Vinylmore 2: Tiny Town

FRIDAY APRIL 3rd
8PM @ Atomic Books
3620 Falls Road
Hampden, Baltimore

This year’s Vinylmore show will run through April at Atomic Books, and will feature more than 60 artists and more than 100 custom toys. A little different than last year, all artists will be submitting toys 2.5″ and smaller, hence the “Tiny Town”. I’m still in the brainstorming stages, trying to up the ante on the Boogans I made last year. More info and details to come!

Vinylmore 2 artists include: Boson Au, Daniel Barojas, Justin Blemly, Stephen Blickenstaff, Sam Bosma, Michael S Bracco, Cathleen Brooks, James Bullough, Aaron Bust, Peter Change, Ben Claassen III, Datek, Alexis De La Rosa, Alex Fine, Cam Floyd, Penny Forester, Ghostfreehood, Josh Griffin, Kate Haberer, Brandon Hill, Tim Hill, Jordan Jeffries, Jereminus, Gregory Johnson, Elena Johnston, Chris Keaton, Daniel Krall, Hawk Krall, Jim Lasher, Sarah Mires, STeve Morris, Carl Nielson, Robby Rackleff (Blue Leader), Marc Raley, Brian Ralph, Ryan Onorato, Stephen John Phillips, Michael Sachse, Erik Jacobus Schmalz, Whitney Sherman, Jim Shae, Kevin Sherry, Dave Sobel, Caleb Stine, Nolen Strals, Scott Sugiuchi, Sara Tomko, Tophat, Trebuchet, Andrea Vitale-Lathe, Erin Womack, Yumi Yasuda, Darcey Young, Jeremy Zombie

Soft Graffiti

Check the refresh on Raven’s blog: Soft Graffiti. I’ve been on a design kick the last couple weeks and felt inspired to give it another pass. I finally got the domain resolved and now I’m learning how to customize the Thematic Theme Framework. Super easy!

http://www.softgraffiti.com

• Dead Venues is launched. Possible mention of it in the Sun this weekend.
• Had an awesome weekend at the beach house with Raven and the fam.
• Geoff and I settled on Soft Cement as our band name. We’re done recording the EP and only have one more mixing session. Packaging is gonna be tight.
• I launched the super secret Beatbots Digital. Currently hosting the Small Sur album and soon hosting the Soft Cement EP (Think About It).
• At work I’m redesigning the UI for Cellblock and it so far it looks mad sexier. We’ll be launching that some time next week probably.
• Speaking of work. Big things in the haps with NBC / UNIVERSAL.
• In an effort to get more involved with the IRL, I’ve joined up with the kids at the Hexagon Space. I’m real stoked on it. I’ll be working on the space, book shows, web programming, promotions, etc.
• September 8th is my 27th birthday. Feel free to buy me something awesome.
• September 13th I’ll be running a Beatbots booth at Hampdenfest (”MEATROTS”). If you have a tent that you’d like to lend me, holler!

In other news, I was watching the Obama speech tonight and who should I see on the TV in the audience, but sis Caitlin McD. Surreal!

Sorry I’ve been out of touch recently. I’ve had a lot of stuff going on. For a while I thought I was going crazy, there was so much to do, but I made it through.

Things have been really busy at work. We’ve got a bunch of big contracts in the works, and I’ve been working overtime on a bunch of Flash/Actionscript stuff. It’s really cool when its working, but extremely frustrating when it isn’t. I’m going to be some kind of Flash guru one of these days if I keep this up.

I forgot to mention it, but I relaunched Beatbots a few weeks back. I’d been working on that for a few months, and in one crazy week (while I had a bunch of crazy work stuff going on too) I got it launched. I’m happy with how it turned out and it seems like other people are liking it too. There’s a lot more activity on the site now, which is really cool.

Last week / weekend I spent most of my evenings working on my toys for the Vinylmore DIY toy show (opens this Friday). Disaster struck on Sunday morning (deadline day for my toys) as I was assembling them. Because I was dumb and painted over the arm and neck joints (learning what not to do for next time), it was really hard to get them put back together. When I did get them together, after much forcing, I went to pose of of the arms and it totally snapped off! I was freaking out! Thankfully I had another blank Munny in the apartment, so I stole an arm from that, did a quick paint / coat job, and pieced him back together again.

Here’s how they turned out. A jolly riff on the native Hampdenites. :)

Sneak peek at all the Vinylmore Toys

This week I’m starting on an interactive media art exhibit that’s opening at the Creative Alliance on March 15. It’s collaborative project with the dudes in Post Typography, and I’m really stoked on it. Here’s the details …

Post Typography: Public Print Lab
Minstallation Gallery

Mar 15-Apr 26 Opens Sat Mar 15, 4-6pm
Free

Presented by artist/impresario R.L. Tillman, the newest addition to Baltimore’s cultural landscape has already staked its position as the region’s most vibrant miniature installation space. Emerging and established artists are encouraged to spread their wings in this intimate yet ambitious gallery, with 225 square inches of floor space and generous 14 inch ceilings.

Avant garde design subversives Nolen Strals and Bruce Willen, aka Post Typography, convert the gallery into a miniature, quasi-automated, open source publishing house. Images emailed to a given address during the run of the exhibition will print out in the gallery and be bound and published as a book at its end. Making waves nationally since 2001, Post Typography has received numerous fancy design awards and been featured in such publications as Ellen Lupton’s Thinking With Type and D.I.Y.: Design It Yourself, The Art of Modern Rock, Metropolis magazine, and Taschen’s Contemporary Graphic Design. They specialize in conceptual typography and custom lettering, with forays into art, apparel, music, curatorial work and vandalism. Technical assistance for Public Print Lab provided by Justin Blemly of beatbots.com, DIY media resource for Baltimore, DC and beyond.

Next Tuesday I’m having a Beatbots Launch Party at the new Vice club (old Fletchers). Raven and I will be DJing with one more person TBA, and we’re trying to screen a bunch of video by Beatbots contributors Ann Everton, Kris Anchor and others. More details on that a digital flyer coming as soon as I can get it worked out.

I’ve got some other stuff on the horizon too, but I’ll hold off on that for now. So remember Blarg, even though I haven’t seen much of you lately, I haven’t forgotten about you.

Your pal,
Justin

VINYLMORE: DIY TOY SHOW
Atomic Pop / Baltimore

8PM March 7, 2008

Thanks to the alphabet, I got top billing! I just started working on my toy(s) this evening … got the first coat on there. :)

Bloc – Modular MP3 Player