Chuck Sperry

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Widespread Panic – 25th Anniversary – Fall Tour 2011 Poster

Widespread Panic invited me to make their 25th Anniversary Tour Fall Tour 2011 poster; the band needed an edition of 2000 to cover over 30 dates. I thought of Geraldine and The Honey Bee. Widespread Panic is like the life-giving flower and the fans stop to listen and feed from the beautiful experience. The concept was set, but making 2000? It seemed a tall order. The band was a bit apologetic, but there were those 30 dates, and the Spring tour poster sold out quite fast. So we thought let’s just give it a try.

In doing so many posters – I didn’t want to compromise: I didn’t want to plate sign these – so I hand signed and numbered each one. I didn’t want to use fewer colors. I wanted to continue to experiment with cool inks. I designed this in 7 colors on archival cream paper. Gold and silver metallics underlay the design with shimmering goodness (four and a half gallons of silver and two gallons of gold to complete 2000 posters). Four tinting colors fill in the spectrum. The last color (printed over the black) is a special mix of opalescent, pearlescent and interference blue on the translucent wings. So I’ve been as busy as a bee this last month, and the Firehouse was a hive of activity.

Widespread Panic 25th Anniversary Fall Tour 2011

16 x 29

Edition of 2000

7 color silkscreen (metallics, glazes and translucent tinting colors)

Printed on archival cream paper

Signed and Numbered

Poster will be made available by Widespread Panic during their tour.

I will be making a very limited release of Artist Proofs and variants after the tour.

Geraldine, chrysanthemine
Prettiest little flower that I ever seen
She’s a friend of mine, she’s a friend of mine.
Petal child, growin’ wild and
Even though she’s livin’ in a compost pile
She’s my glitter and my gold
She’s my glitter and my gold

Whoa Geraldine, have you forgotten?
Baby I have come for your sweet pollen.

I can’t wait to pollenate
Come on pretty baby let’s celebrate
Warm and livin’
The takin’ and a-givin’
Whoa … my my my

Love you high, sting you low
Buzzin’ everywhere that you let me go
Go my way, mama let me go my way.

Whoa Geraldine, have you forgotten?
Baby I have come for your sweet pollen.

I might go gray, I might go blind
I’m never goin’ back to that honeysuckle vine
Long as your alive, I’ll buzz around your hive.

Geraldine, chrysanthemine
Prettiest little flower that I’ve ever seen.
She’s my honeydew baby
Honey do me again
Oh-ho

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Ben Harper at The Warfield Poster Release

Ben loved the poster! He’s a way generous dude, gave me a lot of time, a very warm meeting at The Warfield. Artist Alex Fischer took this photo:

At one point I mentioned that I do a lot of art shows with Winston Smith who did Mr. Harper’s Relentless7 record cover, and Ben whips out his cell phone and said, “Oh yeah, man, I should text Winston, thanks for reminding me!” Very thoughtful. The show was outstanding! Here’s a snip where Ben Harper is singing it, live, no microphone (vid is mismarked 2010):


Ben Harper, Jenny O. at The Warfield, August 25, 2011

Firehouse Goldenvoice Poster Series No. 140

26 x 20

Edition of 275

3 colors (with very heavy silver metallic) on black paper

Signed and Numbered

SOLD OUT – Thank You!

 

 

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Public Enemy at The Regency by Chris Shaw

It was a sincere pleasure to work with Chris Shaw on this poster designed for Public Enemy at The Regency – and hella fun to go and see the show together – WORD! Here’s Chris:

“I was thrilled when Chuck Sperry asked me if I wanted to do a Pub­lic Enemy poster for his Gold­en­voice series, I’m a huge Pub­lic Enemy fan from way back when. Doing a poster for a band you love isn’t always as great as it sounds, some­times you can get hung up on try­ing to get a per­fect image and idea and over­work the art. Try­ing not to over-think things, I decided to go with an old-school polit­i­cal poster, the kind of thing I was mak­ing in the 80’s when I lis­tened to P.E. con­stantly. I’ve made a ton of art over the years lis­ten­ing to that band, and felt like going back to my roots.

Some­how I think I’ve wanted to make this poster for a long time. The last time I made a Pub­lic Enemy poster it was for the Fill­more, I don’t think a riot cop with a bloody baton would have passed pre-screening over there. In par­tic­u­lar, I decided to make this poster a BART cop. BART is a Bay Area tran­sit agency who’s police force has been involved in some very ques­tion­able shoot­ings, have been han­dling them­selves pretty badly, they’ve been in the news a lot. Know­ing the band, the image seemed fit­ting, and timely.

The image is a col­lage of pieces from dif­fer­ent riot cop pho­tos, put together to make an espe­cially sin­is­ter fig­ure. I altered a lot of the small details along the way then sep­a­rated the art into 3 col­ors, stan­dard “pol­i­tics” black & red, plus a bright sil­ver… the sil­ver gives it that rock poster feel. For the vari­ants, we printed a pure cyan instead of the black plate, and used some dif­fer­ent stock. A big thanks Chuck for being the mas­ter of his press, this was an espe­cially clean run of posters.”

Chris will have these posters and vari­ant edi­tions drop­ping at a ran­dom time on his web­site this Fri­day, August 26, 2011. Full poster details, loads of photos and documentation, at chrisshawstudio.com

 

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Ben Harper at The Warfield

Ben Harper is one of my all time favorite artists. I’m very proud to have been given the chance to design this poster for him for his appearance at The Warfield in San Francisco on Thursday, August 25, 2011. I went for a rocking 1968 Cougar – which always looked like a spaceship to me as a child – piloted by Ben. Looking forward to a great journey through the depths of Ben Harper’s amazing multifaceted universe tonight!

Ben Harper, Jenny O. at The Warfield, August 25, 2011

Firehouse Goldenvoice Poster Series No. 140

26 x 20

Edition of 275

3 colors (with very heavy silver metallic) on black paper

Signed and Numbered

These posters will be available at The Warfield tonight – Thursday, August 25, 2011 –  officially through Ben Harper.

below a digital jpeg of the same poster design (without color reflections)

 

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Shonen Knife at Paradiso, Amsterdam

Shown above is an actual photo of the poster / shown below is a digital jpeg image of the same poster.

Shonen Knife, Paradiso, Amsterdam, August 23, 2011

Ideal Poster Series No. 73

Edition of 125

16 x 33

6 colors on archival cream paper

Signed and Numbered

SOLD OUT – Thank You!

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SHONEN KNIFE PARCHMENT EDITION

Shonen Knife, Paradiso, Amsterdam, August 23, 2011

Ideal Poster Series No. 73

Edition of 10

16 x 33

6 colors on Parchment Paper

Signed and Numbered

SOLD OUT – Thank You!

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SHONEN KNIFE SOLAR FLARE EDITION

Shonen Knife, Paradiso, Amsterdam, August 23, 2011

Ideal Poster Series No. 73

Edition of 10

16 x 33

6 colors on Solar Flare Paper (very light yellow with opalescent marble pattern)

Signed and Numbered

SOLD OUT – Thank You!

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SHONEN KNIFE BLUE WAVE EDITION

Shonen Knife, Paradiso, Amsterdam, August 23, 2011

Ideal Poster Series No. 73

Edition of 12

16 x 33

6 colors on Blue Wave Paper (very light blue with brushed wave pattern)

Signed and Numbered

SOLD OUT – Thank You!

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