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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Jon-Paul Bail at The Free University Art School

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.

Jon-Paul Bail, Free University Art School Event

Sunday, April 3, 2011 – 2PM to 4PM

Viracocha

998 Valencia Street (at 21st Street)

San Francisco, CA

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Course Description:

The Free University Art School is very proud to present Jon-Paul Bail prolific Bay Area artist who uses the streets of the world as his canvas. “JP” will present a poster show of his work, present a poster review of important street campaigns from the last two decades, and a slide show of his work including his world-wide “Fox News Media Blitz.”  The Media Blitz imagery is pure JP – humorous, satirical, timely, relevant – and don’t expect him  to be “fair and balanced” when it comes to Glenn Beck. JP will conclude the class with a street action / wheat paste demonstration.

Come early / limited room!

Bio:

Jon-Paul Bail (JP) founded Political Gridlock in 1991 and has been posting street art ever since.  JP’s work is branded by strong cohesive messages and relevant imagery, putting a funny and sometimes shocking spin on popular culture.  His work reference issues that are based in local, national and global communities.  His first company was called Reagan Wear and was co-founded with Ron Donovan from The Firehouse Kustom Rockart Company.  Having studied silk-screening with Malaquias Montoya at California College of the Arts from 1986 – 1989, JP graduated from the San Francisco Art Institute in 1991.  His poster titled Inhail to the Chief , which depicts Barrack Obama smoking a blunt, was featured in rap artist E-40’s music video featuring Dem Boyz in 2010.  He has done print work for Winston Smith and Emory Douglas and has shown work in New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Rome, Italy.  JP’s art is in the collections of the Legion of Honor, Oakland Museum, and Center for the Study of Political Graphics and has been published in four political art books (Yo! What Happened to Peace, Reproduce and Revolt and two editions of Paper Politics).

 

 

 

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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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A Decade with no Name, Hangar 18 Showcase, Jack London Square, Friday, August 6, 2010

Photo Credit: Mike Abramson

This Friday is going to be all about celebrating the creative talent that has come out of the East Bay for the past decade. There are two shows opening this friday as part of the East Bay Express’ “Best of the East Bay” Party. “A Decade with No Name” and “If These Walls Could Talk.” Hangar 18 Artists – Emory Douglas, Chuck Sperry, Ron Donovan, Chris Shaw, Alexandra Fischer, Reuben Rude, Dave Hunter, Alan Hynes, Jon-Paul Bail, Scott Johnson, Frank Zio and Zoltron – were invited to participate (see list and links below).

A Decade with no Name is going to be a group show of 22 artists who work in a variety of mediums. As the facebook event describes it: “multi-disciplinary look into the works currently being created in our collective backyard, “The Decade With No Name” serves as a celebration of the sculptors, painters, photographers and street artists who call Oakland, Berkeley and the greater East Bay their home.”

Pictures are borrowed from the artists websites.

Occurring simultaneously outdoors, “If These Walls Could Talk“ will feature a live showcase of aerosol art by Bay Area legends Chor Boogie, Apex and Eon75 with additional support from Los Angeles’ Dabs/Myla and Surge. All six artists will be working on live graffiti murals during the event.

The Hangar 18 artists will have a Poster Kiosk right across from the Graffiti Mural.

Check out the Facebook event for more details, this is all going on:

Jack London Square
Friday August 6th
5:00pm – 11:00pm

The Gallery is across from the Main Stage.

Participating Artists for “A Decade With No Name”:

Eddie Colla – http://eddiecolla.wordpress.com/
Zoltron – http://zoltron.com/
GATS – http://www.flickr.com/groups/graffitiagainstthesystem/
Ras Terms – http://www.myspace.com/rasterms
Monica Canilao – http://www.monicacanilao.com/
Meagan Donegan – http://meagandonegan.com/home.html
Annie Vought – http://annievought.com/
Scott Hove – http://www.mshove.com/
Peter Gronquist – http://www.petergronquist.com/
Owen Cook – http://theeowencook.com/
Brett Amory – http://www.brettamory.com/
Alika Cooper – http://www.alikacooper.com/
Brendan Monroe – http://www.brendanmonroe.com/
Aaron Nagel – http://www.aaronnagel.com/
Skinner – http://www.theartofskinner.com/
David D’Andrea – http://www.dvdandrea.com/
Dave Correia – http://www.playwithknives.com/
Jason Vivona – http://www.jasonvivona.com/
Deth P. Sun – http://www.dethpsun.com/
John Felix Arnold – http://www.theothersideofasmile.info/
Amanda Lopez – http://www.amandalopezphoto.com/
John Coyne – http://www.caughtinthescramble.com/

Poster Art / Hangar18 Showcase:
Emory Douglas – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emory_Douglas
Chuck Sperry – http://sperry.wpengine.com/
Ron Donovan – http://rondonovan.net/
Reuben Rude – http://www.reubenrude.com/
Dave Hunter – http://gammalyte.com/blog/
Chris Shaw – http://homepage.mac.com/c.shaw/Menu5.html
Jon-Paul Bail – http://www.gridlock.bigcartel.com/
Alexandra Fischer – http://www.facebook.com/Afishcalledalex
Alan Hynes – http://omgposters.com/2009/07/30/ten-questions-with-alan-hynes/
Scott Johnson – http://www.scottyjprints.com/
Frank Zio – http://www.facebook.com/pages/Frank-Zio/95871445028

Participating Artists for “If These Walls Could Talk”:
Chor Boogie – http://www.chorboogie.com/
Apex – http://www.vimby.com/video/art/us/all/detail/9695
Eon75 – http://maxehrman.carbonmade.com/
Dabs & Myla – http://www.dabsmyla.com/
Surge

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West Fest 2009

westcs

Well, extremely sad to say, Urlo, Poia and Lu have headed for the airport. The Dark Nouveau Tour was a massive success. I miss my good friends already!!!!

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Vita, the drummer for Ufomammut, was still in town today. George and I drove over to the Mission to get him, and took him over to Alameda for a visit to Jon-Paul Bail’s house and a tour of his Political Gridlock studio. Seemed a good quiet day to chill down from the busy weekend. Went to Ole’s Waffle House for a mid afternoon breakfast and then caught a drink at the Lucky 13 in Alameda. Showed Vita all the cool posters at Lucky 13 Alameda, collected by Dan, the owner of Lucky 13, who made a special trip over to the bar just to say hello to him. Played pinball and drank a couple of good Belgian brews.

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As for Saturday night, Ufomammut and Acid King surpassed my expectations and played just amazingly cool sets, just blew my mind how good the show was. Awesome poster visuals provided by Malleus, Alan Forbes, Dave Hunter, and Firehouse. Justin and Heather played really cool music, perfect for the mood, DJ’ing into Acid King’s masterful and heavy groove. I’m still stunned at the power and grace that drives Acid King – I got swept onto their heavy freight train of metal – and dug the shit out of their entire set. Loved where they were taking me, and was all sweaty at the end.

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I was overjoyed to finally get to witness a live Ufomammut show. Urlo, Poia and Vita played heavy, groovin, doom with modulated soft sections and booming heavy over-drive. Made me so very happy to finally get to meet this side of my friends after knowing only the visual art side of them for over seven years. I’m astonished at how powerful they are with music – and enjoyed every second of their set – and will savor the memory for the rest of my life.

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Varnish was packed full of great people. I want to thank everyone for coming down and supporting the scene! I had the time of my life! Thank you to Varnish Fine Art for hosting my event!

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This morning I called Joey from Acid King to tell him thank you – to him and Lori, and Mark – for such a great show at Varnish Fine Art last Saturday night. He hipped me to Brian Lew’s glowing review of the show on Umlaut. Brian hit the nail on the head when he said, “This will go down as one of my favorite nights of the year!” I want to thank everyone who helped me organize this show and who participated and who came to have a good time.

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After packing all the gear and wrapping at Varnish at 2 am, George and I caught four hours of sleep, met up again at my house at 6 am, and drove over to Golden Gate Park, and started to set up for everyone at Speedway Meadow for the West Fest. We pulled into Speedway Meadow minutes before dawn, and found that our space had been commandeered by our good friends in the Hell’s Angels. Didn’t have a problem with that, and found good lodgings for our booth next door to good friend Chris Shaw and his wife Alex Fischer. Started to set up the table to sell our West Fest Poster Series with Malleus, Dave Hunter, me and Ron Donovan’s posters. Dave was there bright and early. The Malleus boys slept in at my bidding (since they played such a ripping rock show the night before) and Ron, who had just recently arrived home from Hawaii, made every effort to get the posters to the show, so people could get complete sets of posters.

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Going to take the day easy tomorrow. The ever dependable George will meet for coffee in the morning. We’ll return the PA to McCune in South City SF, help search for Acid King’s visual backdrop DVD (we were having a such a good time and forgot this detail), settle the poster details from the show at Varnish, return the gridwall sections, write thank you emails, etc. Take a day to recharge for designing my Dinosaur Jr poster. Think onward to two Widespread Panic posters coming in the Fall. Get cracking on The Young Gods poster. Start to play with designs for The Prodigy who have asked for another design. Schedule printing for Skinny Puppy at the Regency by Zoltron.

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Mail order that backed up while Malleus was here – Tuesday night and in the mail Wednesday

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Ah, I guess it’s back to the drawing board ; )

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Most of all I’ll shed some tears for my Malleus friends. Miss you guys. Hope you arrive safe and sound in Tortona, Italy!

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West Fest 2009

Editon of 200

4 colors on archival cream paper

20″ x 26″

Signed and Numbered

Sold Out – Thank You!

Archives

Sperry Books: “Color x Color” • “Helikon” • “Chthoneon” • “Idyllion”

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