibrate across the wires

of this city

forever moving forward

getting torn up

rebuilt

pushed out

and hung to dry…..

lights twinkle

as sleep overcomes the majority

and the football game is fading

into fog

of last season

the sidewalks tell stories -

it is written for the ages!

Seattle’s First Crankie Festival!

Thursday, Feb 14th, 2013 – 7:30 PM

at the Northwest Puppet Center, 9123 15th Ave NE, Seattle

Tickets: $15.00 http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/320636

or call 800-838-3006 info@nwpuppet.org www.nwpuppet.org

wondering what a crankie is? Look HERE.

Anna and Elizabeth
Anna Roberts-Gevalt and Elizabeth LaPrelle are two young master
musicians living in Virginia. Together they perform the music of the
Appalachian Mountains, from the ancient ballads to the barn-burning fiddle
and banjo tunes. They’ve also developed a marvelous art form they call
“Crankies.” These are hand-sewn rolls of felt that tell a story through
shadows as they are unrolled. Much like an old-fashioned movie, Anna &
Elizabeth sing, play and tell the story of each Crankie as it unfurls. These
handmade works of art transport the viewers back to an earlier time.

Dejah Leger – French Canadian song and crankies
Singer, traditional musician, and graphic designer: Dejah Léger has taken
these three passions and united them in her work building crankies. Her
crankies bring together intricate paper cut art (similar to Nikki McLure) and
old songs from American and French-Canadian traditions.

Sue Truman and Skye Richendrfer – Cape Breton stye Seattle fiddler and folk art artist Sue Truman will bring together some of her new crankies based on Scottish themes. Featuring bagpiping and crankies about topics such as whisky, seagulls and sheep! Masterful piping and story telling by Skye Richendrfer.

It’s going to be a very special, magical evening, on Valentine’s Day no less! If you are in the area, I hope you can make it.

S.F. NEIGHBORHOODS Graffiti marring much of city’s street art – vandalism on the rise
Matthai Kuruvila
Published 4:54 pm, Thursday, December 27, 2012


Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/crime/article/SF-murals-become-targets-for-vandals-4150191.php#ixzz2GeFBUSjw

Muralists around San Francisco say that they’ve seen an increase in vandalism of murals by taggers, who are defacing the art with their monikers.
Vandals have wrecked murals from North Beach to the Tenderloin. In the city’s liveliest mural zone, the Mission District, muralists say it’s been particularly bad. Street paintings made in months have been ravaged in seconds.

“There’s been a very specific mural destruction going on,” said Russell Howze, a muralist and author who does street art tours of the Mission District. “There’s really no logic. I don’t know if there’s any organization or conspiracy behind it. More than anything, these murals are well-loved and huge amounts of time have gone into them.”

Vandals this year have defaced parts of the Mission District’s Clarion Alley, a 20-year-old street museum of murals. “Gold Mountain,” a North Beach mural depicting Chinese history, had to be repainted when the building owners couldn’t keep it free of graffiti.

Read the rest of this entry »