Joseph Daniel Fiedler

HIGANTE Y CALIENTE!
Posted by Joseph Fiedler at 3:31 pm on July 21st

I got an email last week from illustrator Richard Downs inviting me up to see him in Nevada City [CA]. He said that he’d be appearing that Saturday as a giant Spanish puppet [Higante] in a children’s parade with his wife Gwyn’s Afro-Cuban drumming ensemble at the annual World Music Festival. How could I refuse, especially on the heels of the Stauffer-stock Karaoke sing-off the night before in San Rafael? It was a hippy- dippy, tie dyed weekend, that’s for sure. Here are a few pix to prove I’m not exactly bull-shittin’ you, man!

Some of the drum ensemble's gear

Downs with the rig under construction

Downs suiting up

Higante gets underway

There were kids and belly dancers and all sorts of carnival/burning man, gypsy types

Another "puppet"

She was leading

It was really hot!

parade overview

The main stage during a break

Another "puppet"

Happy Hippy campers

Richard, Scary and Nano

The sweat soaked Karaoke posse: Stewart Bradford, John Hersey, Scary, Nano, Stauffer, Stauffer's Mom, Hunt and McCauley [kneeling]? Who took this picture? Photo courtesy Robert Hunt

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Drink'n'Draw San Francisco Style
Posted by Joseph Fiedler at 4:13 pm on June 24th

For a couple of months now, I’ve been attending [irregularly] a weekly session of Drink’n’Draw here in San Francisco. We go to Rickenbacker’s, have beers, eat bar food [the grilled cheese with avocado and pesto is quite good as are the garlic parmesan fries!] and sketch a bit. There’s always lots of stuff that’s new and several movies to discuss too.

Eric Joyner is a native Bay Area dude [San Mateo] living and working in downtown SF. His paintings of robots and doughnuts have made him quite a sensation on the Lowbrow set and he has a new book of his work out on the Dark Horse imprint. I met Eric through illustrator and former Bay Area bon vivant Francis Livingston but I can’t remember how [bad sign].

Daniela Yew is a freelance writer and artist based in San Francisco. Originally from Munich, Daniela Yew draws on her lifelong interest in China as well as nature and fabric design to decorate painted eggs, following a tradition popular at Easter time in her native Bavaria. She is also a librarian at the SF Public Library in the Mission and an avid practitioner of collage sketchbookery. She is married to a Chinese American native of the Bay Area whom she met while studying in Taiwan. Her husband, Anselm Yew is a freelance illustrator/animator in SF and is descended from an ancient line of fierce Mongols.

Drink’n’Draw is held @ Eddie Rickenbacker’s Bar on Second Street every Monday night 7-10pm. Eddie was the famous flying ace of World War I. He was also a cousin of Adolph Rickenbacker, co-founder of Rickenbacker Guitars. Rickenbacker’s is filled with antique motorcycles [hung from the ceiling], model trains and various other memorabilia, making it a good place for D’n’D! On my first visit, the waitress asked if we’d mind it if people smoked cigarettes and pot! It’s pretty mellow and there’s a giant cat too!

The old bikes are really beautiful!

Anselm and Daniela

Daniela's egg and a drawing

Anselm's drawings

Eric Joyner in his studio

Eric's palette

Eris's robots

Eddie

Rickenbacker Guitar [the instrument of choice for that Jingle Jangle sound!]

The cat!

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Bo Passed!
Posted by Joseph Fiedler at 1:17 pm on June 2nd

The legendary Ellis MacDaniel [Bo Diddley] is dead at 79. NYT story.

Lyonnaise potatoes and a pork chop! Shave and a haircut - 2 bits! The barnyard chicken scratcher is gone! Here's a model of innovation and style that has impacted generations! In addition to his ground breaking branding and singular guitar styling, his album covers from the 1950's and '60's are among the great gems of commercial art.

RIP Bo baby!

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New Sketchbook Images too!
Posted by Joseph Fiedler at 1:48 pm on May 21st

Awhile back I bought my first Moleskine Sketchbook, you know, the one that Hemingway used. Now I've become addicted to making pictures in them. I draw mostly from 2 dimensional images, images that have already been translated from 3D to 2D. Images like old Dick and Jane readers, my Golden Guides, a 1960 Matchbox Cars catalog, etc. I also try to draw from real objects as well [much harder to do].

I read that as a superstitious Spaniard, Pablo Picasso thought that making pictures would help stave off death. Here I go.....you can check it out @ Narrative Sketchbook and @ Regular Sketchbook. You can also look at the Sketchbook page on my website.

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Marin Studio Visit: John Hersey
Posted by Joseph Fiedler at 1:03 pm on May 12th

Bayside ArtBeat Berkeley had the opportunity to check out the studio of Bay Area illustrator John Hersey this sunny Saturday during the San Anselmo Open Studios tour. Hersey, originally from Vancouver, BC, has been on the San Francisco scene for quite awhile and is considered to be one of the founding “fathers” of computer illustration. Besides juggling illustration jobs for practically every major client in the universe, he also teaches “ digital tools” at The California College of Art [CCA] in addition to being a husband and father of four. San Anselmo is a sleepy leftover hippy town nestled in the lush greenery of Marin County, just across the Golden Gate Bridge.

Hersey's studio is part of the old Lansdale Station complex.

Hersey greeting a customer.

The artist pontificating.

Some small watercolors and a painted fan.

Some stuff...I think that's a check from a big client...

John's new limited edition mini-book THUMBWAR printed at the San Francisco Center for the Book.

A few of the many logos designed by Hersey.

The well behaved, happy kids.

Found the main offices of BURNING MAN nearby.

Quote: " When you hear the term Small Business, well, illustrators are the smallest!"...J. Hersey

HELP THIS MAN STAY IN BUSINESS! WRITE YOUR REPRESENTATIVES AND OPPOSE THE ORPHAN WORKS BILL HERE!

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Hey You!
Posted by Joseph Fiedler at 6:18 pm on May 7th

RIGHT HERE!

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High Desert Piggybackin�
Posted by Joseph Fiedler at 4:49 pm on May 4th

As I mentioned in my previous post, in 1996, I made a serious quality of life choice: I moved across the country to rural, northern New Mexico, where I didn’t know a single soul. I was living in Pittsburgh, PA and had just divorced [18 years], had a lethal break-up and felt as if I needed to simplify and reorganize my life course. I chose to live amid the stark tranquility of western America’s vast High Desert, the very same desert that, as a child, had appealed to me in my Golden Books and coincidentally, the same desert used as a location for the filming of Denis Hopper’s epic film Easy Rider. I could actually walk to the Hippy Commune site known as New Buffalo [Dennis stills maintains a house and studio in Taos] from my front door! I found a home at 7,000 feet above sea level with coyotes, jackrabbits and horny toads right in my yard. I was only a few miles from the Carson National Forest on the Western Range of the Sangre de Christo Mountains, halfway between US Hill and Outlaw Hill off NM Rt. 518. A heartbeat away from a wilderness so vast as to be almost incredible. The population of the state of New Mexico is LESS than that of the county where I’m originally from...and New Mexico is the 5th largest state. I was so rural, that my house didn’t have a numerical address [I had to use a PO Box]. Since Fedex doesn’t do PO Boxes, I had my packages delivered to Herb’s Lounge and Mini-Mart out on the highway! Herb’s family had lived in the region for nearly 400 years and believe it or not, they still spoke Spanish! It was a rough spot. The locals who drank there hated white people. They are still mad about losing the war with Mexico. Once, they broke the arms of 2 sheriff’s deputies in the parking lot. Well, it IS the Wild West for sure!

But, New Mexico, as anyone who’s been there will tell you, is a magic place. Here is Mabel Dodge Lujan writing in 1917 about her first night in new Mexico; “I had a sense of renewal and a new awareness...I lost all track of time and place. I was an unidentified atom pressing forward in space, a wide perfumed space that was dotted with white stars, liquid and bright as dew. I felt humble from a kind of unfamiliar richness and savor the universe possessed and as my body grew numb, my heart grew clear.” Believe me, that isn’t bullshit! Taos is the southern most point of the San Louis Valley. The San Louis Valley is also known as “the mysterious valley” because there are more para-normal incidents reported there than anywhere else in the world! UFO’s, Unidentified Animal Mutilations, Black Helicopters, Aliens [remember Roswell is in New Mexico-and so are Los Alamos, Alamogordo and White Sands]! Factoids: Buddy Holly and the Crickets, originally from Lubbock, TX, recorded their biggest hits in a room across the border in Clovis, New Mexico! Oh, yeah, and Scaryjoey was invented at ICON 2 which was held in Santa Fe [Bradlt Bralds gave the welcome speech. I was the sergeant at arms]. It was the dawning of a new age.

From my desk I could hear roosters, donkeys, chapel bells and sometimes Native American drummers along with the aceqias of the Rio Chiquito in summer [incidentally, there were a lot of gunshots as well]. I could see the Milky Way as I listened to the plaintive call of Coyotes on vivid, moonlit nights. Halle Bopp was my friend. It was as nearly perfect a place to output as you could ever hope to find. Besides a raft of editorial and corporate work, I did 3 children’s books [One of them was actually about New Mexico and it’s history and folklore] and filled a 7X10 foot storage space with paintings during my stay in the mountains.

Here are a few photos [converted from non-digital sources].

This was shot from my yard.

Also in my yard.

Ristra.

Nuestra Senora Dolores church in Arroyo Hondo, NM.

Photo by Sleep.

Near Acoma Pueblo.

Near Los Alamos in The Bandalier National Monument.

My house [it was 150 years old, the former studio of a Viennese painter].

Vanity [after Picasso], a 4X4 foot painting from the period.

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Braldt Sighting!
Posted by Joseph Fiedler at 1:48 pm on May 3rd

I just got this in: Braldt Bralds @ Meyer East Gallery, Santa Fe, New Mexico.

When I moved to New Mexico in the mid-nineties, there was one guy who was a touchstone to the industry for me and that was Braldt. [Dutch]. He and I had done a similar "escape" to the desert. He lives just outside Santa Fe with his wife Margaret and man, he knows everybody [he's Mr. Santa Fe]! Braldt is a great guy and has more industry stories and of such high caliber that it makes your head spin. Not as active in the industry as he used to be, Braldt continues painting away and showing here and there. Talk about "tight"! Christ! This guy makes Hans Memling look loose! It must be the weather?!

Note: The Carol of "Carol's Apples" is fellow Santa Fean Carol Anthony-her painting of an apple is on the wall behind the bowl of fruit.

I thought some of you might enjoy...

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Two Cool Dudes!
Posted by Joseph Fiedler at 4:55 pm on April 1st

Jelly Bus Vibrators

I want to introduce 2 cool dudes from the West Coast, who just happen to be former students [College for Creative Studies, Detroit], David Chung [aka The Chung] and Serge Gay Jr. David came to the program from Hong Kong via Buffalo and Sege came from Haiti via Miami or something like that. Right now, David is working on [sounds like DOING it all!] Spaceballs TV, designing and laying out the animated series [images are actually animated elsewhere] for A DAY JOB and painting for various exhibitions at night [in this, his first year out of school he has been included in the Miami Art Basel fair as well as many others]. He is a participant in the new TOYS show [sponsored by Mattel], which opens in LA @ 1988 Gallery tomorrow night. Each artist was asked to alter a Volkswagen mini-bus model. The Chung turned it into a vibrator! Check it out!

Serge was the whiz kid at both his art magnet high school in Miami and at CCS. He can draw so well and so naturally, it makes adults feel queasy. He’s living in San Francisco and doing T-Shirt designs, painting for exhibitions and music video art. Recently, he did pieces for Snoop Dogg and The Bled.

Warm Waters by The Chung!

Himself. I taught him how to look scary!

Serge Gay Jr. paintings.

Serge hisself!

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Mike Davis @ White Walls
Posted by Joseph Fiedler at 6:32 pm on March 18th

White Walls Gallery and The Shooting Gallery

I caught up with the opening of Mike Davis’ exhibition Solo Flight [Charlie Christian/Benny Goodman anyone?] at White Walls Gallery in the Tenderloin this past weekend. Art Dork Kim Scott and her posse took me. I know absolutely nothing about Mike [he was absent – at least while we were there] other than that he does live in San Francisco and he is a proponent of the burgeoning West Coast Narrative scene out here [I overheard the term Pop Surrealism used by one of the owners]. Solo Flight is like a meditation of the Northern Renaissance, especially painters like Bosch, Breugel, et al. with a slight psychedelic twist [they don’t need much!] and a nutty preoccupation with niggling, high impact rendering [not uncommon among these folks]. Mike uses some very ornate frames [some of which appear to be hand made creations that reminded me of water bed designs from several generations ago] to reinforce his historicisms. Concurrently opening next door at The Shooting Gallery was Joshua Petker [another first time for me]. Although I’d not known either artist, there were an awful lot of red dots. Check out the pix and links.

White Walls Gallery
835 Larkin Street
SF, CA 94109

Photos courtesy of Rachel Scott and White Walls Gallery

Home slice Shawn Barber, me and Kim Scott looking all band. Shawn has a big one coming up July 19 - August 23, 2008 @ BSFA in LA. Look out for that, it'll be big!
Opening Reception: Saturday, July 19th, 7-10 pm