Cropped Will Cardini artwork

August 26, 2009

Gouache Experiments for No More Worlds at Concertina Gallery

Filed under: Admin,Events — Tags: , , , , , , — Will Cardini @ 8:22 am

I took most of the content from my old blogs and imported them to this site last nite, so please, feel free to browse the archives and experience some nostalgia. I’ve been blogging sporadically since May 2007 and started to blog at least twice a week since December 2008. I’ll be going through those old posts over the next several weeks and updating their formatting and the size and source of the images.

Last nite I also went to my Okaymountain studio to work on my drawings for the upcoming show No More Worlds at Concertina Gallery in Chicago, which is curated by Corinna Kirsch and Katherine Pill. I’m doing medium-sized (18″x24″) drawings that I’m coloring with gouache. I tried out a bunch of different materials because it’s been a while since I’ve colored something off of the computer. Here’s one of my gouache experiments:

In the end, I decided to do flat color with gouache and then add outlines and details with india ink. I’m going to do six drawings like that for the show which will replicate one of my MELT pages from TRANZ.

Here’s the promotional image for the show, Jolly Ranch by Alex McLeod:

Here’s an excerpt from the press release:

Following an investigative curatorial model, Concertina Gallery’s first exhibition inquires into the simple yet seldom insignificant gesture: the greeting. Although an invitation can take shape in a myriad of forms, the works in No More Worlds invite viewers to enter – through tactile engagement or with the aid of imagination – captivating yet unsettling environments. Featuring artists who use a variety of mediums, No More Worlds showcases works that deftly combine the fantastical and mysterious with elements of the everyday, reminding us that even our wildest ideas of new worlds are anchored in and mediated by our own experiences of reality. Reveling in the unknown surprises of the grotesque or the extraordinary sensuous qualities of the idyll, the impossible tableaux constructed by these artists hover between real and imagined worlds. These liminal environments give way to partially obscured narratives, both enchanting and monstrous.

I’m excited to be in this show alongside amazing artists and I wish I could be there for the opening. If any of y’all are gonna be in Chicago September 12th, be sure to check it out!

August 17, 2009

Road Trippin’: ‘Bu’rque

Filed under: Art Shows — Tags: , , , , — Will Cardini @ 7:38 am

As I’ve mentioned, I was in Albuquerque this past week was to install a sculpture for Dispersal/Return, a curated show of Land Arts of the American West alumni at the University of New Mexico Art Museum. Albuquerque is a pretty weird place: as my friend Ryan Henel put it, the city is the Baltimore of the southwest. I gotta say, I dig both places. Fortunately the University Art Museum is across historic Route 66 from the Frontier, a five-roomed New Mexican cuisine emporium. I feasted on fat breakfast burritos stuffed with green chilis. Glade and I brought a jar of chilis and a bag of Albuquerque tortillas back and had breakfest burritos yesterday morning, mmm hmm. Anyway, here’s a shot of the installation of the Cryptostructure in progress:

The sculpture is a pedestal with two TVs and PVC pipe on top that’s all wrapped in a blue tarp. Here’s the animation that’s playing on the TVs:

I bought a red light to shine on the Cryptostructure so that it’ll look more like my installation at MASS (see my previous post on this subject) but I won’t know if the curators decide to use it unless I go to the reception, which will be on September 24th. I don’t know for sure if I’ll be able to make it, but my fellow Landartians Li’l Bunny Krunk and the Dirty Monke will be performing there and then hosting their variety show Sunday School at the Petting Zoo in Albuquerque that Sunday. If I go, I’ll be sure to document and then share with y’all.

August 11, 2009

Dispersal/Return

This week I’m in Albuquerque installing a Cryptostructure in the University of New Mexico Art Museum for Dispersal/Return, an exhibition that’s part of the LAND/ART symposium.


A Cryptostructure, from my installation Cryptostructures of the Urscape at MASS gallery back in 12/2008.

A little history: back in the Fall of 2004, I participated in Land Arts of the American West, a study-abroad program that (at that time) was between the University of New Mexico and the University of Texas. It was a six-week journey through the Southwest where we investigated the various ways that humans use and respond to the extremes of the landscape and made art that engaged with what we learned. The program continues to create opportunities like this for its alumni. I’ll have some photos to share with y’all when I get back.

June 21, 2009

Froghead Hangover Review #2

Filed under: Press,Print Comics — Tags: , , — Will Cardini @ 8:24 pm

Froghead Hangover got reviewed over at Optical Sloth, here’s a quote:

I’ll just say that any ambivalence I had about the last issue is gone with this one, as this is a pile of fun. Those frog eyes will haunt you if you’re not careful, if you read this you’ll see what I mean.

Review.

The review is on the same page as the review for TRANZ, so if you scroll down you can check that out too.

June 18, 2009

Lizzy Wetzel at Women and their Work

Filed under: Events,Inspiration — Tags: , , , — Will Cardini @ 1:17 pm

Lizzy Wetzel has a solo show up at Women and their Work here in sweltering Austin, Texas. Here’s a sample of her previous work, from her website:

Thnx Ben.

Her solo show, called THE MEDICINE SHOW, is up until July 16th. Y’all should check it out!

June 17, 2009

Sketch Klubb Houston

Sketch Klubb Houston has a show called SHOW US YOUR ZITS opening this Saturday at the Joanna in Houston.

My buddy Russell Etchen, who manages the dope ass art comic book store Domy Books in Houston and Austin co-founded the Houston Sketch Klubb and started the Austin Sketch Klubb X Draw Thyme (of which I’m a member) is gonna have work up, among others I don’t know! If you’re in Houston come check it out, I know I’ll be there …

June 16, 2009

Austin Creative Code Meetup Tomorrow

Filed under: Events — Tags: , , , , — Will Cardini @ 10:33 am

Austin Creative Code, “an informal group in Austin Texas that helps artists learn to program, and empowers them to build interactivity into their artwork,” is having our second meetup this Wednesday, June 16th (tomorrow!) at 8pm at Spiderhouse. Go download processing, the free, open source programming language for visual artists, to your laptop and bring it with you! We’ll be discussing and playing with a processing version of “the game of world domination.”

Froghead Hangover Review

Filed under: Press,Print Comics — Tags: , , , — Will Cardini @ 10:05 am

Froghead Hangover got reviewed as part of a mini-comics round-up over at High-Low, the temporary home of Rob Clough’s sequart.com comic column.

Despite this comic’s absurd title, it is absolutely an accurate description of its contents. Reminiscent of somewhere between Mat Brinkman and Sam Gaskin, Cardini tells a story of a video-game playing humanoid who wakes up from a bad hangover to find that a large froghead has somehow wound up in his house.

Review.

May 24, 2009

TRANZ Review by Optical Sloth

Filed under: Press — Tags: , , — Will Cardini @ 11:33 am

TRANZ got reviewed over at Optical Sloth, here’s a quote:

“Everything looks great and William/Mark is certainly not short on imagination, I guess I’m just more old fashioned in my comics reading, what with my general preference for linear stories and all. Still, there’s a lot to be said with the ‘where the hell is this going to go from here?’ school of making comics, and I’m all kinds of intrigued to see what he does next and what he’s already done that might or might not be more accessible than this to the common folk.”

review

April 18, 2009

STAPLE! 2009

Filed under: Recaps — Tags: , — Will Cardini @ 2:24 pm

Belated post of some picx from STAPLE! 2009…

Here’s me and my lady, she sold her wonderful glademade products alongside those of the GCPM.

STAPLE! 2009

Here’s summa the stuffz we had for sale.

STAPLE! 2009

Here’s me and the boyz (left to right: Dr. Chuch, XyphaP, &myself).

STAPLE! 2009

STAPLE! was a real good time, we moved plenty of product and wayyy more ppl showed up than last year, so thanks Austin and Uncle Staple for making it such a success! Look for the GCP and glademade at Zine Fest Houston, coming up May 16th!