DINOTOWN!

Hi friends! As many of you are aware, for the past year or so I’ve taken inspiration from dinosaursfuckingrobots.com to create my own ongoing series of illustrations.

Cute, charming, hilarious, disturbing; these pieces are many things that everyone can enjoy. And despite possible future repercussions to my plans for creating a series of children’s books, I have a long way to go before I tire of this theme. Expect to see several new additions later this Fall.

The purpose of this post is actually to bring attention to a related side project.

Several months ago while my good friend Kristof was visiting from the exotic nation of Europe, he had the idea to visit DinoTown (North America’s only cartoon themed dinosaur park) dressed in robot costumes and go to town (DinoTown) on those unsuspecting dinosaur statues while photographing the whole shameful spectacle.

Unfortunately, Kristof’s trip was cut short and we never made it to DinoTown before he had to return home for prestigious hereditary duties.

Shortly after Kristof left Vancouver, I learned that coming September, DinoTown will be closing its doors forever! Shock and alarm over the economic crisis this will mean for the Fraser Valley being my first reaction. My second thought was; we couldn’t wait for Kristof’s next visit to Vancouver, we would have to go defile a children’s amusement park in his honor.

This all brings us to last Sunday. Jordan came over around noon and we constructed some amazing/ half-assed robot costumes. Then Jordan, Aman and I drove out to DinoTown to put the plan into action. After a long but luxurious drive out to Chilliwack in Aman’s Cadillac, all our hopes and dreams seemed crushed as we pulled into the DinoTown parking lot to see a “closed due to power outage” sign.

Few people can relate to the sense of crushing hopelessness that comes from driving for 90 minutes in a luxury sedan, only to turn around empty-handed.

We decided to take a walk around the outer grounds to clear our heads and figure out our next move. The park looked abandoned. We couldn’t find any staff or sign of guard dog, despite many warning signs. Through a chain link fence we spied a clearing of dinosaur statues. It was infuriating to have come so far for our objective and be denied. This situation was made particularly dire since Jordan’s moving to Arizona in less than 2 weeks.

With the park closing in a couple of weeks and little opportunity to make a return trip we debated the options of leaving in defeat or scaling a perimeter wall.

By an act of providence, just as we were mulling over our dilemma, we saw a truck drive up a side path and park at the caretaker’s home.

Over walks Gérard, the property caretaker, who explains the situation with the power outage. Gérard couldn’t have been a nicer guy. We told him about how we just wanted to get some photos with the dinosaur statues in our robot costumes before Jordan moved away and the park closed forever, and he let us into the park, explained how to follow the trail to more statues, and told us to take as much time as we needed. Everything really worked out as well as it possibly could have: The rain held off; we got into the park for free without any ethical compromise; we didn’t need to conceal what we were doing for fear of scarring children or offending parents; and we took all the time we needed to explore the park.

Yup, it was a great day. I know we made Kristof proud. It’s only a shame he couldn’t be there to live out his dream with us. But don’t worry Kristof, there’s plenty more dinosaur statues around the world that could use a little robot love. God willing, we’ll get to them.

Aman, Jordan and I would like to personally thank Gérard for letting us go ahead with our ridiculous plan.

Goodbye DinoTown! You’ll be missed. But thankfully we were able to defile one more childhood memory before saying goodbye forever.

Updates and 'Spectral Cities'

Hello all! For those of you who are coming here from my site, I'd just like to let you know that updates are in the works, but several delays have kept me from making tangible website progress. Travel and working on lots of new paintings have kept me quite busy, but I'm moving the website up on the list of priorities.

Most of what I've been working on recently has been for my first solo show, 'Spectral Cities'! The opening was on Thursday, July 22nd and the art will be on display till August 31st at Lüt Boutique.

Here's images of the main 8 pieces:

Seattle Erotic Art Fesitval

This weekend, April 30 - May 2 the Seattle Centre Exhibition Hall will be saturated with erotic goodness. Not only will there be an abundance of artwork on display, but also all sorts of exciting entertainment, including live art painting, dancing, Naked Girls Reading, etc.
If you make it down, don't miss the festival store where you can find prints, cards and other erotic goods. I'll have some tantalizing greeting cards for sale. Yup, Dinosaurs Fucking Robots are now available as affordable cards! Perfect for mother's day, congratulating a recent graduate, or any occasion you can think of. If you don't make it down to the festival, but need to tell that special someone how you feel, but don't know how, send me a message, I have more cards in stock at home.

Freaks and Geeks

Upcoming Art Openings!

EPIC ART OPENING FOR VANCOUVER'S FREAKIEST AND GEEKIEST
Opening reception @ The FALL Tattooing
644 Seymour st
Doors at 8:30pm.
Cool tunes from Earth and beyond, random culinary offerings, carefully chilled adult beverages, plus a slew of artists collaborating on a giant live painting - and filming the whole thing in time-lapse.


CARDED! is back!
Opening Party & Card Trading Action
Saturday April 10, 8-11pm
Ayden Gallery (@Tinseltown)

But that's not all...the CARDED! 2010 Group Show features some of the original art from the trading cards as well as other paintings, illustrations, photos and more from the 50 artists in CARDED! 2010.
Runs daily at Ayden Gallery from April 10-20


Come one and all. There will be more Robot vs. Unicorn action, a little bit of Dinosaur Robot love, and all the card trading fun you can shake a stick at!

Plus, here's a link to interviews from the last CARDED! opening at Jacana Gallery.

Dinosaurs Tenderly Caressing Robots

Here’s the long anticipated posting of my most recent Dinosaur Fucking Robot illustrations. I’m actually only posting 2 of 3 new pieces I’ve made since I decided to rework a couple small things. I’m sure to post it… soon. Maybe with an additional new illustration to the series! There are tonnes of dinosaurs just begging to be drawn in compromising positions.

Part of the delay on posting these was my waiting to hear if they’ve been accepted to this year’s Seattle Erotic Art Festival. Unfortunately, they have not. This of course is shocking and disappointing news for everyone, especially me. After the initial disappointment, mixed with rage, I’m only left with a sense of bewilderment. Has the show already reached erotic dinosaur saturation? Was the material itself not appropriate to the theme of the festival? Was the intent or quality of the work not of suitable quality? Obviously those last points are ridiculous! These are the finest illustrations of their kind!

But one can hardly expect to be accepted into every show, or sell every piece, and so on; rejection is anything but the exception when it comes to creative pursuits. If anything, I’m more determined than ever to find a fitting venue to exhibit these fine specimens, and some promising leads have appeared.

The SEAF is April 30^th - May 2^nd, I’ll still be attending; it’s bound to be a thrilling show.

CARDED!

So here's a design I had in the Carded! show last week at the Jacana Gallery. The show was amazing! The gallery was packed with people eagerly trading for their favorite cards. The energy of the event was wonderful; everyone was very talkative and complimentary. I was lucky enough to meet and talk with several of the artists and finally put a face to some art I've admired for a while.

Predating Carded! and in the same spirit is Hot One Inch Action, a button trading show that's been happening for some years now. Both shows create a great atmosphere for people to talk with each other and the artists. I haven't been to many other shows where everyone's that approachable. Hopefully both will continue to happen annually for many more years.

Happy New... March...

So here's a little illustration I did to print off on X-mas cards and send out to friends and family. Thing is, I don't think I actually drew this up till December 20-something, and then getting caught up with one thing or another my X-mas turned New Year's cards, are now just general greeting cards with a cozy winter-ish seasonal feel. I've sent out most now, just have 4 left to write and drop in the mail. If you haven't gotten one... it's probably in the mail... if you never get one... well, here it is! Write me, letters are fun!