Our friend Heather Hansma is part of a three person show that opens this Saturday, February 4th at Lift Detroit in Royal Oak. The show, Lovesick, features the work of Heather Hansma, Cody Schibi & Josh Buckenberger. The opening reception is from 7-10 pm. If you are unable to make the opening all of the pieces will be available online.

Heather Hansma

Cody Schibi

Dan Armand

Last year, I was lucky enough to be invited by 323 East Gallery to be part of a two person show in 2012. That show, featuring my work and the work of Dan Armand opened this past Saturday. The show, titled “Transliteration” featured work that spanning multiple mediums. In all, the show featured 33 pieces, including collage, paintings, and sculptures, all with underlying, often political, literary themes.

Some of the editioned pieces from the show are currently available on 1xRUN and originals are available at 323 East.

The turnout was incredible and I would like to thank 323 East, Dan, Jesse Corey, and April Segedi for letting me be part of the amazing lineup of shows they have planned for 2012.

What happens after the factory? Detroit Lives traveled to Poland to make a documentary about reinvention in post-manufacturing cities. It parallels Detroit with Lodz, whose textile industry has seen a similar decline to Detroit’s auto business. After the Factory premieres at the DIA’s Detroit Film Theater on Thursday, February 2nd at 7pm. Check out the Facebook invite for all the details on the event. It looks to be a beautiful film that gives new context to the problems we’ve been facing for years. Definitely looking forward to it.

After the Factory Film Trailer from DETROIT LIVES! on Vimeo.

Christina, a MOOG fanatic, picked this poster up at DUCF.

Madpixel also has several of his prints for sale in his online store.

I first met John Bailey up in Grand Rapids, where I found out he was the artist behind all the graphics for the band Stepdad. Even after doing some research for this interview, that was still all I could find out about him. He has no About page, no “social media presence” for self-promotion, just a Tumblr of his work that fills up at a breakneck pace. It’s strange these days, it seems, to find an artist who spends 110% of their time just creating. And so the interview started with a pretty basic question: “tell me about yourself…”

Could you give me a quick introduction or bio? How did you get started as an artist?

John Bailey, house sloth, YouTube addict…artist. If I were to describe my work to someone who had never seen it…I guess I’d say its what you would see if someone put an SNES in a microwave, while NBA Jam is playing.

How I started as an artist goes back to my earliest memory of art. Sitting at the kitchen table telling my mom that I was going to color inside the lines this time, then realizing when she came back into the room that I didn’t do that at all.

Your art looks like a fluorescent nightmare! I love the juxtaposition of bright and scary. How did your style evolve over time? Did you always draw scary things as a kid?

Thanks I appreciate it! I would say my style began with my lack of motivation in high school. I was drawing sloppy psychedelic images of melting creatures on classroom desks for next period’s class to be like “What the fuck?”. Also I had a teacher in like 11th grade who told me “As an artist you should always show off.” that stuck with me. Since then I always went into a piece with the mind set of creating the most insane shit I could think of and my skills as an artist naturally grew over time from there. In the past year though I’ve been trying to streamline the chaos and get to the bare skeleton of it all. I know what I am good at, and it’s a good base to expand upon.

As far as childhood memories of art, as a kid I was always drawing cool stuff! Super heroes, Twisted Metal cars, Pokémon, the list goes on and on. I’m still a kid though so I feel like nothing has really changed; my work just has that little extra layer of life experience to it now.

Your Tumblr is updated quite often. Do you consider yourself a very prolific artist? What’s your motivation for creating new art?

I read a Juxtapoz article awhile back where Todd Schorr said, “Creating is a compulsion”, and I defiantly feel that urge in one form or another through out the day. I’m making stuff all the time whether it is quick silly pieces for Tumblr or more elaborate things for shows. I think out of the desire of wanting to get my work re-blogged by the Tumblr community I am beginning to understand what prolific looks like, I know I have that drive but also I feel I have a long way to go.

Childhood memories often motivate me to actually get up and start making art though, I’ll see like a Goosebumps cover or something from the 90′s pop up in my Tumblr feed and be like “Awwhhh shit! ” and it’s on from there.

I was watching a video of you painting, and it struck me how much you moved out of the frame. What is your process like? Do you hate sitting for long periods of time? What are you doing when you walk away?

Those videos were kind of like an experiment I was messing around with when I discovered that my QuickTime Player could record video, at that point I was like 3/4 done with the painting in the video. So I was taking a few steps back to find spots that could use a touchup, that’s all. Usually though I’m really self absorbed in my pieces breaking up work time and observation time between albums I have going on in the background. I would like to make more speed painting videos in the future but I don’t really have that kind of juice on my computer anymore.

Tell me about Slow Venom, the Halloween show that you were involved in.

Actually I have a video my buddy Freddy Santiago shot! I was kind of buzzed at the time my family had come up for the event and we had drinks at a brewery beforehand (Also I didn’t know I was going to be interviewed), so I kind of sound dumb…

Slow Venom Art show(Halloween Group Show) from Fredy Santiago on Vimeo.

The bar was at full capacity by end of it all, it was pretty rad.

Any shows / new projects coming up that you can tell us about?

“Trophy Room” a show loosely based off of sports, imagine 666 meets Barry Sanders with a hint of Macho Man Randy Savage. Their also is a collaborative print I’m working on with fellow art goon Ryan Brady, “TURBO RAT$”. It’s a poster that’s roughly just about forties and blunts. That will hopefully be out at the end of January, it’s going to slay.

Check out more of John Bailey’s work at radtodeath.com.

Ann Arbor’s Alisa Bobzien, whose work we absolutely loved at this years Detroit Urban Craft Fair, creates these ornate screen prints.

In addition to creating art prints prints, Alisa also has a nice assortment of cards and tshirts available in her Etsy Shop.

Alison also writes in her own blog where she chronicles her creative process and current projects.

A couple of weeks ago, Dennis and I visited the Detroit Historical Museum for a party in the Streets of Old Detroit. We were there in honor of our dear friend Amy, blogstress at The Night Train, who just wrote a book (!) called The Hidden History of Detroit. It was so much fun, and we took lots of pictures of old typography to be inspired by.

I remember the night when Amy, between sips of her Manhattan, ever so casually mentioned to me that she was writing a whole entire book all by herself, like it was no big deal. After I got over my excitement, I kept asking her “when is The Book Party?!” for about six months straight.

It was a lovely gathering, complete with Olde Timey Musicians and the requisite wine and fancy snacks. The museum provided the perfect atmosphere, as you couldn’t help but imagine being alive back then, which is exactly what happens when you read the book.

It also didn’t have cell phone reception because it was underground. Nice touch.

There was a tiny little print shop that appears to be in operation and open on the weekends. Dennis and I peered inside forever, our big noses pressed up to the glass, and vowed to go back.

For some reason, four of us girls wore orange dresses that night, spontaneously serving as Amy’s Official Book Maidens. I wish I’d gotten a picture, but I was too busy photographing old things with letters on them.

The Hidden History of Detroit contains many nice stories that are true and one picture of Lewis Cass that looks like Dennis when he forgets to cut his hair. Information on how to get it is here, at The Night Train. I hope Amy someday releases an audiobook version where she reads the book loudly over the din of a bar crowd.