Bad Dog Gallery Opens for the Season

Mondays and Wednesdays are the best because I have a little bit of time in the morning to catch up on blogs and make myself a hearty breakfast. This morning I'm having oatmeal with apples and cinnamon and rye toast and hot coffee. Thanks to a certain someone who knows how to cook my breakfasts have upgraded to the hot variety and no longer just the cold cereal and bitter coffee I'm so used to. I can cook now! Just oatmeal, though. Nothing too fancy.

So Thursday night was the first show of the season at the Bad Dog Gallery. Bad Dog is an alternative space in one of the drawing professor's two-car garage. I've mentioned it here before. It's a beautiful space, it doesn't even feel like a garage on the inside.

The first show was called The Dog and Pony Show and it was curated by Nina Rizzo, one of the painting instructors. She wanted people to make work that had a bit of a circus-y theme. This was her poster.

And these are some of the pieces in the show. This is a litho/screenprint by my printmaking instructor Ashley Nason.
This is a litho print by my other printmaking instructor Michael Barnes.
These sculptoral pieces were made by a grad student name Brikena Boci.

This gauche painting was made by my good friend and NIU alum Christian Campos. It's a painting of our friend Jane's dog.

This is Nina's dog Theo looking dapper in his circus-themed outfit.
This is one of a three part mixed media series by painting instructor Katie Kahn.
Oh hey! My work. I printed this digital image out as a 4x7 and then got a lot of crap from people for putting it in a cheap Michaels frame. Next time I'll know better. ( :
This amazing piece is by drawing/painting instructor Geoffrey Todd Smith.
I love this vinyl image of Calvin pissing on praying Calvin by foundations instructor Ben Stone.
And you all should know my good friend Joanna by now. She made an outfit for this monkey she found and it is surrounded by fliers for her new etsy shop. As soon as she opens her shop I'll be sure to post it here.
And one last look at Theo in his sparkly cape!

i love i love i love

I love John Waters and his strangely bizarre and beautiful movies. The visuals in his movies are so ugly beautiful, my favorite kind of beautiful. I don't know what got me thinking about him specifically today but he's on my mind and I wanted to say something. He creates these bizarre worlds that are lewd and crude but so mesmerizing. I think it's what I'm trying to do with my own work. Maybe not as lewd or crude but surely bizarre and mesmerizing. Occasionally I wish I lived inside one of his movies but only for a bit. I don't think I could dwell there too long.



My friend Christian Campos makes really amazing work and he has cited John Waters as an influence. Last year he was in a painting class and each week a different student showed a film that was an influence in their work and he showed Pink Flamingos. That caught my attention and when I saw his work I fell in love with it. I wish he had a website, I will beg him to start one. These are a few images I took from his facebook account. I'm in the middle of text messaging him to make sure it's okay that I feature these pics. Keep an eye out for him. He's going to do amazing things!