The MiraMar Speed Circuit Presents: The Box Arena Invitational

This is a Street Fighter IV Tournament.  There should be quite a few recognizable players if you are active with the Street Fighter IV tournament scene. Local San Diego clothing stores including UnSteady Boutique and Willy’s WorkShop have sponsored the event with prizes and The Miramar Speed Circuit has offered their venue to The Box Arena.  Besides that, A Sketchpad Brand will be giving away shirts as raffle prizes as well as to a few of the top players of the event.  Make sure you mark your calendars and take the drive to the Miramar Speed Circuit on October 3rd, 2009.

J Ross Parrelli Album Release Party

My brother-in-law, Noel, hooked me up with a flyer of J Ross Parrelli, his co-worker’s album release party @ the Rhythm Lounge here in Long Beach. She’s got a really nice jazzy-Hip-Hop-neosoul vibe to her music and I personally think it’s well worth supporting. I’m just starting to listen to her CDs which I also just recieved and it’s very chill. The show will be on Saturday, August 15th and you will recieve a copy of her new album FREE with paid admission.

Can’t wait! All these good events at around the end of summer. So come, enjoy, and support good music.

–dinoxsketchpad

Designers Raising Havoc

I just got an exciting E-Mail from Mario (LA ArtLab) today about an event that’s going to take place this Thursday. He messaged me a while back about a project he’s working on with Freshjive, The Hundreds, and Hellz Bellz…and it seems that it’s coming to fruition. Here’s the official press-release:

Join three of the most influential and innovative street wear designers for a frank discussion about what it takes to start a label, develop it, keep it sharp and maintain its creative integrity. Rick Klotz, Bobby Hundreds, and Lanie Alabanza-Barcena will speak about the ideas and challenges behind running their companies, and keeping their designs relevant in a world with serious problems.

Bring your thoughts and questions to the table – this is an open forum for youth, design students, entrepreneurs and creative activists.

LAartlab is an all volunteer project helping teens and young adults engage in the various facets of the Los Angeles art scene and California’s creative economy by providing hands-on opportunities to help design, produce and host free art events!

Oh, and the admission is FREE. It’s summer so I know a lot of you aren’t doing anything splendor so call in sick from work and support a good cause, get some free education, and the icing on the cake — free giveaways from the different brands. What more do you want? And thanks Mario for the heads up. I shall be there.

Here’s the info:

National Center for the Preservation of Democracy
111 North Central Ave. Los Angeles, CA 90012

Thursday, July 30th @ 7-8:30PM

–dinoxsketchpad

Miami Graffiti Exhibition Recap

For more information on the show, visit 33Third’s Gallery Blog. Thanks again to Lucy for the update.

–dinoxsketchpad

Scion Presents: 2009 Vice Magazine Photography Exhibition‏

Vice, the international arts and culture magazine distributed and published in more than 22 countries, comes to Scion’s Installation L.A. Gallery on July 25 for the ninth annual Vice Photo Show.

Best known for documenting youthful excess, questionable street fashion and powerful scenes of political unrest around the world, Vice presents this exhibition in conjunction with “The 2009 Vice Magazine Photo Issue” and is curated by the magazine’s managing editor Amy Kellner. The acclaimed annual edition has previously featured works from Terry Richardson, Ryan McGinley, Richard Kern, Jerry Hsu, Rennie Ellis and many others.

This year’s exhibition features Vice contributors Jamie Lee Curtis Taete, Maggie Lee, and former Vice photo editor, Tim Barber. Tim is also curating a mini group-show-within-a-group-show of photos featured on his online gallery, tinyvices.com.

Jamie Lee Curtis Taete is a 24-year-old English photographer whose candid images provoke intense reactions, often ranging from awe to disgust. His work has been featured in Vice, Chief, PerezHilton.com and The Guardian, and has been shown in Mexico, France, Britain, North America and Japan as part of the Tiny Vices traveling exhibition. Taete is a Vice UK staff photographer and maintains a photo blog at www.jamietaete.com.

Maggie Lee is a zine-maker, Pratt graduate and Vice staff photographer who has developed a chronological archive of her 21 years through captured light and photocopies. Lee has shown her work in New York, New Zealand and Australia and has recently exhibited her Frenching zine at the New Museum’s “Younger Than Jesus” show.

Tim Barber, a photographer, curator, publisher, designer and former Vice Magazine photo editor runs the online gallery TinyVices.com. Founded in 2005, the site reflects various approaches to photography and allows emerging and underexposed artists to upload their work onto the influential platform. For this exhibition, Barber will personally install a selection of works from the site.

–dinoxsketchpad

Crime & Charity Is An Urban Myth

C E R A S O L I Gallery presents ‘Urban Myth’ a group exhibition in the front galleries curated by Bristol urban artist Graffiti Kingpin INKIE, representing a cross-section of the dominant forces in UK urban art scene: Pure Evil, Zeus, Mysterious Al, Inkie, Steff Plaetz, China Mike, Mudwig, MauMau, Chu, Eco, Andy Council, Sickboy, SHOK-1. One of Australia’s pioneering street to gallery artists, MEGGS ‘Crime & Charity’ will be on view in Gallery Two. Opens July 11, 2009, and remains on view through August 1, 2009.

–dinoxsketchpad

This Has To Be The Place

Scion Space hosted an event entitled ‘This Must Be The Place’ out here in LA a couple of weeks ago. Here are some pictures of the opening night festivities. If you’re around the area, drop by and check out the exhibition before it’s too late. You have until July 11th.

photos by Colin Young-Wolff
–dinoxsketchpad

Miami Graffiti

Mid-City Arts continues to bring the best of street art to Los Angeles with its latest show honoring the Miami graffiti scene. “Miami Graffiti” opens July 11, 7pm – 9pm and will be on view through July 26th.

Rapidly becoming one of the United States’ top graffiti destinations, Miami, Florida is home to a deep well of talented artists driven by a fiercely competitive graffiti scene. Miami’s profile has risen thanks to the city’s role as host to the famed “Art Basel” and most recently “Primary Flight.” “Primary Flight” is the internationally acclaimed, site-specific, street level mural installation that takes place during Art Basel. Artists that have graced the Primary Flight walls include Crome, MSG, Typoe as well as Blek Le Rat, Retna, El Mac, David Choe, Revok and many others.

Miami Graffiti by photographers Jim and Karla Murray is the first book to capture Miami’s graffiti scene. Documenting 20+ years of graffiti art and history along with Miami’s most notorious crews and writers, Miami Graffiti is a detailed presentation of South Florida’s past, present, and future of graffiti.

Mid City Arts’ “Miami Graffiti” show is a celebration of the release of Jim and Karla Murray’s book – they will be on hand to sign books – and a showcase of some of Florida’s finest street artists from the MSG, TCP, SH and THC crews. Artists from these crews are coming out to Los Angeles and will be displaying their work in the gallery as well as customizing the gallery’s back yard space. Featured artists include Crome, Typoe, Acme, Enve, Murder, Afex, Kemo, Cynic, Gere, Flojoe and others. The show is curated by “Slow”.

–dinoxsketchpad

The Wake-Up Show

Before Sophal had to take the flight back to Boston, we headed out to Beat Rock where they were hosting an event for Pancho Abalos’ new series of ‘The 23 Nin-J’s’ paintings. I loved the paintings when I first saw them and even purchased one of his shirts a while back, but upon his explanation of how the pieces came about made me appreciate the art much more. This was one heck of a wake-up show.

This piece was kind of the genesis of the series, in that, all the ninjas are wearing Jordan’s first signature shoes. Pancho’s explanation behind it was that before Jordan had Jordans, Converse’s Weapons were the shoes helmed by professional basketball players and fans alike. That all changed when Michael Jordan swooped in (like a ninja) and took the whole sneaker game by storm.

–dinoxsketchpad

Pancho Abalos

This Sunday @ Beat Rock. All the way from Hawaii…

–dinoxsketchpad