SHOP!

Oh yeah! I have a Shop! Well, kind of. I had some extra copies of some of the prints I've made over the past year and I thought I'd set up a temporary little online store to make them available to folks wherever they are. I've got plans for new prints, new reprints, and a new, bigger and better shop in the near future-- still figuring out what my best option will be for that. For now, feel free to give my new little Shop a try by clicking the somewhat distracting red tab seen at the top of this page, or the "SHOP" link on the right-hand margin under ABOUT SAM. The shop, brought to you by Vendr, currently only accepts Paypal. The prints that I have for sale right now are:

- Kurosawa Centennial Belcourt print
- Trash Humpers Belcourt print
- Noir Fest 2 Belcourt print (available in two styles)
- Paper Hats gig poster

- Sebastian Speaks gig poster

Thanks and stay tuned for more prints!

Childrens Bookshelf: ALAIN GRÉE

The art of Alain Grée makes me very, very happy. Here are some pictures from "Les plantes", one book in a series of many released by Casterman in the 60's & 70's. Grée wrote and illustrated over 300 books in his career, most of them for children, and in his later life has devoted himself to writing about and enjoying his main passion, sailing, while working with the company RicoBel to release products based on his work to children and collectors of the world. In a recent interview for his official website, Grée was asked why he originally wanted to become an illustrator; His reply: "to be able to have the freedom to sail across the world on my ship together with my wife Monique, far away from the usual phonecalls and meetings, living from my royalties, in my dreams." Sounds like a perfect life goal to me, and one admirably fulfilled. Some images from "Les plantes" and some of my other favorites by the French master of illustration, Alain Grée:

POSTCARDS TO MY PARENTS

Carolyn Sewell, or Pedestrian Typography as she's known on Flickr, seems to have come to the end of her Postcards to My Parents project, in which she sent a doodle a day to her folks for a whole year. I love self-initiated projects like this that really allow an artist to focus on one thing in mass repetition. Carolyn's hand-written typography that is playful yet elegant, playing with puns and pop-culture references that her parents are apparently hip enough to appreciate, and picks great color schemes for her messages so that no two cards are alike. I don't know how they were made -- the colors seem digital at first, but I'm thinking it's all paint pen on colored paper -- but I love and admire them, and find the whole project very inspiring and meaningful.

PEN PENCIL STENCIL

I want to be best friends with Mark Giglio. Under his studio name Pen Pencil Stencil, Mark creates elegant and simple graphic designs and drawings, but moreover he synthesizes his artistic voice throughout a variety of mediums: pillows, clothes, wood sculptures, folding paper calendar cubes. I got to see his wonderful character the Pencil Pirate, who I also have on a t-shirt, on display at the Giant Robot gallery on my last trip to NYC. For his online store, Mark creates one to five completely unique pieces and sells them for one month only, like the amazing wooden forest seen above. The little wooden men below are Mark's own hand-made Kokeshi dolls. As if that weren't enough, Mark is a great photographer, and evokative images from his time in Stockholm and Japan fill the news stream on his website, which you really should just go through page by page and enjoy. Also make sure to check out Grain Edit's studio visit to Pen Pencil Stencil for a look at Mark's neat workspace. I like to think that Mark and I have a lot in common, except that he makes having a great eye look so easy.

THE FILM POSTERS OF JACQUES TATI

As research for a project I'm working on, I wanted to take a look back at the many wonderful posters designed for the films of Jacques Tati, the French art-comedy genius whose work has been made available to us on DVD here in the States by The Criterion Collection. I love the giant bold fields of color, the hand-painted lettering, and the playful caricature shared by them all. I've credited the artist when known; the masterful one-sheet for Mon Oncle seen above was designed by Pierre Étaix, a friend of Tati's who then went on to direct films of his own that have remained unavailable and unreleased despite great critical acclaim (a petition supporting the restoration of these prints includes the signiature of Jean-Luc Godard among others). Any of these beautiful originals are well worth the pretty penny you'll find them listed for online. One day when I'm rich and famous, one of these will adorn my wall.

René Peron

René Ferracci

BOOBY TRAP

My friend and bandmate is currently living in a house where an older gentleman recently passed away, leaving behind all of his old things. There are beautiful mid-century furniture pieces and lamps around, neat vintage art, shelves upon shelves of paperback books, assorted strange trinkets and things, and in the basement a small stack of old board games. I'm both a board game geek and a lover of retro package design; when Wes Anderson set a scene inside a board game closet in THE ROYAL TENENBAUMS I just about lost my mind. This game, BOOBY TRAP, caught my eye and we quickly tried to figure out the rules knowing only what we saw on the front cover (there were no rules included in the old box, manufactured in 1964). We found that our rules were pretty on target after finding a PDF of the vintage instructions online. It's a really fun little game, and the box design is great. Looks like it was reissued a few times and a new, unpleasantly-designed version with a shitty plastic spring box is available. I might have to pick up this version off eBay. Oh and by the way, I didn't realize the double meaning of the title in relation to its game pieces until later, so don't feel bad if it wasn't obvious to you at first either.

ANTHONY GERACE

I don't know much about my Flickr friend Anthony Gerace other than that he's from Toronto and I love his work. His self-initiated concert posters struck me in their nostalgic design, evoking old paperback book covers of the 80's. Recently he's been embarking on a project entitled "Final Decline and Total Collapse" in which he illustrates antiquated chairs and lamps... the kind of project that really allows a designer to refine his or her voice though repetition. Anthony also has a great way with abstract photo collage, and I highly recommend checking out his Flickr for more collages and color studies. Anthony, keep up the great work (and tell us all where we can find out more about you)!