In honor of Homer voting for Obama  (I'm so proud of you, Homie)  I thought I'd post Nick Walker's ode to Marge. Gotta love Mrs. Simpson! Marge is Homer's better (far superior) half.  I love this piece.  Though maybe not as much as I love Moona Lisa, which brought in a surprising six figures at a recent Bonham's Auction. Moona involves bare booty and I do love the booty.  Walker's Marge is a wondrous thing.  Wouldn't it look killer cool in one of those all-white modern pads filled with Lucite tables and bubble chairs, hung on a clean wall in lieu of a plasma TV? A sharp rectangular sofa piled with a pyramid of blue circle pillows; they'd never be out of place 'cause who'd dare to sit there? That'd be amazing in a magazine but that would never be me. I love candy pink, dandelion yellow, sea-monster green & glittery violet.  I'm too messy to ever be minimal, which is for the best since I can't afford  a mid-century modern furniture habit. Lately, I love TV too much to ever give it the boot. So if you like minimal, there's a free interior design tip. Just thought you'd enjoy a little Friday night art-peek, a small rest from the political ballyhoo. And now for a little of that TV I've grown so fond of...

We love you, Marge!

We never doubted your vote.

We always knew you weren't a racist idiot.

Alphabetfiend is Dia VanGunten -- a writer & wanna-be circus freak living in Austin, Texas.

It's actually on Charlotte Street which runs off Park Street up to Brandon Hill, and is over Vincenso's, the Italian Restaurant over the corner there.

Bit closer upper, seems like a move away from the Vandal theme for a bit.

Proper close up, a coat pretty well armed with paints...

Whilst you're in the area, why not drop down Hill Street which runs down parallel with Park Street and check out this old Nick Walker and FLX piece on the back of Cooshti Clothing?

Seeing Mona in a new setting, from a new, ahem, angle is oddly liberating.  I don't know about y'all but when Mona is lifting her robes to show us her booty, I just wanna yank my crinolines and bare my own (bountiful)  bum.  I could bask in the moonlight all night.  Nick Walker explains the magic behind pieces like his Moona, "In 1992 I began to combine stencils with my freehand work. The appeal of stencils is that they allow me to take an image from anywhere - dissect any part of life - and recreate it on any surface."

On his myspace page,  Walker lists among his interests: "Robots, pranks, space suits, ESP, swimming under water, Rock 'em Sock 'ems, macaroons. "  Holy cupcake!  No wonder I like Nick Walker!  He's a Robot-loving macaroon-munching mindreader with a trickster bent.  The neon orange foxes have kissed his forehead.  He's most definitely Goof-blessed -- at a recent Bonham's Auction "Moona Lisa" (in some form) sold for six figures when it was estimated at only six grand.  Marc Schiller chopped it up to "the Banksy effect"  (Banksy being the outlaw street artist who became a gallery sensation.)  I dunno... makes a foxy kind of sense.  Funny things happen when your forehead is bussed by neon foxes.  "Estimates" be damned, my man, The DayGlo Fur had other plans.  Schillinger said in the October '08 issue of Paper, "The price is not only astronomical, it's absurd."  Absurdity is the trickster's signature -- illegible loops of neon ink -- so yea, absurd, exactly.  Makes me want to sleep with a feather-crossed macaroon on my forehead so as to summon some sneaky oscillations... 

Artist & (re) Inventer Nick Walker inks some prints of his modern masterpiece "Moona Lisa."

"I got fuzzy hair, hate rude people and love burritos."  -- Nick Walker

Alphabetfiend is Dia VanGunten -- a writer & wanna-be circus freak living in Austin, Texas.

Mr Jago                                                   

Chinamike

Guy Denning

Grafter                                              

Rourke

Jef Aerosol

Beejoir
Matt Small                            

Miss Bugs
Goldie                            

Mau Mau
Hush                 

Neverwork
Brian Jones

Dale Grimshaw
Herakut                 

Case
SPQR     

WeLikeStatic
Nick Walker

These sketch pads have now made their way back to the place where it all began, but this is not the end of the journey, they have one final trip to make and it could be to your house!

The pads are to be auctioned in October in order to raise funds for the Mercy Centre Foundation who work to help the children and communities of the many slums of Bangkok.  You could win an incredibly rare piece of art and help an extremely worthwhile cause.

For more information on this fund-raising event and the Mercy Centre Foundation please visit

http://themercycentrefoundationappeal.blogspot.com/

http://www.mercycentre.org/

Art work can be viewed here - http://banksyforum.proboards82.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=general&thread=22617&page=10#

All that’s left to say now is good luck and thanks to all that take part in the auction and of course to Neil (aka Harveyn) and Ged who have set up and organised this fund-raiser.   

From *Wooster Collective*:

Interesting pieces in interesting times would probably be the theme. Will this interest in selling 'urban art' (not a fan of that term) continue now the world's falling over financially?

You can download the whole catalogue for the auction here, but thought it worth including some pieces of interest on the blog.

This Nick Walker portrait of Jerry Dammers from The Specials is pretty cool, must be tons of interesting Nick Walker stuff around like this from over the years.

On the other hand, this Nick Walker butterfly was first sold at the Black Rat Press show at the start of the year. Did anyone at that show actually buy anything to keep and, you know, put on their wall or something? Sheesh.

These Dicy pieces are really nice though, and pretty decently priced as well. Sorry about the photo quality in this post by the way, pics taken from the Dreweatt's catalogue, which doesn't seem that good res in its online form at least.

Finally, of course, the obligatory Banksy pieces. This one's really odd, it says it's from the Severnshed show in 2000, but, subject to some final checking later this evening, would swear that it was never in that show. Perhaps sold in connection with it, or as a result of it, but sure that piece wasn't on the walls of the Severnshed back then. There was a photo of the same stencil (there were a few photos sold at that exhibition alongside the originals), but it wasn't exactly the same. Same thing happened in a Bonhams auction a while back if you remember, a piece being claimed to be from the Severnshed show when it wasn't.

UPDATE: Less certain on this not having been there now, but still thoroughly confused. Will have a check of the pricelist for the show tonight.

UPDATE 2: Well, the pricelist shows a piece in the Severnshed show called 'Monkey Stencil' rather than 'Monkey Detonator', and from the photos of nearly all of the the show on the Bristol Beat site as well as a process of elimination, it looks like it's this one . So perhaps there was a photo of the same stencil idea at the show rather than the piece actually being there, initially at least? Perhaps it wasn't ready in time for the show when it opened? That said, the pricelist gives the dimensions of the 'Monkey Stencil' piece as 29cm by 42cm, whilst the one in the pic below is 90cm by 67cm. Pest Control have apparently said the piece was in the Severnshed show though. Very odd. Anyone got any more photos of the Severnshed show that may shed some light on this?

UPDATE 3: Been in touch with Dreweatts over this, and happy to confirm again that both Banksy and his agent have stated this piece was exhibited at the Severnshed show, and Pest Control have stated that it is called 'Monkey Detonator'. So, a watertight provenance then.

If anyone has got any photos from the Severnshed show though, then do get in touch, think it would be interesting to put the show back together virtually, with the original price tags on the pieces too!

Finally, this piece will be the litmus test in a way, a stencil on another painting from back in 2001. £150,000 to £200,000 estimate, which seems a hell of a lot for a piece like that. Are the people still around with that sort of cash to splash now the bubble's burst and no-one's buying as a short term investment anymore?

Should be an interesting auction either way.

W następnych wpisach będę przestawiać prace tych twórców. Na pierwszy ogień filmik, na którym Nick Walker maluje pewną nobliwą damę.

I kilka prac Dolka (pisałam o nim tu):

Prace Dolka pobrane z Wooster Collectice .

Amidst the crowds of gridiron followers and sci-fi/fantasy disciples, representatives of the SEC and the ACC stared each other in the face. Alabama's Crimson Tide and the Clemson Tigers came, they saw; and the SEC school conquered. 34 to 10 final score.

John Parker Wilson quarterbacked for Alabama; Cullen Harper went on for Clemson. The Tigers' defense was able to hold the Crimson Tide's offense to two field goals (as opposed to two touch downs) in the first quarter. By the end of the first, though, Alabama's own quarterback put one in the end zone. Thirteen to nothing. The top of the second quarter brought with it a field goal by Clemson. Tight end Nick Walker made a TD for Alabama. By the end of the second quarter, Crimson Tide increased its number to 23. Tigers? 3.

The third quarter began with a ninety-six yard kickoff-return TD by Clemson running back C.J. Spiller. Whatever verbal lashing or wake-up call the Tigers received in the locker room during halftime likely did the trick. Oui?

Non.

Alabama made another TD in the third quarter by wide receiver Julio Jones--his first for the team. Crimson Tide went for and reeled in a two-point conversion (thanks to running back Mark Ingram). Alabama 31. Clemson 10. At the end of the fourth quarter, Alabama got another field goal. Clemson would not ring any bells or do any more addition.

Observations & Miscellania:

1. According to the commentators, 1975 was the last time Alabama played Clemson.

2. There was a Mercenaries 2 commericial--the graphics were so mesmerizing.

3. There were highlights and a clip of UGA VII during halftime--what an adorable bulldog! His name is Loran's Best.

4. 1st and Ten line as well as the blue line of scrimmage were in the house, on the screen rather.

5. Speaking of TV graphics, there was a play in the second quarter where Alabama were on offense and running back Roy Upchurch successfully kept one of the Clemson linebackers away from his teammates. It happened not long after Alabama defensive back Marquis Johnson intercepted Cullen Harper's pass (which happened with just under four minutes on the clock). Anywheres, there was an instant replay treatment in real time that was accompanied by a pillar of white light that highlighted where Upchurch was on the field (edge of screen left). I hadn't seen this graphic before and it made another appearance on Nick Walker in the third quarter.

6. Alabama's kickoff to Clemson at about four minutes was televised entirely from a mostly still Skycam perspective (it hovered but didn't roam). Most of the field (end zone to end zone in vertical orientation) was on screen.

7. You know the chuckles or smirks you experience when you look in the society pages and see whose marital unions have produced punny or silly last names? Tonight's game has yielded a Coffee-Spiller (they both got field time). Taking a quick sweep through the team's rosters, you also get Stone-Dial, Gentry-Sapp, Price-King, Clear-Love, Early-Pounds, and Hunter-Arenas among others.

Get game summary, stats, and play-by-play here.

Click here to find out who will no longer be a Falcon come the start of the 2008 regular season.

That hotbed of investigative journalism, the Evening Cancer newsroom, has been very busy this week researching original stories by looking on the, er ... Internet!

First up - plastered across the front page on Wednesday - The Blogger's sensational revelation from last week that the council's planning to produce a pointless recycling DVD.

Indeed so big is the story that Cancer Editor-in-Chief, Mike Norton, felt obliged to whip out his fountain pen and deliver a thunderous editorial that engaged in some recycling of its own in the form of well worn cliches:

If this is regarded as a legitimate way to spend public money and an effective way to encourage people to recycle waste then the lunatics really have taken over the asylum.

Believe me Mike, we're way beyond anything as ordinary as lunatics running an asylum here. It's more like they outsourced the place years ago, then set up a lucrative management consultancy with the proceeds and are currently raking it in as the preferred supplier of 'advice' to Bristol City Council officers.

Wednesday also found Chief News Reporter, Julie Harding, doing her little bit for recycling ... From Bristol Indymedia! An amusing little tale about that notoriously useless employment scheme for postgrads cum regeneration quango, Community at Heart, spending £90k on a water feature and kids slider, neither of which actually worked, could be found gracing most of page 5.

Then moving briskly on to Thursday and we find a tedious party political whinge from Labour MP Kerry McCarthy's blog (now strangely deleted) about the Lib Dems putting out Election leaflets in St George West - where the Labour Councillor, John Deasy, died recently - has been transformed, with Kerry's quotes lifted directly from her blog, into an original and exciting page 7 news story.

Well done to all involved. No doubt next week one of the Cancer's cutting edge columnists will be telling us how blogs are a pointless waste of space that just copy stuff from the mainstream media ...

Meanwhile, presumably not wanting to be left out of this golden week for the city's journalism, this appeared on the BBC Bristol website on Tuesday August 12 at 11:12am:

New Banksy work on city pub wall

A new mural by graffiti artist Banksy has appeared on the outside wall of the Highbury Vaults pub in Bristol.

The tagged stencilled work shows Rapunzel with her hair let down like a rope to allow a hooded youth to climb up to her window.

But wait! At 12:02pm the story changed a little:

New graffiti art on city pub wall

A new mural by artist Nick Walker has appeared on the outside wall of the Highbury Vaults pub in Bristol.

The tagged stencilled work shows Rapunzel with her hair let down like a rope to allow a hooded youth to climb up to her window.

And then finally at 12.22pm - particularly nice touch this - to help people out (like BBC journalists who don't know one local graffiti writer from another perhaps?) this was appended to the end of the story:

There had been some confusion over who the artist was until the tag was revealed showing the work to be by Mr Walker.

Chris Logan, owner of CPS Services which supplied the scaffold, was the first person to see the new work.

"I was totally shocked," he said. "It's nice to have Bristol artwork in a student pub. It deserves recognition," he said.

"Some of my team thought it was by Banksy at first," he added.

Nick Walker has worked out of Bristol for more than 20 years and is a contemporary of Banksy.

Phew - some of us could have got really confused there if the experts at the BBC weren't around to explain it all properly for us.

Will grab some photos soon, but the BBC article here's got a good enough one anyway.

If you're going up to check it out, then drop into Tiffin's curry house across the street, there may still be a massive and rather lovely Nick Walker canvas on their wall in there too (unless it's sold already).

UPDATE: Art-El's sent over this rather excellent snap of the piece, thanks!

A very limited run (40 copies) of the print has been put together, with some different colours and some new bits to spot, and signed by Paris, Eko, Mudwig, Sickboy, Dicy, China Mike, Mr Jago, Dicy, Mau Mau, Rich T, Will Barras, Nick Walker, Xenz, and Ziml.

Best of all, it's only being sold at an evening down The Bell pub off Jamaica Street this Tuesday (22nd July), a bit of a change from Selfridges and back to how Bristol shows ought to be!

Doors open at 5pm and print on sale from 7pm, so plenty of time for an enjoyable pint or two in The Bell as well. First come first served, and paypal or cash only apparently.

Los Angeles, May 2008.

Artist: Nick Walker

Last September Nick Walker graced Bristol's streets with what was to become one of his most popular images to date - Life's Too Short.  An image so popular that people queued for 48 hours outside the Black Rat Press in April to secure themselves a print of the image and an image so popular that somebody has gone to the effort to steal the door upon which it was stencilled.

Nick says "and so the duration of street - gone - brand new door WTF!!!"

Enough said we think.

Anyway, a Nick Walker Apish Angel Stencil for you, down on Mina Road by the Miner's Arms.

Only kidding, covering this stuff really does seem a bit far from the streets in a way, but hell, it's what's happening right now to many of the Bristol guys who've been out there painting for years and years, so it'd be weird not to cover it in a way.

Overall thoughts, a wicked range of different pieces by a pretty representative mix of different artists, from mostly street based people to those on the more 'urban' side of things.

The amount of people with serious money walking round was pretty weird, as was seeing them seriously considering paying huge prices for some pretty knackered Banksy pieces that you could see had originally been folded up and carried home after some random night.

Still, it it wasn't for these chaps we wouldn't have had all the free champagne, which was needed to take the edge of the weirdness of stuff like this being taken seriously by people like them.

Couldn't take photos inside the venue, which was a shame i think, and a bit pointless, but managed to get a sneaky shot of the queue on the way in from the entrance inside Selfridges.

You can check the pieces yourself in the catalogue, but some pieces stood out more than others.

Saw the new Let Them Hang print fully printed and signed in the flesh for the first time, and it really does look good. Some people have said they're not that into it, but it didn't stop the 40 available tonight selling out in double quick time.

The different sizes of the pieces really struck you. The Blek Le Rat Charlie Chaplin canvas is huge in real life, and is pretty cool.

On the other hand, the Nick Walker Vandal Triptych was really tiny, odd. Sure there was a bigger version done back in the day.

From the photos, the Banksy canvas from the Easton show in '99 or so looked pretty cool, but in the flesh it was a bit less impressive, shame. Rumour has it that it didn't stop Hugh Grant turning up for a private viewing of it earlier in the afternoon though.

The lack of recognition of Seen's work by the great and the good was pretty odd too, these people need some serious educating!

Oddest of all really was the fact that so many of the pieces in the show were so recent. Not necessarily those submitted by the artists themselves, you'd expect that, but some of the other bits. Pieces from the Nick Walker show blogged here just two months ago, which were bought on the night, have now been stuck in the auction by the buyer. Whatever happened to buying pieces that you, you know, actually liked and wanted to keep? Crazy.

Everyone's going to have their own tastes on this stuff though, so have a look at the catalogue and get down to the show in London, or see it all when it comes to Paintworks in Bristol in a couple of weeks.

It wasn't just inside that stuff was going on though. Mau Mau had hit a bit of boarded up scaffolding the night before with this tidy piece.

Sometime just before the show opened, someone turned up and stuck up these pieces on the boards too.

This with a staple gun

Just goes to show doesn't it, these exclusive urban art auctions just attract more crime and anti social behaviour wherever they spring up. Tsk tsk.

The entrance from the streets had some pretty cool work done down the stairs as you went in, here's a couple more Mau Mau bits from it.

Charming penguin

Two comedy moments from the night. First was a Drewett Neate guy asking if Banksy was here tonight, so told him that if he was, he'd have come heavily disguised, probably as a homeless guy. To which he replied "But we turned a homeless guy away earlier when he tried to get in!". Told him that probably had been Banksy. Hope he didn't believe me.

Second was when some of us were asked if we were artists by a guy getting his show catalogue signed by any artists present. Only after he walked away did we think to say "Yes mate, I'm Banksy, and so's he".

For all anyone there knew, we could have been. As Chris Morris once said, 'and maybe that's the point'.

Anyway, for the last few months, loads of different Bristol graf and street art people have been mentioning this auction in one way or another, and it looks like it's going to be really interesting.

Drewett Neate is an auction house generally more thought of for dealing with land, property and the like, but also with an angle in fine art. Perhaps seeing the massive interest in 'urban' art at the moment, they've decided to put themselves together a specialist auction for just this kind of thing, and to be honest, they seem to have done a pretty good job of it.

Loads of artists have got pieces in this auction, including some lovely Banksy pieces, and some not half bad Nick Walker bits too. Lots of Bristol names have got new pieces in the auction too, including;

• Inkie
• Dicy
• Mudwig
• Graham Paris
• Eko
• Motorboy
• Mau Mau
• Cyclops
• Dora
• Mr Jago
• Xenz
• SPQR

So, a pretty fine line up of artists. The Let Them Hang print blogged below is going to be launched at the London auction preview too, and in a very nice touch, the auction house is taking the preview of the pieces on tour before the sale. So if you want to check out what's there, then get yourself along to the following places;

The Ultralounge in Selfridges on Oxford Street in London from the 23rd May - 1st June

Paintworks, Bristol (which is apparently now in 'Bristol’s Totterdown creative quarter', always seemed more Brislington way to me...) from the 5th to 10th June. Suspect there's gonna be some more painting over the river to go with this one too.

Then finally at Village Underground, Shoreditch (London's Nathan Barley quarter) on view from 13th to 17th June

The sale itself will be on the 17th of June from 6pm if you're feeling cheeky and fancy going along to have a waggle of a paddle.

Annoyingly, there doesn't seem to be any sort of online catalogue for this one, which seems a bit of an oversight. Will try to get some photos of the more interesting pieces up on this blog though soon if permission allows...

EDIT: Typical isn't it, catalogue goes up just as the blog does. Check it out here.

For more information on it (and a few small pics), check out the Drewett Neate web page here

• Mau Mau
• Dicy
• (Graham) Paris
• Mr Jago
• China Mike
• Eco
• Mudwig
• Ziml
• Will Barras
• Richt
• Darren Groucutt
• Xenz
• Banksy
• Nick Walker
• What Collective?
• Sickboy

It's being done to celebrate 40 years in the printing trade of Paul who runs Screen One down on Jamaica Street, and has done printing for all of these guys at one point or another. The print's been commissioned to go with the Drewett Neate auction, the preview of which is starting at the end of next week at the Ultralounge in Selfridges in London (sounds like there's a lot of painting going on around and for this show too).

Have seen the piece in its rough form, and it's wicked. Imagine the image in the previous blog, drawn by China Mike, then tagged/stencilled/surrealed and augmented with bloody great arrows by the artists involved. There are a load of other random little bits to it with special meaning to those involved, which are gonna be fun to spot and try to work out...

If you get to the auction preview in London, you can even pick yourself up an exclusive version of the print involving most of the artists contributing to it.

Hoping to bring you a sneak peak of at least part of the print as soon as poss. It's gonna be a classic...

(Check for more of this prettiest type of cancer at Slam X Hype and Wooster Collective)

First up a bunch of work by Dosar. Took a while to find a canvas with a clear tag on it. So long in fact, entirely forgot to get a photo of the pieces themselves, duh! They're really good though, will try to grab a shot another time to show you all.

There's a bit of one of the Dosars on the top left there. The main three here though are by Slam, another London head. Tidy. Bit of a crap photo though annoyingly.

So, four really lovely pieces from Acerone of the TCF, all of well known people if you're into those scenes, this one's of Million Dan.

This one's of a break dancer, didn't catch the name.

Previewed on Let Them Hang before, this is a lovely China Mike. As it says on that site "It's so tight it hardly looks like a painting, but it is; gouache, pen, and indian ink on card", to which i can only add it looks better in the flesh.

Another China Mike, yet again so much better in the flesh. One of the best pieces in the show to my mind, but it's so varied, you'll have your own too...

Remember how Cheo turned a paint pen into an airbrush at Weapon of Choice a few months back? Well, he's done it again, and this is a really ace piece, makes a change from the usual bright and colourful stuff too.

Thought this was pretty cute too...

Always with the different packaging approach isn't he, you'll have to go along to see what's in these ones!

Now these surprised me, Lokey, on very fine form indeed...

...another couple in the same vein. Tidy.

Everywhere these 45RM owls now, aren't they. Here's some for this show, hanging out with a couple of their turtle friends too. No little owl canvasses this time round though sadly...

Is there anyone now without numbers in their name? These are by SPZER076, very, very tight pieces.

Loved these doods especially...

Another major painter up and down the Gloucester Road/Cheltenham Road/Stokes Croft at the moment, Sepr.

Those aren't eyeballs, they're skulls. Cool. Go check out his work in 'Start the Bus' on Corn Street too if you're in the area too.

More and new Simon Mills, he's going to be prettying a bit next to the gallery soon too i hear.

There's always got to be one name you forget when taking photos hasn't there? Dammit. Really nice piece though.

These are very cool, of the De Beauvoir Estate in Hackney by ICB1(again with the numbers in the name!). Funny pieces, they're small, but look better and more atmospheric from afar than close up. Reminded me of Xenz's 'Cities in the SKy' pieces in a way.

For those of you still chasing down any Nick Walker piece you can lay your hands on, here's a Vandal print for you. To think you could buy a hand sprayed canvas triptych of one of these for £150 for the set not three years ago. Bonkers.

This one had just been unwrapped, and was hard to get a good shot of through the glass, but a beautiful Mr Jago silk, one of the best i've seen. Doubt it will stay unsold for long...

Next to it, again through the window, a Flx piece in a totally different style from his other work. It's of Fela Kuti, and the text behind it is the lyrics of his song 'Water No Get Enemy'. It's wicked, and to see the whole thing, you gotta go up there and see it for yourself.

So, there you have it. Cheba's got some bits that will be there for the show apparently, a couple of stencil based pieces and a board, but they may not be dry yet as this is written.

This may also be the last show at the current Guerrilla Galleries, as the summer could see a change of venue. So, if you've not been along to check it out yet, then this show's a great one to give you just that excuse.