NEPO 5k

360-odd days every year, NEPO House on Beacon Hill is the home of sculptor and photographer Klara Glosova and her family. For a few days in the spring and fall, their house is colonized by art. For those hours every part of NEPO House — the kitchen, the closets, the pillows, the refrigerator, the bathtub - becomes part of a huge installation that is wide open (or "nepo") to the public.

A few times in the past years, Klara and her curating team have pushed that idea even farther by turning their entire neighborhood into an open house. They pick a route from the house, out to the street, along the Beacon Hill ridge, and down to the International district - more or less 5 kilometers long - and plant temporary art along every piece of it. The list of artists who have participated is long enough to fill dozens of blog posts. But chances are that if you are fond of some Northwest artist, he or she has created a piece for a NEPO event.

Curator and home owner Klara is currently collecting proposals for site specific artwork and performances. Maybe you've got a brilliant idea? Let Klara and the NEPO team know about it at info@nepohouse.org.

David Byrd

87-year old painter David Byrd has painted incessantly since grade school, and has never before exhibited his work in a commercial gallery. Living and painting by himself in Sidney Center, New York, he had long since resigned himself to a life of invisibility after retiring from his long career as an orderly at a psychiatric Hospital.

Last September, a new neighbor was curious about a driveway filled with random junk carefully arranged, and she worked up the courage to knock on the door. There, she met Mr. Byrd and saw a house filled with hundreds and hundreds of his paintings. There were so many that they were hung three to a single nail. When she took one down, there was another one nested underneath.

The neighbor, Jody Issacson, also a painter, reached out to gallery owners on Byrd's behalf. As a result he is having his first-ever gallery exhibition at Greg Kucera Gallery in Seattle, where Isaacson also shows. His first show comes 77 years after he attracted attention for his grade-school drawings, more than 60 years since his brief formal art studies, and 25 years after his retirement.

The paintings are astounding, for their sense of narrative, studied poise, and unexpectedly tranquil centers. The surfaces are parched and raw, with a sparse pale palette, bringing forth visions of people Byrd has known, places he has seen, and more than anything else the intense and solitary lives of the people he observed every day at the hospital.

The nearly 100 paintings and sculptures represent work made throughout his life, and span the entire first floor of the Kucera Gallery. Jen Graves wrote a feature article on Byrd for the Stranger, which gives some sense of the unexpected beauty of his work. Seriously - Don't miss this show if you are in Seattle. At the Greg Kucera Gallery, 212 Third Ave S. From now until May 18, and completely free.

Chamber Music

Seattle's Frye Art Museum is unveiling a new and extremely local exhibit this Friday night. Titled "Chamber Music," The Frye has commissioned thirty-six Seattle artists to create new work based on James Joyce’s volume of poetry of the same name.

The list of artists involved is long and impressive and includes Byron Au Yong, Jaq Chartier, Klara Glosova, Greg Lundgren, NKO, DK Pan, Sierra Stinson and many many more.

In addition to the thirty-six new works, the exhibition includes a library archiving the artists' many works alone and as part of groups, with documents and ephemera from such watershed projects as and/or, 911 Media Arts Center, and CoCA, as well as more recent initiatives toward community-building like NEPO House, Free Sheep Foundation, and The New Mystics.

The opening ceremony, complete with music, drinks and lots to talk about is on this Friday, February 8th, from 6:30 to 9.

Bob Gasoi

Robert Gasoi was a product of the last great time. Born in 1932 and raised in Brooklyn, the son of an immigrant milkman, his drawing and painting skills led him to the Cooper Union School of Art, to the Korean war, and then to Oxford University, Rome, Upstate New York, and his final home in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.

Though Gasoi only managed to scrape a meager living out of his art work, he never stopped painting, leaving a large legacy of paintings, drawings, murals and illustrations. When he died in 1997, his daughter Emily traveled to Mexico to collect his few belongings, which included the many paintings, drawings, photos, newspaper clippings, and other detritus that documented his incessantly creative life. After years of work, Emily recently published a lovely tribute to her father on the web, rich with images that convey the love she felt for her Dad, and the wonder he found in the world.

Myth & Murder

Seattle's New Mystics have grand ambitions. The polymathic group of street artists, painters, tattooists, actors and dancers has produced all manner of large scale public art - both officially approved and subterranean - including the Seattle Street Biennale 2010 at Bumbershoot, Moore: Inside Out, the TUBS Memorial Project, and an installation in the slated-for-destruction Sunny Jim Peanut Butter Factory. Their themes are an inscrutable mix of post-apocalyptic predictions and naturalistic philosophy, but their images are always strong and speak volumes even without explanations. The exact composition of the group grows and shrinks - long time members include No Touching Ground, NKO and Dan Hawkins, with ad hoc appearances from DK Pan, EGO, Specs Wizard, Baso Fibonacci and Japhy Witte the Sign Savant.

Their newest show, Myth & Murder, is billed as "a comedic tragedy or a tragic comedy" and highlights installation, handpainted signs, screenprinting, paintings, and performance. At Seattle's Vermillion Gallery, 1508 11th Ave. on Capitol Hill from April 12 to May 5. The opening reception is this Thursday, April 12 with live music by Specs Wizard, Aubrey Birdwell, Al Nightlong, and special uninvited guests.

Degenerate Art Stream

Like all of the art that comes from the Degenerate Art Ensemble, their blog is smart, sometimes grating, and always surprising. The musicians of DAE write superb pieces on their own, and often feature unexpectedly excellent and out-of-left-field guests, such as Seattle musician Beth Fleenor who grew up in a planetarium and is behind this recent series of guest posts. Check it out.

Artificial Light

Since mid-February Fiber artist and Yarnbombing pioneer Suzanne Tidwell has been fitting knitted sleeves around trees at Anderson Park in Redmond, WA. This Thursday, March 8, the exhibit of 50 trees outfitted with brilliantly colored "tree cozies" opens to the public. The exhibit is free, and will be up until June 8th. Tidwell is also hosting two Knit-In events at Anderson Park on March 10 and 17 at which knitters can learn about the art form and contribute to additional sleeves for the installation. More here.

Stacey Rozich

Seattle based illustrator Stacey Rozich has been preparing for an upcoming solo show, and she released some images of her new work to the excellent My Love For You is a Stampede of Horses. Just lovely images - strange scenes mixing the mystical and the quotidian, overflowing with color and detail. Rozich's show, The Last Wave , opens on April 5th at Flatcolor Gallery in Seattle. Until then, you can track her work in progress over here.

Monster by Mail

Since 2007, illustrator Len Peralta has been drawing personalized monster portraits for anyone who is willing to name one and cough up $50. It ain't a bad job, but Len just announced a small change in his business model. He is inviting a new stable of artists to tackle the monster-making chores, and the inaugural Monster By Mail guest artist is Sunday Williams of Olympia, WA - a woman represented on the web only by her charmingly odd blog Anger Burger which documents her disease-ridden digestive tract and self destructive eating habits. It's better than it sounds, and I have high hopes for this project. In fact, I've already dropped $50 for an image of a Punk Rock Flea. You've still got time kids! Get a personalized monster for your Valentine! Right here!

Documentos

Astounding. Whether or not you speak Spanish, you must spend some time at the incredible new website for the International Center for the Arts of the Americas. It's a growing treasure trove of remarkable documents tracing the vast history of Latin American and Latino Art. Thousands upon thousands of scanned pages and recovered texts create a massive source of art and criticism from Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Chile, Mexico, Peru, Puerto Rico, and Latino USA. It's a simply monumental digitization project, being created by the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, available free of charge to researchers, teachers, and you and me.

Stasia Burrington

The Punk Rock Flea Market happened over the weekend, and it was a hell of a thing. I'll post a full update in a minute, but I first want to highlight one of the vendors who was selling work there. Stasia Burrington is an illustrator here in Seattle, and I just love her work. There's so much to enjoy here - The super cute figures have feelings that run very deep. Her clean clean lines reveal wonderfully complicated ambiguities. And the characters somehow maintain their innocence despite living in a sexy and violent world. Punk rock? Maybe not. Hopelessly romantic? Without question.

Baby Nico really liked this one. For myself, I picked up a pocket-size 2012 calendar with an illustration for each month. Lovely. See more of her work here, and go shopping on her Etsy site right here.

Chromatic Typewriter

Painter Tyree Callahan out of Bellingham modified a 1937 Underwood Standard typewriter, replacing the letters and keys with color pads and hued labels to create a functional “painting” device called the Chromatic Typewriter. The lovely machine was Callahan's entry to the 2012 West Prize competition, an annual art prize that’s determined by popular vote. If you like it, there's still time to vote, right here.

Theaster Gates

Theaster Gates is a Renaissance man on a mission.

Gates grew up in Chicago and graduated from Iowa State University as an urban planning major. While there he took a course in ceramics that got him hooked on clay and made him think he could be an artist. He studied religion in South Africa, sojourned in Japan, and earned the first of two masters degrees. In the process, Gates went from throwing pots to mounting emotionally charged installations and performances, including multiple events based on a faux biographical story that Gates created. In his tale, a master Japanese potter, Yamaguchi, had fled Hiroshima and landed in Mississippi, where he married a black woman, combined Japanese and black southern cultures, mentored Gates, and then died, leaving Gates to continue his mission of "fostering social transformation."

With former Wilco member LeRoy Bach, Gates formed an experimental music ensemble, the Black Monks of Mississippi, making performance art out of a blend of Eastern chants, gospel, and the blues. By 2010 Gates was a hot ticket on the museum circuit, with a schedule that included on-site projects or residencies at the Museum of Contemporary Craft in Portland, Houston's Contemporary Arts Museum, and New York's Armory Show and the Whitney Art Museum.

But in the summer of 2009, while his career was thriving, his Chicago neighborhood had emptied out due to assorted consequences of poverty and economic collapse. The house next door to Gates — bigger than his and bustling with three tenant families when he moved in — was abandoned and bank-owned, and had been on the market for a year. Gates bought the forlorn frame house for $16,000, and the extra house became a library and archive housing Gates' 60,000 glass lantern slides from the University of Chicago's art history department, 14,000 books from Prairie Avenue Bookshop, which was closing, and the 8,000 LPs that the Dr. Wax record store still owned when it also shut down.

In 2010, Gates launched a series of artists' residencies, featuring public performances in his house promoted by word of mouth. After a tremendously successful year, Gates formed his own nonprofit, the Rebuild Foundation, which acquires property in blighted neighborhoods in other cities including Saint Louis, Detroit and Omaha, all of which he intends to converted into grassroots cultural use.

In late April, the Rebuild Foundation acquired a much bigger project: the Dante Harper Townhomes, a shuttered 36-unit Section-8 property a couple of blocks from Gates's home. The plan is to redevelop the building into mixed-income housing for people with an interest in the arts.

It's all of a piece, Gates says. "A big part of my art practice has been creatively investigating what happens in neighborhoods. That also includes playing in the real market, not just gesturing at it. We're at a moment where the interventions that artists make are not just in museums and galleries."

A new installation by Gates opens at the Seattle Art Museum on December 8, and runs through July 1. Theaster Gates speaks at Town Hall Seattle on Tuesday December 6 at 6:30 p.m.

Guy Denning

Guy Denning is a self-taught English artist currently living in France. Mostly known for his gritty and brooding paintings, Denning has heartily embraced various internet outlets including YouTube where he demonstrates how he paints, as well as a terrific blog and Facebook page where he posts a new drawing each day. Denning has been paying close attention to the Occupy Wall Street protests and is busily posting images inspired by the New York conflagration as well as capturing moments seen via the internet in Oakland, London and elsewhere. His uncanny ability to illustrate powerful emotion in the simplest gestural sketches is incredible, and the recent wave of protests have served as an explosive outlet for his deeply felt cynicism and world weary politics. Absolutely worth a look.

United Monster's Syndicate

Paul Gasoi is the quintessential painter-as-mad scientist. His work represents an endless series of experiments, using all manner of materials - from standard oil paints and ink pens to postage stamps, comic books and found objects, all the way to mosses, ferns, and animal bones. Rather than use these materials to reflect the world around him, Paul turns his talents inward to create an ever-evolving map of his inner states. His work has toured around the world, and is part of the permanent collection at the American Visionary Art Museum in Baltimore.

After spending two decades in Seattle, Gasoi hopped on a boat in the late 2000's and took up residence among the cypresses and blackberry brambles of Vashon Island. The fertile island landscape has been good to his imagination, and Gasoi's work has become as fantastic and organic as ever.

Paul returns to Seattle for a rare appearance and show at an exotic salon-style event titled “United Monster's Syndicate.” This is a one day only event taking place this Friday, October 22nd from noon to 10p.m.at the Underground Events Center in Belltown.

United Monster promises to be a rare showing of a vast array of the artist's old and new works, with opportunities to acquire original paintings, purchase limited edition prints of his selected works, and join Paul for a shot of absinthe - or something even stronger.

Matthew Curran

Really unusual stencil work from British-born skate punk Matthew Curran. His lines have the energy of random occurrences, but the forms they describe are so delicate and graceful. Quite nice. More here.

Ah...Julie Doucet

Did you know that French Canadian cartoonist Julie Doucet has a blog? And that she regularly posts things like disturbing collages and this lovely abstract animation? Now you know. You're welcome.

[Flash 10 is required to watch video]

Fefe Talavera

Yes, I am back in Seattle, but I have a huge backlog of items to catch up on from my time away. For the next few weeks I'll be interspersing my usual random assortment of spectacles with a few choice tidbits from Barcelona and other points Iberic.

At the Montana Gallery - the exhibition hall connected to the retail outlet for the world's best spraypaint - I caught the first European Gallery show of Fefe Talavera, the Brazilian street artist famous for fantastic and visceral monsters. Her work has a tremendous energy - raw, hungry and tribal - and while it was a great treat to see a large collection in one place, it's always weird to try and absorb true gutter energy in a gallery. Still, the art is amazing and well worth a look.

Papercuts

Lovely cut paper art from Joe Bagley of Boston. An archaeologist by training he spends a bulk of his time on intricate paper art, which he shows and sells at his online shop, Papercuts by Joe.

Flourishing Remnants

Until the 1970's the Beall Greenhouses on Vashon Island was the nation’s largest grower of roses and orchids. When the business went bust, the 25 acres of greenhouses and plants were left to themselves. Today, the corroding glass and steel structures are covered with both native flora and exotic plants grown wild. The Vashon-based photographer Heather Joy and her partner the painter Matthew Olds have recorded the collapsing greenhouses and their reclamation by mother nature in a new show titled Flourishing Remnants. Learn more about the artists and their work here.

At Vermillion Gallery, 1508 11th Avenue on Capitol Hill until July 2. The opening reception is on Friday June 3 from 6-9pm.