I Love Doing Collaborations with Artist Friends!
Ryan Graeff of Restitution Press invited me to do a quick collab with him this weekend for the CITYSCAPE show at LAVA Collective in London!
We only had a bit of time so we started with an old print of his, I washed in a tiny bit of purple, and sewed some bits of painted paper stuff into it, then he printed back on it, and I sewed into it some more, and he painted a bit more and here’s what we came up with (detail underneath):
The show opens Nov. 5th, 2009 and runs for two weeks. Be sure to check it out if you’re in London!
We Keep Going!
Or rather THEY keep going. And by “THEY” I mean Jo and Brian, who started their journey across America with the Bicycle Film Festival/42 Below tour, and are now continuing on their own cycling down through Central America to South America! They are staying with me as they prep to head south and leave the country Monday morning, and I’m glad to live in a house able to accommodate them!
Keep an eye on them through their frequently updated blog:
www.wekeepgoing.com
Here they are being silly boys with Mikey Wally 
Photo Book + Frame Pad Release Party!!
I’ve been working on a DIY bicycle photo book called “BIKE LIFE” for the last couple months (or the last few years if you count actually shooting the photo’s). Well – it’s finally done and I’m releasing the edition along with 10 unique, one of a kind, one-off, Red Riding Hood x Yanco Pads frame pads!
The Party is this Sat night at Orange 20 Bikes and is sponsored by PBR (yum;) Please see the flyer below for RSVP info!
There are 27 black and white photo’s in this 4″ x 5.5″ soft cover book. The shots are from different places I’ve been to and different rides, races and events I was lucky enough to be a part of. Including Black Label’s Bike Kill in Brooklyn, the Bicycle Kitchen and Los Angelopes in LA, bike messenger championships (CMWC’s and NACCC’s) and Worldcup velodrome championships on a wooden velodrome, street shots of fixed gear tricksters under the BQE and kids fixing bicycles in DTLA and the Lower East Side, a couple of my favorite artists rendering bicycles into their work.
Each has a hand printed cover with a stitched binding in neon orange thread.
One of my favorite pieces I’ve never seen…
by UFO, Disaster, and LoveBilly. Photo by Disaster.
ps – UFO and Imminent Disaster both have work in this awesome group show curated by Ad Hoc Art in Brooklyn but showing here in LA at THINKSPACE opening on Jan 7th!!
Bandana for AKA Bandana Art Show
Opening tonight at Han Cholo in Echo Park – 1549 Echo Park Ave LA, CA 90026
check www.BandanaArtShow.com for more info and artist list.
Last two days of thrill!
I was packing Mon night for my Tues morning flight to NY. It was about 1:30 or so when my Dad called me up. My older sister was in labor. I threw the rest of my stuff in my bags and hustled over to my parents house (home birth, my Mom is a midwife) just in time to greet my new baby nephew before I left a few hours later!!
My five year old nephew woke up and was the first of his siblings to meet his new brother 
found this photo in my friends flickr..
It’s a scan of a spoke card I made for C.R.A.N.K. Mob a few months ago. The spoke card is made from printed and hand painted paper and laminated in .5mm with an iron.
sc_crank_mob.jpg
Originally uploaded by ingipet
Thanks for the scan, Ingipet and Barleye!
In preparation for Switchback Sea,
I cut off all my hair!!!
feels SOOOOOOOOOOO good.
it’s short short and I’m sending my hair to Locks of Love. I probably should have taken before and after shots but I was anxious to cut it off already so I didn’t.
yup.
yum.
yaaaar.
leaving for a long time.. and so much to do…
Suddenly right before I leave my laundry list of special items to accomplish gets large and very very demanding. It’s hard to prioritize. Do I make smocks for the shop? Do I make smocks for the boats? Do I make belt bags for my nieces, or friends in NY who I was supposed to make stuff for the last time I was there? What about the silkscreening press that needs to be fixed? What about the posters I want to make before I leave? Then there’s my room to deal with; Cleaning and straightening and clearing out space for my sublet/friend.
Between this ^^^, family in town who I haven’t seen for a year plus, and a part-time day job, next week is going to be a very very very hectic week.
Being away for six weeks is being away for a long time.
MMMmmmmmmm…… it’s gonna be SO GOOOOOOD!!!!!!
Then when I get back, I want to look at studio opportunities. I’d like something close and cheap/free, with access to water, and open air/ventilation…
Word.
Tomorrow… and photo exhibit..
I will be at Smockshop in China Town from 12 – 4pm.. my turn to sit the shop.. I’ll be finishing up two smocks and trying to sew pants for the boat trip..
If you’re around East Hollywood and happen upon the best ice cream shop, Scoops, check out my photo exhibit on the walls. It’s a compilation of some of my best shots from the last few years of my bike life. It features various aspects of everything I’ve been around bike-wise, from messengers to Midnight Ridazz, to Black Label, to velodrome racing, and freak bike builds.
If you can’t make the actual show, you can check out the photo’s here.
Probably Something New Would Be Good.
I love my sewing machine.
I mean I love my Mom’s sewing machine that I am never giving back to her. I’ve been sewing small bags and patches, and printing stuff…
I love Smock Shop and the fact that we now have a storefront for 3 months in China Town!
Also – I love Swoon. And I am ridiculously excited to be a part of SWIMMING CITIES OF SWITCHBACK SEA, her latest art project/floating installation/life choice. We’re going to take a fleet of seven alternatively powered rafts down the Hudson River for three weeks in August/Sep.. I think I get to be a singer in the performance that goes with the boats.
I will wear sunscreen everyday.
I will wear sunscreen everyday.
I will wear sunscreen everyday.
Timbuk2 + Ashira = minutes to pass
I’m pretty excited about this one.
Money from the sales of the bags goes to the Bicycle Messenger Emergency Fund, and I really learned so much during the process of making these.
I always thought I hated painting, that I’m super uncomfortable with it, that the commitment of putting a mark on a blank space is overwhelming and difficult for me to get right. But with this project I had no choice but to paint. I mean, I guess I did have a choice and I chose to paint. And I guess I’ve been painting for a while now that I think about it, considering spray cans/stencils/andotherthingsI’vedoneovertheyears. It’s just that a brush never felt right in my hands; always uncomfortable. But sitting for hours and hours and hours on the floor of my room, or downstairs on the porch couch, with a brush, dish of water and some little plastic salsa containers (swiped from El Pollo Loco and) filled with paint, somehow the brush got more comfortable and I just started to enjoy putting color and slick wet on a blank surface.
You know how certain moments in your life play over and over again in your head? How sometimes they’re these giant events that stick in your brain, but other times they’re just these few seconds of existance shared with other people that seem to common thread through the years?
When I lived downstairs from the Chicken Hut, at El Paradiseo/Guido’s Paradise, I was up late one night (as usual) and heard a ruckus upstairs, like people screaming and banging and yelling. That wasn’t too unusual, but I was curious and besides, I wanted to hang out for a minute anyways. I took the freight elevator upstairs and found B and J yelling at the world, each other, and no one at all.
“I DON’T WANNA PAINT” B screamed at the top of her lungs.
“MMMMMMM PAINTING IS SOOOOOO GOOD!!!” J yelled back calmly.
“AAAAAARRRGHH! I DON’T WANNA PAINT” B screamed in frustration of a painting assignment.
“BUT IT’S SOOOOO GOOD!! PAINTING IS SOOOOOO GOOOOOD!!” J yelled laughing, paintbrush stuck between his fingertips.
I hung out for a few minutes and then went downstairs to my bed to sleep. I think J was really happy painting. And he was always painting whereever and whenever he could. Literally.
There were other things I felt like that about, but definitely not painting. I didn’t paint often and when I did, I was impatient with it, and I couldn’t get my head or hands around it. It bothered me.
This bag project broke that. All of a sudden, I slowly got happy painting. I got happy sitting, hanging out with people or just by myself, feeling the brush in my hand, finding the right one and figuring out the right way to use it, how much paint to allow the tip, and where I wanted my lines to start and end. It all happened pretty organically, but now I’m really glad for painting.
Sewing by machine came a little different.
I think the glass work that I was doing last year, combined with past collage and book making projects, played a part in the way I was making the bags. I kept cutting pieces and pinning them together, trying to figure it out. I was planning on stiching the pieces on by hand, which was potentially feasable, except I definitely didn’t have enough time. I originally thought that since I hand stitch Smocks, these wouldn’t be so bad. Yeah right.
I had my Mom’s sewing machine but I was scared of it. Everytime I tried to use it, the thread got all jammed up and tangled inside. Despite my attempts at figuring it out, it mostly just sat in my room for the better part of the year, untouched and collecting dust. Other people had been able to use it from time to time. A friend of mine once came over and hemmed his pants for a wedding he was going to, but I stayed away from it.
The bags were in need so I frantically called my friend K, a master sewer/designer/amazingperson, and left a hyper/sing-songy/sorta lightly (I hope only lightly and not heavily) frantic message about helping me machine sew. She called me back and we planned for me to go to her house. In the mess of my exaustion and running latedness, I was – well – late, but she was able to both set me on the right sewing direction by sewing the pieces on one of the bags most superbly, and helping me find more sewing help for the next day. We called another master sewer, J, who agreed to lend sewing skills to the bag cause. We made plans to meet. I was late again. Twice. J came over early afternoon and I was still piecing bags together. But she checked out my machine and showed me that it was working all right and probably wouldn’t eat me. She also showed me how to thread it. Very important skill. Especially when the manual goes from step ‘A’ to step ‘D’ completely skipping steps ‘B’ and ‘C’.
I went to J’s house later that evening and she was able to help me with 3 bags before it got insanely late to be keeping her up. At this point I had worked all day Fri, worked all night Fri, slept for 3 hours Sat morn, worked all day and all night Sat and all day Sun. It was now Sun night. I worked until 3:30am and while I slept, my new baby nephew entered this world. I went to meet him for the first time and caught his first smile, and his first shit. And I fell in love holding him tiny and sleeping in my arms.
Back to the bags I left, went home and knew they had to be mailed out in a few short hours. I was determined. I turned the machine on, and got the test strip I had pulled out for J the day before. It seemed to work so I started to sew the medium bag that needed to still be finished. I was sewing nervously, and waiting for the thread to jam but still I was sewing. It worked. The thread broke and I managed to re-thread it the way I saw J do it and I continued to sew. It was so awesome to watch the thread fix the pieces onto the bag but then the needle broke. I had more needles but I had left them at J’s house the night before and there wasn’t time to go and get them and make it to Fed Ex by 6pm. So now I was screwed. I asked my roommate if she had any but she hadn’t sewn since her own machine broke and she didn’t have any needles. I called another roommate who I thought might have needles. She didn’t have any but she suggested I go to Matrushka, a shop up the street. Matrushka is a wonderful and beautiful clothing shop with all handmade clothing. They sew stuff in the store and rumor has it they will alter clothes for you while you wait. A while back, in the summer, they hosted a BICYCLE POWERED Build Your Own T-Shirt night. It was so cool.
I ran – literally ran – the two blocks over to Matrushka and burst in the door. “This is gonna sound nuts,” I began “but I’m working on this project and I’m sewing and my needle broke and I can’t get another needle before I have to send it in 30 minutes -” I took a deep breath into my panicked lungs. “Might you have a needle I could buy or borrow or beg from you?” I looked at her. Dark hair and sort of startled I think, or maybe amused – I couldn’t tell. But she took me seriously and went to hand me a needle. “Wait – is it an industrial machine? What kind of needle does it take?” Oh man – “I don’t know – it’s a regular machine, not industrial, and I don’t know anything about sewing.” My heart sank as she told me about the round headed needles that she had for the industrial machine on the table in between us, and the needles that I probably needed which were flat on one side. “Well here – take this needle and this one.” She handed me two needles after putting them in a plastic needle case. “If it doesn’t fit – which I’m pretty sure it won’t,” she said calmly “you can usually make it work.” I thanked her profusely and hurried back to my house. Back at my machine I saw what she meant about the flat edge, but I fit the needle in and carefully continued to finish sewing the rest of the bag.
I picked up my needles from J’s house on my way home from Fed Ex and started on the last, and late, bag. All of a sudden it made sense. The thread was getting jammed because I hadn’t been threading it right. It actually works when it’s threaded right and I can simple sew! I am so excited to be sewing.
Anyways – you can find ‘process shots’ here. And more info about the show/sale here.
Has It Really Been This Long?
All sorts of neat things have gone on the last few months.
The Bicycle Film Festival came to LA. It was awesome. We threw a block party that rocked LA’s Bicycle District. The Bicycle Bell Ensemble played. I wrote an article about the BFF for the Dazed and Confused blog.
I’ve been making ’smocks’ for Andrea Zittel’s Smock Shop. There is an east coast opening at Susan Inglett Gallery tomorrow night, which I am sadly missing for lack of funds. Clearly I haven’t made enough smocks. It’s just that things move a lot slower when you’re hand stitching each piece.
I also made a shirt for the Fuck Yeah Fest’s T-Shirt Project. 60 artists were given an XL white t-shirt to use as a canvas. 60 kids under 22 were supposed to wear these 60 shirts for the length of the festival – 5pm to midnight. 30 kids on each day. Jeremy and Claire Weiss were supposed to take before and after photo’s of the kids in the t-shirts.
I made mine a mixture of spray painted stencil work, water soluble crayons, water color paints, washable markers, and pens.
The idea was that whoever got to wear my shirt would have a key part in the creation of it since the way (and how much) they would sweat while dancing or doing whatever at the Fuck Yeah Fest would affect the way the water colors, markers, crayons and pens morphed and bled around the spray painted stencil work.
I’m not sure what the results were since I haven’t been able to reach anyone at Fuck Yeah about what happened to the shirt or the photo’s.
It’s only been a couple weeks, but still, it’s been a couple weeks.
I’m impatiently curious since it was designed to not be finished until after the shows, and I didn’t get to see it after the shows.
Slacking on the Blog thing.
But here is why:
City on Lockdown 2 (photo’s here)
North American Cycle Courier Championships (photo’s here)
LA Blessing of the Bicycles!!
I didn’t make last years and I was bummed.. my bike could use a good blessing.. so this year I’ll hopefully make it
also – I ran out of coffee beans yesterday and won’t have time to make it to the store today so free coffee with friends will be nice..
coffee, juice and bike blessings for all!
————————————————–
Good Samaritan Hospital presents:
The 4th annual Blessing of the Bicycles
Tuesday May 15th
8am-9:30am
This event will be located in front of Good Samaritan Hospital @
616 S. Witmer Ave.
Los Angeles, CA
90017
Religious leaders from different faiths will bestow blessings for safe cycling as they bless bicycles and cycling gear.
There will also be a recitation of the names of recently injured cyclists and a moment of silence for cyclist who have been injured or killed.
Cyclists will also be invited to ride a lap around the hospital to honor the healing in the city’s health care facilities.
FREE GIFTS AND ON SITE BIKE SAFETY CHECKS!!!
There will also be free breakfast (including juices and coffee)!!!
Visit www.goodsam.org for more info and details on how to have your loved ones honored at the event.
This event is sponsored by:
The Bicycle Kitchen
The Los Angeles Bicycle Coalition
REI
LADOT Bike Program
Metro
Bike to Work Week 2007
And
The good folks at Good Samaritan Hospital
(Written by: James Singer – thanks James!)
Tonight in DTLA!
OK – so this is actually the second race of a three race series. At the first race, a couple weeks ago (Fri the 13th), the second place winner Nick, called the first place winner Jack, a cheater. There was tons of controversy about the whole thing and a lot of nasty things were said. Without going into all the petty details, the organizers decided to keep the cash pot for this race.
Then a messenger friend got into a bit of a mess on a Wolfpack ride, so that cash is going to her to help her pay for medical expenses and such.
In any case – word is that Jack and Nick will duke it out on the streets tonight. It’s going to be crazy. Guaranteed good times. You’ll be sorry if you miss it. I swear.
After that Hollywood Midnight Ridazz takes to the streets, or you can hit up the Contra-versy afterparty..
This Weekend – East Side (Bike) Polo Invite!
That’s “East Side” as in NYC not East LA.
The first time I saw Bike Polo played was in Seattle in 2003 at the CMWC’s. I’ve never played (cuz I’m lame) but I’ve watched a couple tournaments over the years and they are super fun!
Here’s the info if you’re in NYC and want to check out the action this weekend
Schedule of Events
Friday
Party and Registration: Bushwick Country Club
618 Grand St, Brooklyn
Happy hour until 10:00 for contenders.
Saturday
Qualifiers: Game play starts at 10:00am sharp.
Chrystie/ Broome St. Court.
Polo Sprints: After competion.
Three Sparks Night: Polo Alleycat. Starts at 8:00pm at
Chrystie/Broome St. Court.
Bonus points for drunkenness and Prom costumes.
Bike Prom: Get dressed the fuck up!
Prom at the Chunk Shack! 794 Broadway #2, Brooklyn.
Lloydski and Stachemaster DJing until the morning.
Prom Photos!
10:00pm on.
Sunday
Finals. Game play starts at 10:00am sharp!
Chrystie/Broome St. Court.
BBQ at night. Location to be announced.
Also – the New York Times published an article (and a video) about it today. For archival puposes – here it is:
Their Kingdom for a Bike: It’s Polo on Two Wheels
photo by: Andrew Gombert for The New York Times
A bike polo game last month in New York. The East Side Polo Invite tournament will be held this week in Lower Manhattan.
By KATE TORGOVNICK
Published: April 27, 2007
You do not have to be a king to play polo. You do not need a 300-yard grass field, a long-handled mallet or a helmet. In fact, you do not even need a horse.
On asphalt courts and parking lots in cities throughout the country, bike messengers, bike-shop employees and assorted cycling enthusiasts are playing bicycle polo. The game dates to the 1800s, but it is being transformed from its prim beginnings to a rough-and-tumble sport as it mixes with bike-messenger culture.
Urban players ride fixed-gear bikes, the kind messengers often use to zip through traffic and dodge pedestrians. They set up orange cones in lieu of goal posts and knock around street-hockey balls. Because wooden mallets often break when hit against concrete, players make their own mallets, attaching a handle from an old ski pole or golf club to a piece of industrial-strength piping.
In downtown New York, on a court shaped like a large asphalt bowl, a group meets every Sunday for pickup games. When Doug Dalrymple, a former bike messenger who now is a food deliveryman, started playing last summer, 10 players regularly showed up, he said. The number has at least doubled since then, with many more 20- and 30-somethings going to watch.
“My first game was like learning to ride a bike again,” said Corey Hilliard, a messenger who started playing four years ago. “You have to hold a mallet, the handlebars, follow the ball and be able to change direction quickly. It’s almost like the pinnacle of intense cycling.”
Hilliard’s team and others from the United States and Canada will compete in the East Side Polo Invite this weekend at Sara D. Roosevelt Park in Lower Manhattan. The tournament will be composed of 10-minute games and will feature social events like a bike prom. Hilliard’s team is called the Broad Street Bullies. Dalrymple’s is the Ratkillers.
On a recent Sunday, the two teams played an unofficial preview match, the three players on each team positioned at the far ends of the court. They rested their mallets on the ground and slid their feet onto the pedals. After a cry from the sideline of “Three, two, one … Go,” the teams raced for the ball in the center of the court.
Hilliard, the only player who wore protective gear — his sticker-covered helmet and white sunglasses obscuring most of his face — came away with the ball. But Dalrymple cut off his path as he plowed toward the goal. Hilliard whacked the ball through the wheels of Dalrymple’s bike, and their mallets tangled. Hilliard’s snapped in half.
“Mallet, mallet, mallet,” Hilliard yelled, and a player on the sideline tossed him a new one.
Contact is allowed in urban bike polo. The rules of the game — which are few — have been adapted from equestrian polo to work in the small spaces available in big cities. The most important rule is that the players’ feet cannot touch the ground.
If a player’s foot touches down, he must ride to the sideline and touch an orange traffic cone with his mallet before returning. “It’s kind of like a power play in hockey,” Hilliard said.
The United States Bicycle Polo Association promotes a grass-court version of bike polo in which collisions are discouraged. The organization’s director, John S. Kennedy, said there were competing stories regarding the origin of the sport.
“The legend is that the British government sent a bunch of bikes to a ruler in India,” Kennedy said. “He gave them to his stable boys, who had always wanted to play polo but couldn’t afford it. They cut down mallets and started playing.”
As the story goes, British soldiers stationed in India took the game back to Britain, where it became so popular that it was played as a demonstration sport at the 1908 Olympics in London. According to Kennedy, bike polo has enjoyed several bursts of popularity through the years.
“I hear from people all the time, ‘We played with croquet mallets or hockey sticks and we thought we invented the sport until we found your Web site,’ ” he said.
Dalrymple said, “For people who love bikes, who work on their bikes, it’s just another way to live the biker’s lifestyle.”
Back on the court, Dalrymple charged toward Adam Staudt, a 27-year-old messenger who had broken away with the ball. Staudt lifted his mallet, hoping to strike for a goal in the split-second window of opportunity. But before he could make contact, Dalrymple knocked the ball away from behind. As Staudt leaned his bike to try to recover the ball, Dalrymple’s mallet got stuck in his spinning spokes. Staudt was sent flying onto the pavement.
“They’re really, really physical,” he said.
The Ratkillers won the game, but the competition may be different at the East Side Polo Invite. Dalrymple said that he expected teams from others cities to show off moves he had never seen.
“It’s not like baseball or soccer or tennis where it’s homogenized,” he said. “Bicycle polo lives in bubbles, and it leaves a lot of the interpretation up to the player. The guys in D.C. might play a totally different way than the guys in Philly. It’ll be interesting to see how the different styles compete.”
———————-
here’s a link to the vid – it’s the one titles “No Need For Horses”
TODAY!! (sorry for the short notice)
My friend, roommate, and Editor of OrganicFoodee.com is hosting a fun but powerful action against climate change:
Catch Monica Henk’s cowardly killer.
My friend Ki’ke’s sister, Monica Henk, was struck by an SUV in Brooklyn a couple days ago. The killer fled the scene. She was taken off life support yesterday. The funeral is today in Queens.
I only met Monica a few times over the years I’ve known Ki’ke. She radiated light and warmth, and had a smile to match. She was a very fine woman and a very skilled tattoo artist. I can’t believe the world is now without her physical presence.
Please help us find her killer by reposting this everywhere (myspace, friendster, your blogs, any news sites that you have access to, etc). Email me for the full size version at: info@redridinghoodproductions.com – please put “Monica” in the subject line.
Ki’ke – my heart goes out to you and your family. I love you tons.
