As part of the Tenderloin’s ongoing Wonderland project, we are excited to open our doors to the community for a free, hands on workshop. Three local graffiti artists, Apex, Vulcan, and Neonski, will be hosting a street art lecture and stencil workshop at White Walls Gallery to share their love of stencil art. It will be a fun time for all and we welcome artists of every level to participate.

Saturday, November 7th 2009
White Walls Gallery
835 Larkin St.  San Francisco CA 94109
Stencil Workshop 3:00 pm-4:00pm
Street Art Lecture 4:00-5:30

Montana is donating all spray paint for the workshop and a large wood panel will be installed in Myrtle Alley (outside White Walls) to be painted on. We also encourage artists to bring their own stencils and any other surfaces they would like to stencil. For more information about this event, click here.

From the stencil master, here is an excerpt from Banksy’s Wall and Piece:

Advice on painting with stencils

• It’s always easier to get forgiveness than permission.
• Mindless vandalism can take a bit of thought.
• Nothing in the world is more common than unsuccessful people with talent, leave the house before you find something worth staying in for.
• Think from outside the box, collapse the box and take a fucking sharp knife to it.
• A regular 400ml can of paint will give you up to 50 A4 sized stencils. this means you can become incredibly famous/unpopular in a small town virtually overnight for approximately ten pounds.
• Try to avoid painting in places where they still point at aeroplanes.
• Spray the paint sparingly onto the stencil from a distance of 8 inches.
• When explaining yourself to the Police its worth being as reasonable as possible. Graffiti writers are not real villains. Real villains consider the idea of breaking in someplace, not stealing anything and then leaving behind a painting of your name in four foot high letters and most retarded thing they ever heard of.
• Be aware that going on a major mission totally drunk out of your head will result in some truly spectacular artwork and at least one night in the cells.
• The easiest way to become invisible is to wear a day-glo vest and carry a tiny transistor radio playing Heart FM very loudly. If questioned about the legitimacy of your painting simply complain about the hourly rate.
• Crime against property is not real crime. People look at an oil painting and admire the use of brushstrokes to convey meaning. People look at a graffiti painting and admire the use of a drainpipe to gain access.
• The time of getting fame for your name on its own is over. Artwork that is only about wanting to be famous will never make you famous. Fame is a by-product of doing something else. You don’t go to a restaurant and order a meal because you want to have a shit.

D Young V’s drawings revolve around a narrative in which a turbulent militaristic environment calls on San Francisco youth to step up. This group of individuals seeks to rebuild the destroyed society it once knew, forming a new and better one in its place.

From San Francisco Youth Report

Until now, D Young V has referenced existing images to draw from. But last week he took things a step further with a full blown photo shoot to get exactly what he wanted, inviting friends and strangers to participate. A warehouse space filled up with about twenty people including models, photographers, and even a military adviser.

Derek White is a former airborne infantry, deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, who came along to direct the models. He instructed them on achieving realistic posture, stance, and action poses. Shaun Roberts, Chris Blackstock, and Thomas Landerman photographed while Julianne Yates of Gallery Heist became the star model (she can even cry on command!). Everyone contributed props such as fake guns, helmets, fatigues, and masks to assemble a convincing costume wardrobe.

With a background in acting, Juliane really captured the mood.

Amid the dramatic times, a documentarian is always key.

Living in San Francisco has stirred D Young V’s interest in the idea of messengers. They bear the essential task of transporting ideas, information, weapons, goods, or anything else necessary to the cause.

These photographs will be used in D Young V’s newest body of work, which is surely going to be as fantastic as the last. Click through for the full picture.

To see more drawings from D Young V, check out his September 2009 show at Gallery Three.

Also look out for him at White Walls’ Winter Group Show.

White Walls presents:

New works by ESPO

Opening November 14th 2009 7-11pm

Runs through December 5th 2009

Press Release

Love Letter mural project in Philly

ESPO’s Love Letter project on Juxtapoz.com

NY Times: Still Painting Messages on Buildings, but No Longer a Vandal

For the last two weeks, we have felt a certain paranoia under the watchful eye of Tes One‘s “Taking Tree” currently hanging in The Stencil Show. The piece makes us feel as though Big Brother was constantly peeking over our shoulder. This unsettled feeling  is exactly what Tes One wanted, which we discovered by asking him a few questions about the piece. Read on for a recap from the artist.

Title of the work:
Taking Tree

What sparked the idea for this piece?
Against my better judgment, I was in a dreaded Wal-Mart parking lot when I noticed the ridiculous amount of surveillance cameras placed on the edge of the building and on top of the light posts. The amount of cameras was obscene, and ominous. At least 3 cameras surveillance-ing any particular area of their property. One look up at all those cameras, and the idea found me.

Where did this image come from?
Once I had the idea for the painting, I starting taking pictures and gathering images of security cameras. I’m sure this behavior looked suspicious on all sorts of cctv systems in my area.

How did you create it from start to finish?
Very carefully.

How long did it take you?
Approximately 2 months.

What meaning do you ascribe to this image?
When I was a kid, my mother read a book to me by Shel Silverstein called The Giving Tree. It is a story about a tree that loves a little boy and will give him whatever he wants (shade to sit in, apples to eat, etc). The book marks my first comprehension of selflessness, and has resonated with me throughout my life. I named this painting “Taking Tree” because it provokes the exact opposite emotion. For me, this tree is cold, violating and an intrusive reminder of the type of reality we now live in. I think it also captures the absurd lengths companies or communities will go to appear “safer,” while collecting as much information as possible on their public.

A look into the 2009 film projects of White Walls artist, Michael Holman.

After quitting his job as an investment banker in the 80s, Michael Holman turned to film, music, and art for fulfillment. He was influential in the underground hip hop scene of the time and he started one of the first noise bands with Jean-Michael Basquiat.

Holman now looks back on these days through the film Downtown Calling, which he is co producing. The documentary focuses on the dance, music, art and club scenes of downtown New York City during the early 80s. The cast includes musicians and graff writers such as DJ AM, Mos Def, Jaleel Bunton and Dave Sitek of TV on the Radio, Chris Stein of Blondie, Daze, and Fab 5 Freddy.

The film will be screened at the Austin Film Festival on October 24th and 29th. Watch the film trailer here to get a feel for the upbeat energy of Downtown Calling.

Film Synopsis

In the late 1970s, the “greatest city in the world” was teetering on the edge of total chaos. A failed economy, crime and en mass housing corruption gave way to a city in crisis. Yet out of the economic and social strife that held the “Big Apple” hostage, a family of homegrown cultures that would forever change the world began to emerge. Downtown Calling not only documents, in detail, the evolution of New York City’s fertile music and art subculture during this period, but how its collective output continues to play a prominent, driving role in the international fashion, art and music industries today. -Downtown Calling official site

© Richard Ableton

The noise band that Michael started with Basquiat, Gray, is still in existence. Other members had been invited into the group before Basquiat’s death: Shannon Dawson, Wayne Clifford, Nick Taylor and Vincent Gallo. They carry on the legacy of Gray, which will be releasing a new album this year. Also, their song “Drum Mode” is featured in the documentary Blank City along with two film excerpts from Michael’s repertoire.

Michael’s band, Gray © Philmreel

We look forward to getting our hands on these new projects from Michael Holman. He is a man of many talents!

As we have spent the last two weeks admiring The Stencil Show, questions begin to arise about each painting. We asked David Soukup to analyze his piece, “Hong Kong Hustle,” from top to bottom. Soukup’s mini interview reveals much that we never saw before in this painting; just wait till you find out how many hours he spent cutting the stencil.

From NeuFutur Magazine:

“We’re really excited to be associated with this incredible show,” Green Day front-man Billie Joe Armstrong said. “Seeing the pieces that our new album has inspired is very exciting. We feel a strong connection to that type of creative expression; we think the fans coming out will love it.”

Logan Hicks, the show’s curator, also hit the nail on the head:

“I chose artists whom I felt had a similar visual approach to art as Green Day does to its music,” said Hicks, a stencil artist and die-hard punk-rock fan, whose portraits of band members Billie Joe Armstrong, Tre Cool, and Mike Dirnt will also be on display. “Although most of the artists represented are well-established in their careers, they embrace the same emotional rawness with their art, which speaks from the heart and swings with the fist.

Their subject matter is struggle and injustice – they shoot from the hip and their art is their weapon.”

This morning, we were sad to hear that Adam’s studio was flooded over the weekend. Sending our love to Adam 5100!

Hugh Leeman was up to no good on his trip to NYC this month. One morning he returned to the meat packing district, where he had thrown up pieces the night before, to find D*Face installing a mural on the same wall. He also hit up several locations on Wooster Street, pictured below.

(More images of this mural at Arrested Motion)

When he returned to San Francisco, Hugh also implemented a new campaign to distribute tees around the Tenderloin. Bearing the face of his “Yankees hat guy,” the shirts add another dimension to his street art. A few words from Hugh explain the project:

“I’ve been producing t-shirts with my street art portraits and distributing these shirts to the inner city residents of San Francisco in the Tenderloin. I’m selling the shirts for $20 apiece to those on my contact list. This money is then entirely re-invested into buying more shirts which are given away to the residents of the Tenderloin district in San Francisco. We are in the process of working with partner restaurants who will wear them as uniforms for about a week and donate 10% of food sales to the charity of their choice.

People are mostly aware of the portrait from my street art. The response has been incredible, The first week people were interested and excited by the second week we had a crowd/line. Even the police showed up and were actually pretty cool. But when he showed up he didn’t want a donut. Donuts are something else we offer with the shirts for reasons just like that.” -Hugh

See more works by Hugh Leeman here.

Since our Stencil Show artists are a rare breed, we decided to throw something fun at them in place of a traditional interview. We let the artists tell their story through a mad lib, passing the story amongst themselves for a complete mix up. Read on to see how Tes One, David Soukup, Casey Gray, Ernesto Yerena, Chris Stain and Adam 5100 got to where they are today.

As stated by Arrested Motion, The Stencil Show’s opening reception was a success. Casey Gray, David Soukup, Ernesto Yerena, and Adam 5100 all came out to represent while a curious crowd absorbed the wide range of stencil works. Thanks for joining us in the celebration of such a unique exhibit and we hope to see you back at the gallery soon.

Ramblin Worker’s Upstairs Is Where the Magic Happens

Casey Gray

David Soukup and his girlfriend

Casey, Michael, and Lauren

Gallery babe

Ernesto Yerena’s family and friends

Casey and Julio

Adam 5100