Graduation

Yes, Monkey just had to silkscreen/heat emboss his cap

Today, Monkey + Seal will be graduating from the Academy of Art University. After 3.5 or so years of all-nighters, cutting mats, and painting like our life depended on it, we will be trading all that in for all-nighters, framing paintings, and painting because our livelihood does depend on it. While that may sound grim, in all honesty we get to paint, draw, illustrate, and generally live our dreams, so we're not really complaining!

Although we're excited about the commencement, we look at this milestone as a marker in our lifelong journey as artists. Now is the time to really focus our energy and move on to bigger and better things - to keep learning, to keep striving, and to keep moving forward. Graduating is a stepping stone that will open more doors, and create new opportunities for us. We'd like to thank all the people who have supported us over the years, whether it be financially, emotionally, or simply understanding why we always seem "too busy" to hang out. To our teachers, parents, siblings, friends, and everyone who came to our shows, bought our art, commented on our blog, followed us on the blog or on Facebook or on twitter - Thank you. We couldn't have done it without you.

Congratulations to all the other graduates who are all embarking on a new stage of life everywhere! Party, celebrate, and take a short breather, but don't let it get to your head and make you lazy or complacent. Keep on working and chasing after the dream.

We're Graduating!

So Monkey + Seal have a confession to make - the pictures above are not from Academy of Art's graduation ceremony. They're actually from 4(!!) years ago when we both graduated from UC Berkeley.

However, the big news is that after meeting with our awesome department chairs, we have successfully petitioned to graduate! Yay yay!

So we should be walking come the end of the Spring semester, but since we are both not taking classes in the mean time we'll be making art for art shows (we hope to have another show lined up in February, and we're working on a March show as well) and keeping busy! Thanks to everyone who has supported us through the past few years and for understanding when we disappear for months at a time to focus on our classes. Congrats to everyone else graduating this Spring!