Author Archive

HAPPY HOUR – New Work by Amanda Clarke &
Re-Surface – The grand reopening of Surface Salon

November 12, 2011 – January 28th, 2012
Opening Reception Saturday November 12, 2011
7-10pm

I met Amanda YEARS ago through my work with KRUDCO. skateshop here in Rochester. She’s a Rochester native herself who’s been killing it in Boston for quite a few years now. When I had the chance to get her back her and offer her our first solo show at 1975, I was so stoked.

She’s back in town for the weekend, and we’re all going to celebrate her love of music, the perfectly mixed cocktail, and her graphic design heroes TONIGHT from 7-10pm!

For more on Amanda’s awesome illustration work, check out www.sparkyart.com
On Twitter: @SparkyArt
The Event: www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=181145695293408

And of course, you can always check out what we’re doing through 1975 at: www.1975ish.com
or on twitter: @1975ish

More samples of Amanda’s awesomeness:

I hate posting up so late, but there’s been so much to do! My nomadic gallery 1975 celebrated three awesome years of showcasing Rochester’s (and points beyond) finest talent with BY THE PALE MOONLIGHT on Saturday October 8, 2011. Thirty-six artists (including fellow Mumbler John Fellows) got together an awesome collection of work celebrating Ghosts, Ghouls, and Creatures of the Night.

It was also the kickoff for Rochester’s newest art exhibition space, THE YARDS. Two of my cohorts in the Sweet Meat Co. are behind this new venture, and I’m thrilled to present the first show in this amazing new space.

BY THE PALE MOONLIGHT runs through November 5, 2011, with open hours during Rochester Public Market hours. Then I’ll be assembling a smaller popup gallery featuring a selection of the work for our local TEDxRochester event on Monday, November 7, 2011. It’s a cool, busy month!

HOURS FOR THE YARDS
Tuesdays: 10am – 2pm
Thursdays: 10am – 2pm
Saturdays: 10am – 2pm
or by appointment

Artwork is currently in our Facebook page, and remaining works will be up in our Big Cartel store very soon.

Oh yeah, I love t-shirts, and I love Halloween, so I did a super small run of 31 Halloween themed 1975 shirts, now available in the our online store.

BY THE PALE MOONLIGHT
Ghosts, Ghouls, and other Creatures of the Night
1975 x Surface Salon’s Three Year Anniversary show.
October 8 – November 5, 2011

Opening Night: Saturday, October 8, 2011, from 7-10pm

It’s been three AWESOME years since I started 1975 and partnered up with my friend Lee at Surface salon to start showcasing artists in Rochester, and now we can’t just contain the party to the old space. We’re going to kick off our next year by welcoming a brand new art space into our family, and this one is a doozy!

To make it even more special, we’ve reached out to an INCREDIBLE roster of talented artists to help us make this show even more memorable than our previous shows. (Check www.1975ish.com for the full listing)

The event will be on the third floor above Flour City Bakery, in Rochester’s brand new art space (whose name will be revealed that night), located in the Rochester Public Market, 280 Union St. North, Rochester, NY 14609.

Use the Union St. entrance to the Public Market, and the entrance to the space is immediately to the left of Flour City Bakery. There are two flights of stairs.

BY THE PALE MOONLIGHT ON FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=283441755002519

I wear many hats during the course of a day, and Friday night I’m putting on my finest artist chapeau for WELCOME TO SWEETSVILLE, a group installation with my art partners in crime – the Sweet Meat Co.

WELCOME TO SWEETSVILLE
Friday, June 24th 2011
7pm – Midnight

Inside the Rochester Public Market
280 Union St. North
Rochester, New York

For more information and sneak peaks, check out www.SweetMeatCo.com

RSVP for the event on facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=212998272068378

Here are a few sneak peaks from one of our work sessions:

All photos by Hannah Betts Moncibaiz

Our old Facebook group is getting phased out, and we’ve set up a Facebook Page to replace it. Change is in the air, and this is just one of many updates you’ll be seeing to Club Mumble over the summer.

Please spread the word!

http://www.facebook.com/clubmumble

WELCOME TO SWEETSVILLE

The latest artistic endeavor by the Sweet Meat Co., featuring new works by Sarah C. Rutherford, St. Monci, Lea Rizzo, Mr. Prvrt, and Erich S. Lehman will be on June 24, 2011. The event will be on the third floor above Flour City Bakery, located in the Rochester Public Market, 280 Union St. North, Rochester, NY 14609. For more information, go to www.SweetMeatCo.com

++

I’ll be switching back from my usual role as guy behind the scenes to artsy fartist for the next Sweet Meat Co. group extravaganza. We started assembling things Friday night, and here’s the postcard design I put together for the show. Our operating theme  is “Post-apocalyptic 50s”, and it’s already shaping up to be a pretty exciting thing in the short week we’ve had to start assembling the installation.

Come on out!

I’m pretty lucky to be on the board for the Friends of the Roc City Park here in Rochester. Our main goal is to work with the city to set up a huge outdoor concrete skateplaza/park on the edge of downtown Rochester. How huge? The goal is a 75,000 square foot monster, which means you are going to want to make the trek to check it out when it’s done.

We’ve got a big rally coming up to raise awareness for the park. The amazing thing is, we found out while planning the event that the funding was approved for the park! However, it’s not slated until 2015. So we’re trying to raise enough money to help push that schedule and get ground broken on the project moved up a few years sooner.

Here’s a little bit about the event:

The Rally for the Roc City Skatepark will take place on June 4, 2011 at Max at High Falls (60 Browns Race). Four main venues will feature demonstrations by professional skateboarders and bmx bikers, including DGK athletes Marcus McBride, Jackson Curtin, and Lenny Rivas who are brought to Rochester by WDKX; Red Bull rider Zered Bassett; Kink rider Tony Hamlin; and the Krudco Skateshop team. Red Bull will be hosting a Manny Mania contest throughout the day; there will be live bands and djs; vendors; a silent auction; a video game lounge sponsored by Best Buy; a Parent Oasis sponsored by the Strathallan Hotel; and art activities sponsored by Four Walls Gallery.

Rally hardest by getting sponsors and earn the right to ride in the Red Bull MXT vehicle with Red Bull Athlete Zered Basset on Sunday to skate your favorite skate spots with a professional photo shoot; $100 worth of sponsorships earns the right to ride and prizes and $500 worth of sponsorships earns the right to ride, prizes, and dinner with the pros. Please go to www.roccitypark.org to learn more about sponsorships.

I’ve set up a fundraising “team” through the Rally’s First Giving site, and I’m donating my share of funds to help younger kids who tried to raise enough money to skate with the pros but just missed their numbers. Chip in here to Team 1975 if you can!

Click here to find out more specifically about the Rally on June 4.

I was invited to contribute in this benefit for the Chatham, NY skatepark benefit project. Chatham’s located just south of Albany, NY. It’s great to see so many community groups rallying to build skateparks in the Northeast; there’s a definite lack of good outdoor public skateparks out our way.

###

STOKED 3, a Skate Deck Art Show and Silent Auction to benefit construction of the Chatham Skate Park in Chatham, NY, is scheduled for Saturday, March 26, 2011. The event, in its third year, takes place at the Charles B Benenson Visitors Center at Art Omi in Ghent, NY from 2 to 9 PM. One hundred talented artists from the Chatham area, the Capital District and as far away as Indiana are participating to help raise money for the construction fund for the Chatham Skate Park to be built at Crellin Community Park in Chatham.

Artists were given a blank skate board deck to create a piece of art in any way they desired and donate the piece back to the project. The Crellin Park Foundation, Inc., who sponsors the event, has been working with the Town of Chatham on a skate park plan for four years, involving local skateboarders of all ages in the planning and fundraising process. The first phase of the skate park will be approximately 6000 square feet and will include a street plaza design along with a bowl so that the park can be enjoyed by skaters of all skill levels. Nearly $90,000 has been raised to date for the skate park project.

There is a suggested donation of $5.00.

For more information:
Stoked 3 Skate Deck Art Show and Auction event page.
Or contact Shari Franks at 518-392-0337 or recdirector1231@fairpoint.net.

Darrell in the Ice - Photo by Cole Slutzky

As far back as 1993, when I first arrived in Rochester, we had joked about surfing in the Great Lakes, but none of us ever tried. We were all skateboarders first, and we found ways to do that year round.

Fast forward to 2007, a few of us caught the surfing bug, and we had started to add that our travel plans: surf/skate/bmx/whatever. We spent a couple years taking dedicated surf trips, picking it up slowly but surely. Our distance from the ocean was seriously hindering our progress . . . so we began to look back at those jokes about surfing the lakes.

My buddies JImmy and Trevor were the first ones I knew of that tried it, and reported back happily that it was totally working, at least enough to satisfy our itch. I quickly joined in, and it seemed like we were the only three that were in on this big secret.

Trevor (with beard) and I, iPhone photo, early January 2011

Rochester Surf Sesh Nov. 2010 from jimmy rathbun on Vimeo.

And then we started meeting everyone else.

Turns out, some of these guys have been surfing the Great Lakes for years. Some were skateboarders too, others were just folks that had the same itch we had. Everyone had stories to tell, spots to share, tips to make things a little easier.

It rekindled something in me that had been waning a bit in my skating, and reminded me of when I first started skating in the late 80s: meeting new people who shared this love; people thinking you are crazy for doing what you are doing, and the excitement of finding a new spot that was right under your nose the whole time. It is the perfect complement.

So this whole new gang has been exploring the coast of Lake Ontario, and an aspiring photographer/videographer from RIT named Cole Slutzky has been working on a documentary about Great Lakes surfing. His blog PreconceivedNoceans.wordpress.com is definitely worth a look; his photos capture perfectly this odd little world.

Cole just posted up the first trailer for his documentary:

Preconceived Noceans….the first thoughts from Cole Slutzky on Vimeo.

You can follow along on his blog: http://preconceivednoceans.wordpress.com/

Here’s a few more pics, the blog is loaded with shots going back to late Fall 2010.

++

The ice is no joke, especially in January. Photo by Cole Slutzky

Aurelien catching a wave. Photo by Cole Slutzky

Many hats off to all the other folks around the other Great Lakes who’ve been doing this far longer than I could have ever imagined.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

For once, I’ve actually been taking the time to reflect on how incredibly fortunate my life has been this last year or two. I’ve met so many incredible people, got to work with and meet some of my biggest creative influences, and I’ve been a part of some pretty incredible events.

And now I’m going to spoil that incredible moment of reflection to tell you that I’ve put some stuff on sale in 1975′s online shop.

Everyone’s got sales going on this weekend, and there is nothing better (in my opinion) than the gift of art (okay, the gift of Love is pretty righteous, too!), so to help kick things off, we’re having a small sale in the 1975 online store. Through Sunday at midnight EST, you can get a limited edition Don Pendelton-designed THE WORST IS YET TO COME t-shirt printed on black Tultex® 0202 4.5oz ringspun cotton. The pack includes two buttons from the show, and shipping and tax is included, all for $12 domestically, $15 internationally.

Click the link below to go directly to the sale, and don’t forget to check some of the other amazing works of art on the site! I’m going to be putting more work from local upstate artists on there over the next few weeks as well.

http://1975.bigcartel.com/product/the-worst-is-yet-to-come-t-shirt-black-friday-sale

To leave you with something less commercial, this is what I’ll be up to this winter. A few of my buddies and I are going to be documenting our first attempts at surfing in Lake Ontario over the winter. This pic was snapped by a local named Darrell Licata, and he caught me on my first session out where a hooded fullsuit is more than necessary. I’ll be posting more as we get more footage and the weather gets bleaker!

Cheers, everyone!