VWYELLOWPRESS

Op-Ed Contributor – Has Conceptual Art Jumped the Shark Tank? – NYTimes.com

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/16/opinion/16dutton.html?_r=2&ref=opinion

This is a 18″ x 24″ CMYK screen print I did this summer… it’s from a photograph Jason Hitzert took of Evel Knievel signing an autograph while we were in Butte, Montana in 2002.  He’s showing off his E.K. diamond ring in the picture.

This is Abra Ancliffe’s wonderful letterpress Abraham Lincoln Exchange print.

I did this painting for a Roller Derby Show in Minneapolis last winter.

Ann Theresa Calvello (August 1, 1929 – March 14, 2006) was a U.S. athlete and notable personality in the sport of roller derby.

My tiny Amelia Earhart print is somewhere in the mix.

Art Trust is a wonderful resource…grants, legal advice, exhibition opportunities.

I brought together 23 artists to commemorate Abraham Lincoln’s 200th Birthday. I’ve been fascinated by Lincoln the president, man and myth as long as I can remember. The artists that were chosen for the exchange come from a variety of backgrounds and points in their careers. If you would like to show or purchase one of the portfolios please contact me at vwyellowpress@yahoo.com

Atelier Meridian
http://www.ateliermeridian.com/

Flight 64
http://www.myspace.com/flight64

Independent Publishing Resource Center (IPRC)
http://www.iprc.org/

Bite Studios
http://www.bitestudio.org/

For Guillermo Maciel, the Obama image is a 24-by-32-inch linocut that he purchased from [Valerie Wallace] at a fundraiser last summer. (The artist sold it to him at a discount after learning that Maciel was working as a field organizer for Obama.) Maciel loves the linocut because it depicts Obama as a regular guy — wrinkles on his brow and around his eyes, a little tie at his throat.

“It’s like, when you go to an old United Farm Worker’s house and they have a picture of [Cesar] Chavez with candles around it, or an old civil rights activist’s house and they have Martin Luther King and Malcolm X, or an old Catholic family with JFK,” said Maciel, who lives in Portland, Ore. “I was joking with my wife, ‘Wouldn’t it be funny if we had an Obama shrine?’ “

They fell in love with the linocut because they felt it normalizes the man rather than deifies him. They decided to hang it in their dining room, among photos taken by his wife’s uncle, a photographer for National Geographic. Does it feel weird to have Obama on their wall?

“I don’t think of him as my friend or part of my family, but I think of every other person I met on the campaign,” Maciel said. “And some day my kids will look at it and they’ll say, ‘Who is that?’ And I’ll be like, ‘That was then-Sen. Barack Obama, now the president, who I helped elect.’ “

http://www.latimes.com/features/home/la-hm-obama17-2009jan17,0,6229338.story