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!

Submitting to Art Shows, Not Submitting to Fear

Monkey is especially proud of that headline. So on Sunday, Monkey + Seal prepped their artwork and submitted it to the Academy of Art's Spring Show under the Illustration and Animation schools. Monkey is actually going to finish submitting today (since the Fine Art department's submission process has a later due date), but we wanted to talk a bit about submitting to shows.

The thing that we never could understand is why more people don't submit to the Spring Show. It's free (so it doesn't cost much, just the cost of the mounting materials), so why not? We know that it is really competitive, but regardless of how low your chances are, your chances can't be lower than zero, which is what your chances are if you never turn anything in.

This year, Monkey + Seal have faced some rejection - we didn't get into Renegade Craft Fair, nor were any of our pieces juried into Spectrum 17. But we realize that rejection is part of being an artist (and of life in general). Unfortunately, most people in life don't get everything they try for, but if you never try for anything, you won't get anything at all.


You cannot submit to the fear of rejection. You have to go into each competition with your eye on the gold - aim for the sun and hit the highest peak sort of thinking, you know? Monkey, who has never been selected for the Spring Show always says "Let someone else tell you that you're not good enough." If you can't bring yourself to believe in your work, then why should anyone else? Like we have said in past blog posts - it is all about finding your audience. Sure, you shouldn't submit a painting of a dragon to a landscape competition (or a landscape to a dragon competition) but you have to just power through your fear of rejection and keep moving forward, keep submitting, and keep getting your work out there.

Additionally, Monkey + Seal prefer not to dwell on the negative - sure we didn't get into Renegade or Spectrum, but there's always next year, we already had one successful gallery show this year, and now we're doing a gallery show in collaboration with Hyphen magazine, we just released our first e-book, Monkey is pushing himself to create and post a piece of art every day, and Seal has a freelance project for an upcoming animation studio. We're also helping to organize the SF Zine Fest and have applied to the Alternative Press Expo.

All in all, it isn't about comparing the good to the bad and weighing out your year - it's about choosing to focus on the positives, the accomplishments and accolades, and learning from all the missteps and failings. Finding this balance is definitely not easy (as we both can attest to), but it is what we strive for, and what keeps us going at all hours of the night. No fear, dear artists, no fear!

Eve on MYX Channel

Eve Skylar (aka Seal) got some facetime on MYX, an online tv channel about "Asian, Independent & Mainstream Music Videos and Lifestyle" as she was interviewed as part of Hyphen magazine's Trailblazing Issue Release party where she was live painting. You can see her here at about 1:04, talking about her inspiration for the piece, her interpretation of "trailblazing," and plus you get see her painting in action!

Woo! Go Seal go!

Live painting!

Friday night, Monkey and Seal boarded the bus at 9pm with their easel, table, and acrylic paints for Hyphen Magazine's live painting at 111 Minna, SF.

With live painting and any engaging creative act, it is a constant feedback between the artist and its surrounding. There is often a lot of pressure to make something "amazing" in a couple of minutes. I don't know how many of the guests stayed for the entire night to see its progress, but the earlier guests only saw a blank canvas and some incoherent squiggle marks. Some audience members also approached with, "what the hell is that?" "where are you going with this?" And often, the artist themselves are unsure.

When good music came on, the paint and canvas connected. There were a couple of moments of crippling self-doubts, and I had to reign myself in and trust the movement and life of the art to come through.

Not quite what I had envisioned, but after 2 hours, this is what Seal came up with. Not too bad for the first live painting ever. Monkey was so supportive and Seal had so much fun. She is looking forward to the next one!

Stop by to see Seal Paint!

Hi all! Don't forget that you can see Seal in action once again doing a live painting show with the ever talented Lawrence Yang at Hyphen's Issue 19 release party: the Blaze of Glory! Monkey will also be on hand selling Seal's prints and his ties, so be sure to check it out!

The show is at 111 Minna, and starts at 9pm. Seal should start painting around 9:30-10pm. Cover is $10, but if you pay $20, you also get a 1 year subscription! Cool beans! You can check out Hyphen's FB event page for more info.

Seal's Live Painting!

Woooo! February is turning out to be such a busy month for Monkey + Seal! We apologize for the lack of process posts, but so many freelance projects and events are popping up, we're struggling just to keep up!

Seal has just confirmed that she'll be doing some live painting at Hyphen Magazine's latest issue's Release Party! It's the big bash at 111 Minna for Issue #19, the Trailblazing Issue, on Friday, February 26 (the night before the Pop N' Shop).

Anyway, Monkey will be on hand selling our wondrous merch and supporting Seal's first live painting event! We'd love for familiar faces (and not-so familiar faces) to stop by and say hello! We hope to see you there!

Monkey got published!

Monkey got his illustration published in the latest issue of Hyphen. You can find the illustration on page 18 for the article "Hollywood Not Bending," about the topic of race and casting in Hollywood. This topic has been at the forefront of the controversy surrounding the movie "The Last Airbender." This was a great pairing as Monkey takes personal interest in this topic (he and Seal both have acting backgrounds as well!). You can find out a lot more about the issue at racebending.com.

While Monkey + Seal is generally very benign, we also have a very distinct social and political side to us. We actually try to infuse as much social commentary as we can in our work (although there is a lot of stuff we just like to create for fun), and we generally try to be subtle about it. But sometimes, a more direct approach is necessary (like this fine item, and these postcards here).

Big news everyone!

Hello everyone!

So Monkey + Seal, after our success at the Zine Fest, has decided to step up our game a bit! We just finished a workshop page, so you can see all the different subjects that we'd be happy to teach.

Additionally, Monkey just finished up another (although tardy) illustration for Illustration Friday over at his personal blog Politics Art Culture, and if you pick up the newest issue of Hyphen Magazine, you'll find his illustration in there for an article on the Avatar:The Last Airbender movie.

Seal has also been hard at work, and she has uploaded some of her prints that were sold at the Zine Fest to our Etsy store! If you missed the chance to pick them up there, you can now do so online!

Thank you again for all the support! Now, it's time to make some art!

SF Zine Fest was Awesome!

We just wanted to give a quick (yet huge) THANK YOU to everyone who came out to the SF Zine Fest to make it such a overwhelming success! (Pics of the fest will hopefully be coming soon...please email us your photos of our booth if you have any!)

It was great to meet tons of new, awesome people, and we appreciate all the purchases and compliments on our work!

We also want to thank everyone that came out to the Hyphen panel that Seal moderated, Seal's Gouache painting demonstration, and the basic bookbinding workshop that Monkey co-instructed.

Thanks again and we look forward to seeing you again at the Fest next year!

Until then, if you missed us at the Zine Fest, we just launched our Workshops page! Come check out the workshops/presentations that we're able to offer. We currently don't have a good space to hold these workshops in, but if you live in the Bay Area we are more than happy to come to you! Check it out here for all the info!