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Hey all,
GoGallery will be hosting a reception for Fillmore artist Josh Bricker this Saturday, June 14 at 5:30 pm. For more info, visit the GoGallery website at http://gogallery.org.
Hope to see you there!
Here’s a little post about the upcoming art show here in Fillmore. Coffeeboy will be hosting a reception this Friday, May 9 for painter Maria Rangel from 6-9 pm. There will be hors d’oeuvres and live music from Fillmore’s Hope and Justin. Rangel’s paintings will be up for the next couple of month.
Coffeeboy is located at 358 Central St. in Fillmore. For more info about Coffeeboy, call 805.524.0572 or visit their website at http://coffeeboy.net. There’s some really knarly construction going on downtown, so I’d recommend parking in the back lot.
For more info about the artist and the show:
Amelia Aparicio: How do you process your dream sketches?
Pablo Ruvalcaba: I always have a sketch book near by, so I thumbnail very quickly different versions of it while it’s still fresh in my mind. If it’s a lucid dream, I’ll have the character pose for me to grab as much detail before I wake
AA: How long does it take on average for you to complete a sketch book? Where do your sketchbooks go after your done?
PR: I’ll finish one in about 4-6 months. But I have about 4 sketchbooks going on at the same time. I use white for pen and pencil, natural tones for ink and paints, and a black paper one for guache/watercolor.
Most of them are in a huge cardboard box in my storage unit. I have a large stack of them in my closet right now.
AA: How do you manage to incorporate your personal work with your professional work? Is there a big difference or do they relate?
PR: It’s rare for me to really incorporate my personal work in my profession. I work in a team environment, so everybody pulls their weight. As a video game artist, I contribute my skills, knowledge, and adaptability for the sake of the project. I get to exercise my creative instinct and make some fun and difficult choices. I enjoy challenges, as they allow me to grow in areas I would not have otherwise.
As for my personal art, it’s all about mastering the medium to expressing the idea. My goal here is to tell a story without words, and say it as clear as I perceive it, both intellectually as well as visual.
AA: What are three priorities that you apply in your everyday life?
PR: Honesty (I fail at times). Being thankful for what I’ve got. Learn something new.
AA: What are three things you wish you had more time for.
PR: Sleep. Music. Exercise.
AA: If you were to meet Bruce Lee what would you ask him or say to him. Where would you invite him to hangout for the day?
PR: Wow. I’d just say thank you for being who are, a sincere human being. Then I’d introduce him to my mom and her wonderful cooking 
and take him to the Sespe Creek to scramble up some purple sandstones.
AA: What do you like best about animation -other than motion?
PR: It makes your paintings come to life. I enjoy losing myself in the character and story. It’s like being possessed and asking them “where do you want to go?”, “how can I help you get there?”. They reveal themselves to you. That’s what I mean by it makes them come to life.
AA: Which sense could you live without -if you had to choose?
PR: Sadly, I’d have to say taste. I’d just spend a long time smelling my food before eating it.
AA: Share an experience from art school.
PR: No.
… well, I didn’t enjoy most of it. It felt like a rip off. But my colleagues are the best thing I’ve come across since my childhood friends from Fillmore.
AA: Is there an art skill or style you want to explore?
PR: Oil Painting. I just want to explore the medium and develop a good working relationship with it.
AA: What’s your dream job? Would it include you creating art?
PR: My dream job would be owning a ranch while touring the world as a visual artist and musician. Either performing in a band as a singer/songwriter with custom stage installations and album art, or a gallery artist/animator with original music and soundtracks.
And when I’m home, I can have fresh fruits, veggies, and warm chicken eggs.
Amelia and I spent yesterday afternoon distributing fliers all over Ventura county, checking out spots and meeting folks. I finally had the chance to see the inside of Cafe on A in Oxnard. I’d been by there a few months ago, but it was closed that day. Cafe on A is a nice little art collective that hosts art, music and poetry events. We met and talked to a few nice people there, saw some nice art work and then hopped across the street to Experimental Cafe to drop off more fliers.
Later that night, we made our way over to The Accoaldes Gallery in Ventura to see the Sean Tully and Eddie Millan show. Nice work all around. Amelia and I, having just received a little cash for a museum installation we did a couple months back, bought a nice little piece from Eddie Millan. I felt like such a grown up! I couldn’t find a web site for Sean Tully, but here’s some links:
http://www.accolades-gallery.com/accolades/index.html
As it was getting late, we did a drive by to check out the super-cool bike part arch out in front of the Artist’s Union Gallery. Being a cyclist, I’m pretty partial to bike sculptures, but all that aside, this one is pretty gosh darn cool. Definitely check it out if you’re in Ventura. Here’s a link to some articles about the sculpture:
http://www.ci.ventura.ca.us/newsmanager/templates/?a=4158&z=95
All in all, it was a fun night out. I can’t believe we actually had the cash to buy a piece! WOW!
Over the last couple of days, Amelia and I have been helping our friend John Nichols set up an upcoming March 16 exhibit at the Santa Paula Oil Museum. The show will commemorate the 80th Anniversary of the St. Francis Dam disaster. She and I have been painting the walls with scenes of the disaster from photos that John has provided for us. John Nichols is a local historian and archivist and owns the John Nichols Gallery in downtown Santa Paula. For a comprehensive overview of the St. Francis Dam Disaster, visit John’s website @ http://www.sespe.com/damdisaster/.
I recently reconnected with an old friend of mine named Michael W. Dean. I know Michael from my music days up in The Bay Area. I found out that he’d been living a quiet life as a multi-media mogul over in Conejo, so seeing as we are now practically neighbors, I decided to look him up. Amidst his seemingly endless amount of web propaganda, Michael W. Dean has a collection of his fun and entertaining podcasts at http://www.clonethehomeless.com/, and maintains his blog at http://www.stinkfight.com/. Kids beware; there is some material that could be deemed inappropriate for people under 18.
Lastly, I posted a photo sharing page at http://freekmagnet.deviantart.com/. I’ll be posting some of my recent work there from time to time, and if I get really organized, I’ll put some really old stuff up there too. Having completed three pieces in less than a month, these last few weeks have been fairly productive for me project-wise, so I hope to continue the trend and begin work on another piece over the weekend.
The city of Moorpark is having and arts festival on May 4 at the Moorpark Civic Center. There is no entry fee for submitted work.
For more information, visit their website at http://www.moorparkartsfestival.com/
GoGallery will be closed for the winter due to the wet weather. We will reopen in April. Stay tuned as we will be updating the site while we are closed.
We’ll see you in April!
Amelia Aparicio: Alex, where were you born, where have you lived, where have you visited and what is a place that you would like to check out?
Alex Becerra: I was born and raised in Piru, Ca - PIRU all my life. My roots are in Mexico. Europe is #1 on my list.
AA: Why do you create art?
AB: I create art because without art this world would be nothing but a blank canvas with the government watching your every move! So, I create art that expresses my true life style.
AA: What are your thoughts about urban landscapes or graffiti?
AB: If by landscape you mean paintings of them..One word…Wack! on the other hand graffiti on government or county owned buildings, no better rush then catching a tag or a throw-up on something that isn’t yours!
AA: What are your thoughts about working on canvas or other objects?
AB: Personally I love working on canvas , but then again, sometimes it keeps you inside the boundaries unlike graffiti.
AA: Who has inspired you?
AB: My two biggest inspirations are my mentors, Matt Nichols and Josh Bricker. They have been there since the beginning and never stop pushing the limits of what I can achieve. Much love to my brothers.
AA: If there were a fire in your house, what 5 personal belongings would you save?
AB: My art box, computer, tattoo kit, camera, and box of spray paint.
AA: If you had enough money to start a business -what would your business be?
AB: If I had a business it would be a tattoo/art studio/gallery all in one.
AA: What makes your blood boil?
AB: When people ask, “What you going to do with your art.” If you ask, you’re not worthy of getting an answer. Without art this world would be nothing.
AA: What makes you happy?
AB: When I know my painting is done and I put my autograph on it!!!
P.S. watch out for the government they have watched me all my life!!!!
Thank you Amelia…
I made the first branch for the tree for another shoot that would require a smaller portion of foliage. In a sense, this was a sort of practice run for the larger project. Good thing, too.
Before I go on, I’ve been meaning to write a post about the cloudy sky backdrop in the background. Amelia, my girlfriend, painted it for me. As I am a lousy scenic painter, it was very nice of her to do this for me, and she did a really good job. During my Freekmagnet years, I found a lot of uses for the blue sky backdrop, so it seemed the smart choice to start with a new one. I ordered the natural seamless muslin from Chicago Canvas Supply, and with 10′ wide muslin at $5.50 a yard, I was able to buy enough canvas for 2 backdrops for under $40. Starting over from the beginning has been a long, tough road fraught with frustration and at times a sense of hopelessness. After not having any kind of studio to work in for the last few years, it’s been such a relief to have a new backdrop and a space to put it in.
For the longest time I was putting off moving forward with the project, so I focused on making the leaves until I could come up with a plan for the next step. I glued, cut and painted over 350 leaves out of newspaper and bailing wire, which took me a few weeks. I spent time examining the structure of real trees and wasted a lot of time searching on the internet for step by step instructions on how to build a life-like tree out of newspaper. My conclusion was this: Trees come in all shapes and sizes, so therefore there is no definitive way to build a tree-like structure out of newspaper. I decided that using actual tree branches and affixing the leaves to them would be the simplest, most economic way to build my tree.
First, I gathered some dead fall from the nearby riverbed and brought the branches home. I tried to select some branches to which I could fix a fair amount of leaves to, creating a lush globe of foliage. From there, with several branches completed, I would fix them to a larger piece of wood that would serve as the trunk of the tree.
Deciding that I wanted the wood of the tree to have a smooth surface, somewhat like the eucalyptus trees that are fairly common in this area, I sanded a branch down and sealed it with Durham’s Water Putty which I also sanded. From there, I painted it with gesso as a primer. The putty was a mistake. Once it dried, it started to crack and fall off. Since I considered this a trial run, I decided to leave it as it was and use something different as a sealer next time.
Twisting the wires of the completed leaves together into groups of 3 and 5, I made several forms with a central branch with smaller leaves protruding from the sides. The ends I left as 3 strands of 18ga. wire. I fixed the forms to the branch by drilling 1/16 in. holes into the wood and pushing the 3 strands of wire into the holes. I had the option of gluing the wires into the holes, but I decided to leave them loose in case I’d need to transport the final tree. Forming a sort of tripod, I found that the 3 “posts” of wire held the leaves fairly securely into the wood - as least, they were secure enough to use of one photo shoot. From there, I covered the exposed wires with florist’s tape and painted the tree branch to resemble a light colored wood.
In conclusion, my first branch I would consider an overall success. I will have to find another sealer instead of the putty. Although this particular branch will serve well for the photo I intend to use it for, I will explore the possibility of using branches that are fuller and have smaller branches in which to make a larger area of foliage.
Please join as a community in taking a stand for the preservation of Ventura’s Art City. Art City (www.artcitystudios.com) is at a critical stage and there are immediate funding needs for re-building and restoration of the studio facilities.
The San Buenaventura Artists’ Union has arranged to accept tax deductible donations for Art City while it continues its application for nonprofit status for Art City Inventura. Donations can be made by check, cash or money order. Please make checks or money orders to San Buenaventura Artists Union.
Please deliver or mail donations to:
San Buenaventura Artists Union
c/o Dona Wieckowski
1684 Poli Street
Ventura, CA 93001
Each donation will be forwarded to Art City and an acknowledgement letter will be issued by the San Buenaventura Artists’ Union for tax purposes.
For more information please call:
Dona Wieckowski - 805 648.7544
Paul Lindhard – 805 653.6380
Russel Erickson - 805 648.1690
Please also visit and interact on the ART CITY BLOG at http://artcityventura.wordpress.com/ for current and evolving fundraising and activities information.