Below is the Melancholia piece submitted by Jennifer Weigel. Jennifer is always working on some insane performance piece or creating artwork that criticizes the elitist, male dominated art world. I always enjoy the rants she writes at her blog, Chaotic Black Sheep. Anyway, her work is worth your time to look over. I’m sure you’ll find something kooky to fill that void in your heart!
Jane Linders dropped off her work for the Melancholia show yesterday. She will be displaying some pieces from her X-Ray Terrestrials series. They’re amazing little Polaroid transfers mashed up with old diagrams. Just beautiful!
Here’s the little blurb about them I gobbled up from her website:
“My most recent series of Polaroid transfers is titled , “X-RAY TERRESTRIALSâ€.   Double exposed slides of skulls from animals , coupled with illustrations of dental training transparencies culled from a recent St. Louis dumpster dive, yield macabre transmogrification from bone to alien. At first glance, these small Polaroid transfers seem to portray a menagerie of grotesque creatures, which evoke responses of discomfort and disgust. By depicting the deformed and macabre, I am attempting to illuminate the darkest corners of the mind and reveal my fascination with death, bones, skulls and teeth.”
Stop by at the Melancholia & Wounded Bird opening (just one week from today) to meet Jane, and see these pieces in person (they’re so much better up close)! Jane’s work will be accompined by the work of 30+ other female artists. The whole ordeal is going to be a spectacularly grotesque-cute experience!
We just received some pieces from Mia Beach for the Melancholia show! They are so absolutely beautiful! Mia takes some seriously stunning photographs. The show opens on Dec 6th from 7-11pm! It’s going to be a wonderful show and I’m so excited about it! I’m going to (try) to post a sneak-peek blog every day from now until the opening. We will see how that goes.
This piece is called “My daughter says that if we bury him we will grow a new pet” and is part of Mia’s Departures series. Photo from her website.
Walking down Cherokee Street, you will likely see scattered neon-colored eyez peering at you from dilapidated buildings, dumpsters, and other street apparatus. They are the mark of Graffiti Stencil Artist Peat Wollaeger, who calls Saint Louis Home.
Peat has been making his way around the world tagging different places with these eyez. He’s been obsessing over them for a while and even recently had an entire eye show at Mad Art. The result of all this work is pretty beautiful and sometimes hilarious:
More photos are available over at Peat’s Flickr account, which is where I stole these images! Thanks Peat!
The fabulous Leslie Hall was recently spotted raving about Absolutely Small plushies. Leslie is the ORIGINAL fly mid-west gem DIVA!! Absolutely-S makes the greatest little stuffed animals the world has seen. We have one (or maybe two) Absolutely-S animals left at the shop. You should come snag one now, because if the mother-gem approves, you must know it’s good!
Image from Absolutely Small’s Flickr Account.
Just off south Broadway (in Saint Louis) is a fairly new studio space called Arcadia. The whole thing is run collectively and was started by Emi Hemeyer (the proprietor of Wounded Bird). I’ve spent a few late nights there dabbling around to help with different art pieces. Their building is freaking huge, and can be pretty creepy (ie: sweet) at night. It’s totally an upcoming space to check out and the artists are pretty awesome. I think they have all the studio spaces rented out, but I know they’re always looking for new friends to start projects with.
They have different shows and get-togethers periodically and the best way to stay informed is to keep up on that networking behemoth, Myspace. I’ll leave you with some photos to pique your intrest.
Saint Louis is loaded with art/handmade events this holiday season. It seems to have become a grand battle of who has the best press release, most event postcards, and biggest ego. I’m shocked (wait, no I’m not) that everyone is not working together on event collaboration, cross-promotion, and customer sharing. We at CY decided it best to sit out.
We’re neutral, and avoiding the stressful rush to create, tag, inventory, and work our sorry asses to all those hungry holiday shoppers. Those shoppers who don’t give a damn about what handmade stands for, and only care if the items they buy can increase their hip-aesthetic. There I said it. Posers.
Since we’re on the outside, here is a full-ish list of what is going down. Be sure to pick your alliances closely, you’ll be SUCH a loser if you make an appearance at more than one show:
First we have the Rock n Roll Craft Show 5. I think it is fair to say that this event has the most street-cred in Saint Louis. It also has the most gossip surrounding it. I can’t tell you how many people I’ve talked to that hate it, or love it for any number of juicy reasons. I guess I’m also included. That’s what happens when something gets so big/popular. I’ll be there on Saturday browsing the wares of over 120+ artists. The show is going down at Third Degree Glass Factory this year, which is a major switch up that sort of sparked some of the unnecessary drama surrounding this show season. If you like moderately good STL scene bands and you pride yourself in sticking to what you know is good, then RRCS5 is your place to be. It’s this weekend too!
Next up, we have the Big Ass Indie Art and Craft show. This is a new event in STL, but the people involved are not. It’s being hosted at the Mad Art Gallery (which is where RRCS use to be) and is being organized by The Saint Louis Craft Mafia. Mad Art & STLCM both have lots of experience in throwing some pretty buzzed about events. The arrival of this event on the block assisted in stirring up the handmade shit. I guess they call it a mafia for a reason. The Big Ass show is opening up next weekend and you’ll want to support it if your a RRCS hater! I’ll be shopping there on Friday the 5th, making sure to watch my back; my fellow mafia members could be out to get me.
On December 6th, in the middle of the Big Ass show, we have a one day event popping up on Cherokee street… yep… our home turf. The Cherokee Print League Holiday sale is a street wide art/print sale that is surely going to steal some customers from the Big Ass show. This event is going to get your legs, or most likely, your car working (lazy ass). The event is spread out over a handful of independent business on the street, and you’ll have to hit them all up to browse the selection of goods. Each location will have some tables of art for you to rummage through, and you’ll likely find some great stuff. I’ll be walking down the street that day to see and buy some art. We also have a little something planned at our shop that night… but I think we had our event booked BEFORE the the holiday sale was organized. So you can’t say we’re choosing sides.
Finally, we have the Last Minute Maul. I think the show title is so freaking funny. The shopping experience that is perfect for all of the procrastinators out there. It’s going to be your last chance to snag some awesome handmade goods before the big X-MAS hits. The event has a pretty good chance to becoming a success because I think there are more last-minute shoppers lurking around than one might think. This baby is hitting the ground at Koken Art Factory, which has been having some pretty rad shows recently. Don’t let procrastination alone bring you to this event. Choosing to show up could be a pretty stratigic social move. The choice is yours. I’ll be showing up on the 13th, or 14th to purchase my last minute presents.
Sooooooooo.
There you have it. The whole run-down. Make the right choice my friend. Your ENTIRE SOCIAL EXSISTENCE hangs in the balance. Or you can just be like me and support all the hard-work from organizers and artists alike! I’m going to keep my fingers crossed that NEXT YEAR, everyone learns a little cooperation.
We’re REALLY on facebook now. I mean we always sort of were… but… Alyce finally set us up with an actual store-account, which is so much better. Now you can become of “fan” of Cranky Yellow, and I don’t know, feel like you’ve actually done something… without actually doing anything. It’s great. Go try it you loser.
I think the drawing above is perfect in every way. Pulled from this site.
We’re going to start posting a ton of art, music, cool things. We will also try to keep up with updates from the artists involved with CY. Alyce is going to start blogging here soon… which will help too!
I guess I’ll start the ball rolling by posting a new illustration created by Cate Anevski. It looks like it crawled right out of Japan. It is SOOO mind-meltingly cute. I had to post it here for everyone to see.
Really Cute right!? I think so. Lots of people have been saying it should be put on a shirt, and I totally agree.
Cate has been busy (outside of quiting jobs and creating lovely drawings). She’s curating the Melancholia show which opens here on Dec. 6th (7-11pm). She also just launched a new layout for her Bee’s Knees Activities site. That site is going to be filled up with all sorts of art-releated inforamation, tutorials, advice and reviews. I’m excited about the current content, and I can’t wait to see what else she adds!
I’m ready to get some lunch.
We’ve got this lovely batch of Bunny Monsterz living in the store now. They just jump around screaming and freaking out all day. We’re doing our best to keep this herd under control. We could use some help though. If you have a bunny-friendly home, you should come take on of our hands. We’re offering them at perfectly reasonable prices.
If you’re wondering: Bunny Monsterz are handmade with joy by Star Munki. You can check out her beautiful flickr set here.
You are currently browsing the Cranky Yellow’s Blog blog archives for November, 2008.
Wounded Bird Vintage Clothing
Jeff Sass
Matt Cipov
Kitty Kitty Art Party
Crap Glued to Crap
Meth & Hotdogs
