Hailing from the Bread and Puppet launch of the Cheap Art movement, New York City based Max Schumann paints political and consumerist propaganda on ordinary cardboard cut from shipping cartons, frequently copying images again and again. It is akin to the persistent repetitions of news media and advertisements that permeate our culture. His expressionistic scenes copied from various newspapers, magazine covers, and films are sometimes overlaid with text, giving new meaning to items, articles and views being focused upon. What we like maybe most of all is how he audaciously includes a price at the lower left-hand corner of his paintings, affordable enough to bring a piece of an entire experience back to your home. This particular piece was purchased for five dollars from a show from 2005 at Track 16 Gallery called Fear Dust: Fallout of the Invasion which featured artists such as Lida Abdul, Karl McDade, Monica Van den Dool, and Yoko Ono.
This morning we sent out a “we’re back!” email message to the old mailing list to see which emails were still good and also to invite people over to see what we’re doing around here. You may have noticed that some of the links are starting to work and going to new pages. It’s all going to take some time as we are working on these things in our “spare” time, which is really a funny concept when you apply it to the life of a picklebird.
So if you are coming back, or are new PLEASE, join the mailing list so we can update you when we get our ducks in line. Even if you recently got an email from us, please join again anyway so we can make sure we have an organized list for the future.
Feel free to start posting comments to the blog. We welcome all your feedback and silly messages.
Niki de Saint Phalle was born in 1930 in France to a wealthy family who then lost their fortune in the stock market crash. She relocated to New York City, where she went to school and began an eclectic, artistic career. She was a fashion model, a painter, an actress, and a world traveler until 1953, when she suffered a nervous breakdown. She recovered largely because of her focus on painting, where she refined her unique, self-taught style.
After 1955, she discovers the work of Antonio Gaudí and is inspired to create her own sculpture garden using found objects and a variety of other source materials.
During the 1960s, she became known around the world for her Shooting paintings - bullets penetrated paint containers which spilled their contents over the painting. De Sait Phalle traveled around the world performing shooting session, while also becoming friends with artists Robert Rauschenberg, Jasper Johns, Larry Rivers and his wife Clarice Rivers, with whom she collaborated with.
She is also known for her sculptures known as “Nanas” which are archetypal female figures, the proverbial everywoman. These freely posed forms, made of papier-mâché, yarn, and cloth were exhibited at the Alexander Iolas Gallery in Paris, and for this show, Iolas published her first artist books that includes her handwritten words in combination with her drawings.
Nikki de Saint Phalle died in 2002 in her home in California. Her life was filled with enormous beauty that continues to spread and inspire lots and lots of art and artists everywhere. She is a one of a kind and we are lucky to have one of her books that is signed by her from 1987, back when people were just starting to learn about the AIDS epidemic. Nikki created this wonderful publication with Dr. Silvio Barandun to help with spreading the education about the disease. It is a 52-page, full-color hardcover book which is displayed proudly in our library.
Hello to all, large and small! Sorry we’ve been away neglecting our new Picklebird project. It’s because we’ve been bamboozled with other immediate projects that needed to get done. Our feets are truly in too many waters, but do not fret. We have not forgotten the bird, as it will be a sort of life-long project to document and organize the collection. We got a lot of stuff ya know.
We are trying to learn a new content management software and it is very different from coding from scratch. In the end it will be easier to maintain, but learning how everything works is becoming increasingly time-consuming. In the meantime, we are keeping you updated on our progress. And it is an organic process of building a springboard for not just an art and book collection, but a virtual home for a vast network of the artists we love.
We want to share the joy of collecting with the world. Perhaps you are reading this and wondering how you too can start a collection of your own. Passing the torch is something we have in mind, as well as many other ambitious endeavors to help out artists and connect collectors to those artists. One of the other things we are working on is a new mission statement for this overall project, so that we can focus and streamline our goals.
Thanks for reading and being part of the process. And thank you for bearing with the intermittent appearances of the elusive picklebird.
We love this beautiful vase by Yuichiro Roy Kunisaki, purchased just last year at the picturesque Angels Gate Cultural Center in San Pedro, Ca., where Roy thrives in his studio. He is hands-down the hardest working studio artist on their premises with a vast collection of work like no other California potter. This vase stands about 8 inches high and we don’t only love it because it had a bird in it. It’s a stunning work of pottery.
Roy is Japanese born, and attended Cal State University Long Beach from 1994-1997. He has been working at Angels Gate since 1998 and his work sells like hotcakes at every open studios tour. He has mastered a brush technique inspired by nature, cycles of aquatic ecosystems, Japanese ethnicity and California life style. He also teaches workshops at different cultural centers all over California.
Here is an amazing and favorite little piece by Los Angeles artist, Leigh Salgado. It is delicate, yet strong, just like the artist, and very much like the thing that connects all of us as humans. We are fragile, and we are complex survivors…
Leigh Salgado is definitely one of the most interesting contemporary artists working today. She creates very labor-intensive drawings that at times look to be reproductions of lace. Her skill is what drew us in, her investment of time and patience into each work, both large and small. She draws with both paint and pen, and uses wood burning tools, while meticulously cutting out portions of the paper with an exacto blade. These pieces cast beautiful shadows behind the work, giving a 3-dimensional element.
This technique is called “sculpted drawing” per her website. It is an “attempt to bring a third dimension into pictorial space without compromising the elements of drawing.”
Leigh is an artist of experimentation and bravery. She manages to weave in dark and feminine subtexts into her work. We can see the psychology that brings her work to the foreground of our love of art, where full understanding in not necessary, but a welcome, beautiful mystery.
This piece is entitled “Corsage” 2007, It is approximately 9.5 x 6.5 inches. It is from a series of work where she used old player piano scrolls. It is wonder piece and we proudly display it in our office, where we can enjoy it several times a day.
Welcome to the Picklebird Blog. Please, take a moment to read about what a Picklebird is and where it came from in our recent posts.
What does the Picklebird do exactly? Well, The Picklebird can not fly, yet it manages to wake up very, very early every morning and find art from across the land to bring back into its nest, adding to its vast collection of art and books. With more than 70 artists in the collection, now it’s time to start showing it off and ramble on about how great the artworks are, because they are great! But we will not blab about it in some academic way with intellectual jargon and theory bullshit. Picklebird poops on the elite and strives to bridge understanding between humans and the art that humans make. We are not interested in starting debates with art snobs and cantankerous assholes. We just want to show our love for the artists in our collection, and share it with the world.
We are currently configuring the database for our artists and setting up an online store. We are cleaning up our mailing list and getting our shit in order, and it’s damn exciting. It’s going to take some time though, since we are just a staff of 2 and there is a LOT of stuff to document. Cataloging each and every work of art is going to be time consuming, so we have put together this blog to begin to feature some of the work in the meantime.
And while we get this show on the road, we will feature an artist from the collection every week or so. So stay tuned and join the mailing list to receive updates and newsletters from the bird. We will also have a little online store that will sell t-shirts and prints, handmade books and zines, editions and other odds and ends. You’ll see. It will be fun.
Long ago, way back in 1999, the Picklebird was hatched from the minds of artists, writers, and collectors to form an online alternative magazine for Los Angeles. It consisted of articles, reviews, and trade secrets from gallerists and insiders. It featured under-recognized artists of yesteryear that you should have known more about, reader polls and a comments section (mind you this was pre-blog craze). We had your artist websites, your personal artist horror stories, and the greatest show under the big top. There was also Ebay advice (although not very encouraging to the dabbling artist, and a bit too sarcastic for the easily offended.) Plus, Outisder Art definitions, links to the Visionary Art world, art resources, poetry, random artist’s quotes, and an events calendar, not to mention a bi-monthly newsletter, mailing list database, and the management of advertising…
Needless to say it was a LOT of work for 2 people to manage, and especially difficult for the CEO, Ferguson Yahn, who was really just a finger puppet we bought on Olvera Street for a dollar. He was made of embroidery yarn and had demented fingers. He could hardly type, let along manage the monster of a site that Picklebird came to be. He only knew how to say “Si!”
The project that picklebird was lasted about 3 years and was then finally laid to rest because of the overwhelming work that it was to manage writers, gather content, and deal with the mass amounts of hate mail.
Here is a glimpse of Ferguson Yahn’s inspired mission statement as it was in 2001:
“…started by a small group of artists, collectors and art lovers who were tired of the local run-around and mainstream BS, picklebird came here to make you aware of art that may never be seen at local galleries or museums. we hope to shine a light on a few of the unappreciated geniuses out there and the artists in our collections. this is about the artists we love, and a way to find more of them…”
No one really knows for sure what it is. We do know that the picklebird is nocturnal and feeds on fodder and the unconventional. Even those who have caught a glimpse of this rare and puzzling creature cannot wholly define this mysterious and legendary reclusive beast. Questions bombard the minds of the curious… Can it fly? Does it peck? Sadly, no one knows if the picklebird is a scarce, fermented animal, or just a complex vegetable. Truthfully, it doesn’t really matter.
The Picklebird Collection of Art & Books spotlights an artist from the collection every few weeks as we begin cataloging multiple artworks and rare books into our online database. Occasionally we consign works for sale from private parties or from the collection itself. Our future goals consist of curating exhibitions and providing small grants and acquisitions for emerging artists. Please excuse our mess while under construction.
