Alien/ation: an Art Riot Extravaganza - TOMORROW!

Today's post is a friendly reminder that tomorrow, July 10th, is going to be the event that Monkey + Seal (as Paper Hat Productions) has been working on for the past three months. We've been super fortunate to collaborate with the Hyphen Magazine team, and we are proud to bring you Alien/ation: An Illustration Show.

We are honored to be showing among some amazing artists such as Kim Herbst, Joseph To, and Yoko Furusho, to name a few, and our favorite vegan baker, Jen Chau from Black Orchid Bakery will be on hand with cupcakes that are really frickin' amazing.

A preview of what Seal will be showing

We also want to emphasize how excited we are about the raffle - there will be another collaborative Art Battle, but this time it'll be a triple threat match of Monkey, Seal, and Joseph To. Each will start a painting based on an audience-submitted theme. Then, they'll move on to the next person's canvas and start painting, then they will switch again so that everyone paints on everyone's piece. Finally, the artist will move back to the original painting they started and will finish it off. Exciting, huh? Even better, these pieces will be raffled off at the end of the night.

A free artist's reception is from 5:30-6:45, and doors open at 7:00. Admission is $5 (or $15 if you want to get a subscription to Hyphen). The first 25 paying guests at 7:00 will get a swag bag with some limited edition goodies inside. If you want the swag, we suggest getting there early.

A preview of what Monkey will be showing

Where else can you win original art, eat awesome cupcakes, get free stuff, and check out some cutting-edge illustrators? No where (at least no place that we're aware of). Thus, you should definitely come check out our show, and don't forget to bring cash if you want to drink since SPACE gallery (1141 Polk x Sutter) is a 21+ only, cash only venue.

Also, this is really the only night to be able to see all this fantastic art in one place, so we highly recommend it. Besides new work by Monkey + Seal, the other art being hung is really amazing and it should be a really awesome event. We hope to see you there!

Alien/ation - A Hyphen magazine/Paper Hat Production Art Riot Extravaganza!

Hey-ho everyone! As you probably know, Monkey + Seal also does business as Paper Hat Productions, which is our event organizing company. We're honored to be collaborating with Hyphen Magazine to put on their first ever Illustration show! Check out the details below for all the juicy info. We hope to see you there, and we'll be having a little table there with some of our stuff, as well as a bunch of new work on the gallery walls. Definitely say hi if you're able to make it!

ALIEN/ATION: An Illustration Show

Ever read an issue of Hyphen magazine and wondered about the amazing illustrations on print? Who is the artist and what was their inspiration? Hyphen magazine has partnered up with Paper Hat Productions to bring you a group show of game-changing illustrators and painters from all over the states in an Art Riot Extravaganza! Live painting! Drinks! DJs! Cupakes! If you miss this, you'll be kicking yourself the next day because this show is that special.

Saturday, July 10th

5:30 pm - Artist's Reception (free!)
7:00 pm - Art Riot Extravaganza

Space Gallery, 21+
1141 Polk St., San Francisco

$5 at the door
$15 includes a one year Hyphen sub (50% off!)

SPECIALS
First 25 paid guests @ 7:00 pm get a free copy of Hyphen magazine + limited edition mystery swag

FEATURING ART BY:
Danny Neece
Eve Skylar
Jon Stich
Jorge Mascarenhas
Joseph To
Kim Herbst
Rick Kitagawa
Rob Sato
Yoko Furusho


LIVE PAINTING:
Participating featured artists

DJs:
B-Haul (Dirty Dishes, Tasty)
Gordon Gartrell (Dirty Dishes) http://dirtydishesdjs.com/
EATS:
Vegan cupcakes by Black Orchid Bakery
http://www.blackorchidbakery.com/

www.hyphenmagazine.com
www.paperhatproductions.com

How We Got Started Organizing Events

Monkey here. So as you may or may not know, as Monkey + Seal has slowly grown from us selling buttons and a few zines to organizing the 2009 Holiday Handmade Ho Down Urban Craft Fair and creating Paper Hat Productions to organize gallery shows. Additionally, I help the ever-talented Francois Vigneault of Family Style organize the SF Zine Fest.

When people hear about the events that Eve and I help curate/organize, etc. people usually ask me how we got started. The cool thing I could say is that "I just got involved and did it," but that doesn't really help anyone out, so since we're all about helping people out here, the real story is that it actually started back in 2001.

In 2001, my freshman year at UC Berkeley, I started volunteering for the student chapter of CalPIRG, or the California Public Interest Research Group. There, I learned about grassroots organizing and helped organize a corporate accountability fair for the school. It was mildly successful, to be perfectly honest.

Later, I join Theatre Rice, Berkeley's Asian American theater group, and after a few years, ended up running the show (pun totally intended) as the Producer. I was fortunate to have the guidance of the awesome previous Producer, Chris Dong (btw, he's running for a cure for blood cancer, so help a brother out and he'll even bake you some cupcakes which I can guarantee will be amazing) and the support of an awesome committee. I learned here how to organize a cast of 30-40 some actors, handle logistics of light rentals, budgeting, auditions, promotions, and managing people. It was easily a 40+ hour a week job on top of full time studies (which, as you can imagine, took the sidelines).

After a year of that, the next organizing I did was when I was asked by Francois to help out with the Zine Fest. After helping out that first year in 2008, I've stuck around, and then moved on to help do the first SF Etsy Handmade Ho Down show (and was greatly helped by the lovely ladies of Mini Marzipan productions) and then set off with Eve to make Paper Hat Productions for our March 2010 Out of Place show.

Eve learned a lot about marketing, press releases, and the outreach side of things first from Cal where she worked with Sun Chen of Vermillion Orange. Later, she picked up a lot while working as a Program Associate for Bay Area Wilderness Training, and then from Joel Hornsby and with her position at VIZ Pictures.
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That sort of felt like this quick resume-type listing of what we've done. Really, I'd be happy to go in-depth into each of our experiences, but that would take forever. The main point, is that although it may seem like we just exploded onto the scene organizing 2500 people events and 300 people gallery shows, it's been a lot of time invested. We're also fortunate to have met so many awesome people along the way, and we most definitely could not have done it without them.

If you are interested in organizing an event - I always advise going out and finding other people who are also interested in the same thing. Organizing takes a LOT of time, and it's always easier when you have people you can spread the work out with. That said, the one thing I can advise is that you want to make sure that the other people you're organizing with have the same enthusiasm and commitment to the hard work that's going to be needed to get the event off the ground.

If you want to really just jump in - I say do it. There are tons of ways to make an event successful without spending a lot of money. Want to put on an art show? Find someone with a cool yard, score some wood on Craigslist and make A-frame to stand paintings up, and get all your friends to post about it constantly on Facebook. List your event on Going, Thrillist, Criagslist, and everywhere else that has free calendars to post on. Voila, instant event.

Granted, it is a crapload of hard work, long hours, but it is a labor of love. That said, you should definitely check out our next event, Alien/ation, a group illustration show put on in collaboration with Hyphen Magazine. It's going to be Saturday, July 10th, so mark your calendars and we hope to see you there.

If any of you have any questions about organizing, or are in the process of organizing your own event, let us know! Post in the comments! Go go go go!