Chuck Sperry

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Free University Art School – Third Demonstration / Documentation

The first five week course offering for The Free University Art School was completed last Sunday, April 3, 2011, with Jon-Paul Bail’s presentation of a personal history of Oakland Street Art. Fitting perfectly into the Free University Art School’s step-by-step art of the street approach, the sweep and course arch of the four presentations:

1. Chris Shaw and I present Rock Art, and demonstrate printing techniques.

2. Blek le Rat – speaks to three decades of street art, defines the state of the art both high brow and low brow, and produces a stencil painting live.

3. Winston Smith – discusses his life and art, with me and Vale of RE/Search Magazine as moderator. Winston explored the long San Francisco tradition of DYI and punk art.

4. Jon-Paul Bail’s story of Oakland and San Francisco street art from 1980’s to present. I moderated and Ron Donovan printed JP’s street piece.

Jon-Paul culminates his class – and the Free U Art School first five weeks – by leading our class down Valencia Street in the Mission of San Francisco to make art on the street. We pasted Winston Smith’s Nuclear Scream, a reaction to the Japanese nuclear disaster.

Thanks everyone who came to learn, who came to teach, and for keeping the dream alive.

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Steve Miller Band Poster Wins Award

My Steve Miller Band poster won Poster of the Week on Expressobeans. I appreciate it! A nice surprise for a rainy day.

Also, I’ll be happy to see everyone who can make the very first Free University Art School presentation at Viracocha, 998 Valencia at 21st Street on Sunday, March 6, 2 to 4 pm. Chris Shaw, Ron Donovan and I will be showing posters, discussing our work, and conducting a demonstration in silkscreen printmaking.

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Free University of San Francisco, School of Art

The Free University of San Francisco aims to make the highest level of education available, completely free, to any individual who wants it, regardless of color, creed, age, gender, nationality, religion or immigration status—a university free of money, taught for free. The only requirement for membership is a desire to teach and/or a desire to learn.

We believe that the purpose of education is not to turn the student into a better consumer and profit-earner but to help him or her to discover the wealth of human culture upon whose shoulders she or he stands. What we share at the Free University of San Francisco is a passionate determination to see the restoration of humanity—warm, literate, democratic—to vibrant human life. And in order to achieve this aim we have taken hold of the very hub of our culture, which is education, in order to create a brand new kind of institution, one whose existence makes no sense in the current social order, one that stands in direct defiance of the privatized profit-oriented social engineering centers that pass for universities today.

We are the Free University of San Francisco and we are rebels of knowledge.

This course will offer courses, lectures and demonstrations in the field of  visual arts, those arts which seek to enlighten, inform and entertain with common sense imagination in populist mediums.

Sunday, March 6, 2pm – to – 4 pm • Chuck Sperry, Ron Donovan, Chris Shaw

Sunday, March 27, 2pm – to – 4 pm • Winston Smith

Sunday, April 3, 2pm – to – 4 pm • Jon-Paul Bail and special guests

 

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Moonalice at Slim’s SF Poster – January 3,4,5 – Moonalice TV Live

Moonalice is starting 2011 with a live three night Moonalice TV engagement at Slim’s in San Francisco. I made this silkscreened poster for the event at the request of the band, art directed by Chris Shaw.

The subject in my poster is hanging a poem or prayer in a tree. This is an ancient human ritual. People have been doing this in every quarter of the world forever. I was in England with Chris Hopewell from Jacknife posters and he took me to the Avesbury Stones (the little Stonehenge), and the oak trees around the site were streaming with prayer ribbons. My girlfriend Nancy hangs ribbons in the tree across the street. The ancient ritual again. It’s 2011, so we hang posters on telephone poles. And Moonalice, they livestream their rock show – and since we live in a technological new millennium – their poems are hung electronically on the air.

Moonalice at Slim’s San Francisco (M333)

January 3, 4, 5, 2011

Silkscreen Poster

16.25 x 33

Edition of 125

5 Color Silkscreen on archival cream paper

Signed and Numbered

SOLD OUT

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Moonalice 333 Speckled Variant

Silkscreen Poster

16.25 x 33

Edition of 13

5 Color Silkscreen on speckled paper

Signed and Numbered

SOLD OUT

I’ll be making a very limited release of this poster on Thursday, January 6, 2011 at noon PST.



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Faya Gallery – 211 Elizabeth – Closing Party – Friday, September 24, 2010

The show at Faya Gallery, 211 Elizabeth Street in New York City was a total blast. The show is still up until September 26, and there’s a closing party on Friday, September 24 from 6 pm to 10 pm. Chris and I will not be able to attend, but it’s sure to be a great time! I was very happy to be back on the Lower East Side for the opening. The Faya Gallery’s location is beautiful, in North Little Italy, and the hospitality of gallery owner John Scalise and his partner Rob and friend Cervantes was great. Here’s a cool picture of John and Cervantes:

Chris Shaw showed his new paintings and they are gorgeous. I love his canvases; I’m a proud owner of some of his paintings. Chris is just a top-notch painter, and fun guy to hang out with. Take a look at his beautiful canvases here:

Carlo McCormick – Senior Editor of “Paper” – showed up at the opening and introduced me to Hubert Kertzschmar the album art designer of Rolling Stones’ “Some Girls”. The above photo is courtesy Carlo McCormick (with Hubert’s camera).

Novelist Charles Bock came to the opening and we caught a coffee together (next day) near his writing office on Union Square, NYC. It was really great to catch up with Charles and share the last year of experiences with him. I designed the cover for the paperback edition of his novel “Beautiful Children.”

I had a great time with Seth Tobocman, editor of World War 3 Illustrated magazine. Seth and I worked as co-editors in the 1980’s on World War 3. The magazine is still going strong after 25 years. And I contribute to this day. There will be a retrospective of WW3 in which I’m included at EXIT Art Gallery in NYC early next year.

On our free day Chris and I rolled around New York City. I was a little tired – with the Dylan release just before my trip – and it’s kind of hard to get sleep when your head is hanging over the traffic…

…And there’s an incredible rat problem downtown.

Chris and I had a great time together. The show was a big success! We spent part of our free day by going to this great paint pigment store on the Lower East Side – to pick up raw / mixable paint pigments for our paintings and prints. Dropped some serious cash on metallic and opalescent pigments that will mirror the metallic effects of my printing in acrylic paint for the canvases and to print with. I used to live across the street from this store and it was a pleasure to be back in the hood. Thanks to John Scalise and everyone at Faya Gallery!

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