110915. NAOMI KAZAMA and FT GREENE's MOEs

Artist, gallerist, creative being and all around eccentric guy, Naomi Kazama of DYZ-EXP fame and AUTOCIDER is bringing his show to Brooklyn, NY for a weekend event of Live Screenprinting with his gang, STRANGE, jewelry by Maya and some sample sales and what nots. Please come. South Portland and Lafayette. Sat and Sun, September 17 and 18.

11-09-12. Virgin Free Fest and Kiyocera Shuji

Help Japan and your wardrobe.

Virgin Free Fest was in the woods this year! It was a good ol' festival in nature with ferris wheels, carnival tents and a skatepark! Kiyocera was one of the main sponsors of the event and they pumped it up with innovative sound/sight experience in form of outdoor dance party coupled with high tech camera/sound/sight bending non stoppable party dancing, space aliens dancing...



An alien in a suit!



A tree tall alien!




Twin Dancing GLOB Aliens!


... a solar charging stations with benches and lounge chairs AND shuji on tee shirts by masters/artists;
Mayo Kohama, Eiko Berkowitz, Yoshiko Komatsu, Yuri Shibuya, Asako Miyahira and me, Mike Ming!






Art is an expression and extention of ourselves. Yuri Shibuya and Asako Miyahira extending and expressing.




Japanese culture emphasizes subtlety. Yu-chan and Eiko-chan emphasizing.



Man on phone: ".. YES! SHUUUUJJJJIIIIII by masters!! I m going to get 'GAMMBARREE JAPAN!!! "



It was a non-profit $5 donation for a shirt with Japanese Calligraphy! As expected, this event was a smash! From the time the gate was open until even after the lights went out, there were people trying to scramble for tee shirts. It was a successful all day affair that saw throngs of people wanting to help Japan and get something special written on their tee shirts in return.



The Angels, the crowds and the shuji tent.






Lights out in our tent, party is ON at Kiyocera Sight/Sound Tent!


I would like to thank those who were involved and organizing this event and for allowing me to participate for a wonderful cause.

Kiyocera for making it happen, Virgin Mobile for the event, Mother NYC for production, Mayo Kohama for displaying amazing Shuji Power(!!!), Eiko-chan and Yu-chan for all the help in figuring the characters out and for dealing with all those customers who were 'outside the box' (I overheard more than 1 strange request coming from their direction), Yuri Shibuya and Asako Miyahira for traveling with me and having patience to deal with me, Charles Lahti for calling us out and envisioning this amazing event, Christine from Mother NYC to produce this event and trusting us to do the amazing job we needed to do, Kiyocera Angels for keeping the tent running smooth in the chaos of all those shirts getting written on and drying, all those who donated for an excellent cause and Hurricane Katria to wander away from the proximate seaboard and leaving us the beautiful weather to fill in for her insted!! Thank youses!!



Me with my custom Mayo Kohama shuji shirt!!

110912. QuiksilverPro Vitamin Water Mural

Vitamin Water Shack in business.


New York City saw its first ever WCT surf contest at Long Beach, New York this month. Prior to the event, there were advertisements popping up as billboards on bus stops, buses and in subway cars. It is not the first surfboarding contest but it IS the first contest of this caliber, the top 32 competitive surfing professionals, battling it out in New York City.



Contest.



Taj Burrows getting in and burnin!

For such an event, my good studio 195 partner, Hugh Gran and I, were asked to paint a mural for Vitamin Water for this special event. The week before the event, hurricane Irene came ashore for a quick visit and her presence made painting a mural outdoor pretty unnegotiable. Thankfully, the great people at Critical Massive, who produced this mural, got us an indoor studio and we proceeded to paint. We worked from a sketch done by Hugh Gran but we took artistic liberties once the paint hit the board.



The Mural before it left for the beach. Apocolyptic Future NYC Wave Riders.

It was quite a fun project to work on and although the Quiksilver event did go down, all the hype of a music festival to murals were all tapered down to a few shacks and a store, it was a great time had by all.




We all like Free Stuff.