Welcome. My name's Caleb Neelon. I do artwork and writing. Click around on the links on the left side to see various stuff I've done over the years.

All content on this site is copyright Caleb Neelon / SONIK or somebody that I'm cool with, not you. Viva!!

Feel free to contact me, as always.

Soapbox: The Declaration of International Graffiti Day: May 12, 2009

Today marks a peculiar anniversary. Twenty years ago, on May 12, 1989, New York City transit officials declared the City subways finally graffiti-free. Trains from then on would be removed from service and cleaned immediately upon discovery of any graffiti on any subway car. The policy has existed to this day, and while graffiti writers haven't stopped painting the New York subways, their work lasts for a few hours at longest. For many graffiti writers, that was the day that graffiti died.

But for far, far more people, May 12, 1989 was the day that the global graffiti field was in some way, for the first time, open. From then on, it had to prove itself outside of its home base of the subway system. Twenty years later, there can be little doubt that it has done just that: proven itself again and again, and from Jacksonville to Johannesburg, young people the world over in every social and economic background use the basic structure of graffiti writing as their choice of means of expression.

It should be considered the greatest tribute of all to the pioneers who developed this art form that their work has such legs. Few art forms have the multiplicity of graffiti, and here's what I mean by that: graffiti has the same potential for infinite reinvention by infinite people as does every great medium.

Speaking very broadly, most art forms do not offer much creative space for innovation to people who grew up worlds away from where the art form started. When an art form isn't open for contributions and innovations from people other than its originators, it becomes a local tradition tied to a specific group of people. The art form can persist in its hometown or in a certain social or ethnic group, but frequently looks ridiculous elsewhere, and ceases to grow.

But when graffiti writers from cities ranging from Berlin to Sao Paulo to Sydney to Tehran plumb the depths of their own culture, history, and influences and incorporate them into their work, it speaks both locally to the people who see these works on ground level and internationally - to the people who see the photos online and in print. And when a young person can take a once-local art movement like graffiti and make it their own in a place that's nothing like New York, that's multiplicity.

Sure, New York-style graffiti writing looked a little funny the first time it appeared outside its borders. But that didn't last long. Graffiti writing and its offshoot street art rapidly became a way for young people around the world to create art that speaks instantly across language, cultural, and socioeconomic backgrounds. Perhaps more than anything, they have brought free artwork - like it or not - outdoors to everyday people in a forty-year period when the world of standard issue fine art - equally like it or not - has been sucking up to billionaires.

The fact that this is the twenty-year anniversary of graffiti-free New York City trains also means that this marks, indisputably, the passing of another milestone: graffiti has now existed away from the New York City trains for longer than it existed on them. In the time since, not only has graffiti expanded beyond anyone's wildest expectations, it's only continued to blow through walls - walls of nationality, race, class, and language - that other art media cannot. And of course, graffiti's done all this while being against the law most of the time.

On May 12, 1989, a new U.S. President was trying to restore an economy, a massive dividing wall ran through one of the world's great cities, the global art market had bombed, and graffiti had overstayed a brief visit in the fine art world. Sound familiar? As much as history repeats itself, it also has the power to surprise: also on that date, Communism still reigned in Eastern Europe and graffiti was supposed to be dead.

It was, of course, generations of young people around the world that made that surprise, and it will be new generations of young people who will decide if graffiti has another twenty years of growth and development in it. Signs point to growth: because young people developed graffiti's very core and framework, it retains its appeal and resonance with new generations, who will in turn break down walls us responsible adults have constructed in our ignorance.

And that's why today is International Graffiti Day, in recognition of the only art movement in history to have been born, developed, and proliferated throughout the globe exclusively by kids.

Installation shots from Waiting for Ararat, White Walls

Click the link below for more...

Work from Waiting for Ararat at White Walls

Here's some paintings from my current show at White Walls Gallery in San Francisco that opened on April 11. Click the link below.

A Burning Would Is Come To Dance Inane

8 foot by 8 foot piece, part of my show that just opened at White Walls on April 11. Free copy of my kids' book Lilman to the first person that emails me with where the title is from, and what that title is a play on. No googling it, cheaters.

THIS SATURDAY, APRIL 11: CALEB NEELON + MIKE SHINE OPENING AT WHITE WALLS, SAN FRANCISCO

SATURDAY NIGHT! MORE INFO AT WHITE WALLS GALLERY'S SITE.

Soapbox: Why Prosecuting Shepard Fairey is Bad for Boston

Hi folks. I'm taking another moment on my soapbox here. This time, I'd like to talk about the Boston trial of Shepard Fairey, and why it is bad for Boston, regardless of whether you hate or love him and his work.

This was adapted from a talk that I gave at the Boston ICA on April 4. A large number of people there asked me to publish it or make it somehow available, so as it is a current event, I'm putting on my site so as to make it available quickly.

I was supposed to give attendees of the talk a basic introduction to Shepard Fairey, but took a detour. We have an unusual circumstance. I want to talk about Shepard Fairey and your money; and to start, I'd like to show you a small bit of a poem by Walt Whitman. Just what you expected in a talk about Shepard Fairey, right? Don't worry, it's short.

I do not ask who you are, that is not important to me, 
You can do nothing and be nothing but what I will infold you.

To cotton-field drudge or cleaner of privies I lean, 
On his right cheek I put the family kiss, 
And in my soul I swear I never will deny him.

On women fit for conception I start bigger and nimbler babes. 
(This day I am jetting the stuff of far more arrogant republics.)

To any one dying, thither I speed and twist the knob of the door. 
Turn the bed-clothes toward the foot of the bed, 
Let the physician and the priest go home.

That was a tiny section from Walt Whitman's famous epic poem, Song of Myself, which was published in his masterwork, Leaves of Grass. In 1882, on its publication, Boston authorities banned the book for indecency. They singled out the section I just quoted, presumably because of its veiled references to kissing a dude. Boston authorities would go on to ban Thomas Hardy's Tess of the D'Urbervilles in 1891. In the 20th Century, Boston authorities would go on to ban, or do their best to ban, works by H.L. Mencken, Aldous Huxley, Ernest Hemingway, and even Voltaire's Candide, nearly two hundred years after its publication. Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front was removed, successfully, as well.

These books were all banned because they were in violation of local law. Their works were removed from shelves because they were illegal.

Yet when you all were in grade school, you probably read some of these works in English class. What was once illegal and obscene became something teenagers have to write a book reports on.

So why am I giving you this little American Literature lesson? Because there's an elephant in the room today: Shepard Fairey will on April 14 again appear in Boston court on vandalism charges for works he allegedly installed in Boston streets. While here preparing for his show here inside the walls of the ICA, he did work in a number of Boston locations, including a banner hanging on City Hall, and many less high-profile spaces.

After posing with none other than Boston Mayor Tom Menino under his banner at City Hall, at the public opening of this show, Shepard was arrested on his way into the building. A small number of Boston police, at the urging of a small activist group from Boston's wealthiest neighborhood, dug up an eight year old bench warrant - given for putting a sticker on a sign pole - tailed him, and moved in. Shepard was made to fly back from his Los Angeles home to face an arraignment a week later. He is charged with 29 felony counts.

29 felony counts.

Neither Whitman, Hemingway, Hardy, or Remarque ever felt Boston police handcuffs. They never faced a penalty of decades of jail time. Shepard has, and does, here and today, this very month, right here in our own home town, while his portraits of the sitting United States President loom next to those of our very own nation's founding fathers in the Smithsonian and upstairs here at the Boston ICA. It's a lot more comfortable to talk about the prosecution of artists when it happened in Whitman's time, but here we are.

29 felony counts.

I mention this today because, at least in my original audience at the Boston ICA, you are all here as art and design professionals and fans of art in our city. We're here because this is our passion, but just as important, our livelihood. We make our money through art and design. And we all know what each of us are up against in Boston. We all know the pay cut that each of us takes to stay here for reasons of loyalty to family or birthplace. And we as a group need to spread the word to all who will hear it that this arrest is destructive to the Massachusetts creative economy.

The specifics of Shepard Fairey's case, what he did, and even what we think of him and his work on an individual basis - these are all irrelevant. Whether you adore his work or feel it is overexposed, plagiarized hipster wallpaper is beside the point. I dislike several things he's done, and several of my closest artist friends abhor the guy. But like or hate, it doesn't matter.

What matters is that his arrest is taking money away from Boston. What is relevant is the effect that his arrest and gratuitous prosecution has on every creative professional here by only reinforcing Boston's reputation as a terrible place to do creative business. What matters is the reputation of our city as an artistic base, because reputation, writ large, is the soil in which our collective businesses grow.

When an institution like the ICA hosts a major show by the most famous artist of the moment at the height of his fame; the eyes of the creative world settle on Boston to gauge if it is where they wish to invest. Shows like this are job interviews for the city. They are Boston's chance to show the world what it is are made of, while the world's eyes have settled on it while we play host to a successful, known quantity. Shepard's opening at the Boston ICA brought substantial numbers of visitors of substantial wealth and influence to town - just in my own small personal circle, I entertained visitors from California, New York, Pennsylvania, Washington D.C., Mississippi, Germany, and Turkey, all of whom were well-to-do people who had traveled to Boston specifically for the show, stayed in Boston hotels, shopped at Boston shops, and ate at Boston restaurants. I even sold a few of my own paintings. These are all taxable dollars coming into our economy, but the legal action taken against Shepard sent every one of these well-to-do, well-connected visitors home shaking their heads at what a culturally backward city Boston is. And you can bet that they will tell their well-to-do, well-connected friends as well.

I can cheerlead for my hometown until my face is blue, but outside investment is fickle and squeamish and does not like uncertainty. And Shepard's arrest gave every brand director, location scout, art collector, ad buyer, and trend spotter reason to be wary of doing business in our city - all the while snickering into their hand and shaking their heads at us. People laugh at Boston for being a city of culturally clueless Puritans, and because of that, business that depends on an audience to the contrary, avoids Boston. This arrest has renewed our subscription to this unfortunate perception.

History invariably excoriates those who prosecute art of any stripe. There is no escape from history's mockery. There's no way around it. History will laugh at us. The details of present - day illegality simply dissolve in the mocking laughter of years down the line.

But what do last are the black eyes on the local creative economy. What lasts is the cloud of hostile uncertainty that any business doing anything creative must operate within in Boston. What lasts is a stench of clueless Puritanism that repels outside investment in our creative businesses. What lasts is the long trail left by the motivated and creative people - young adults raised and educated here with the investment of our own tax dollars - who move away, because making a living in the creative fields in this town is revealed to be a false promise.

This is about money - but it isn't about money we in Boston have, or that others in Boston have that we do not. This is about money that passes Boston by on its way to a better home.

Here's a specific example of how: Immediately after his show opening at the Boston ICA, Shepard appeared in Boston court and returned to Los Angeles for one week until he needed to return to Boston for his arraignment. During that week in Los Angeles, Shepard executed a monumental mural on the side of a theater; a mural featuring Lance Armstrong the great cyclist (and well-respected art collector, I might add) in a project developed by the Nike corporation and Lance's cancer research and awareness foundation Livestrong, of those ubiquitous bracelets. It was a massive media event, and a great thing for all parties, with lots of money moving around.

This is how Los Angeles incorporates an artist like Shepard into its economy when it has one week to do so. But if we in Boston were as forward-thinking, every single dollar that moved around in Los Angeles could have been doing so in Boston. You may not know this, but Boston is actually one of the biggest footwear hubs in the world, with Reebok, Converse, Clarks, Puma, New Balance, and Saucony all calling eastern Massachusetts home, at least for their United States headquarters. Nike's role and the visibility they gained could have been one of theirs. And cancer research? Come on. On one side of the Charles, there's Dana Farber and MGH, among dozens, and on the other, there's Novartis and so many biotech giants operating so far outside of my sphere of knowledge that I can't even pretend to know their areas of research. But I do know that we in Boston sure as heck could have put the world's most famous artist of the moment to better civic and commercial use than adding to the B.O. stink in our holding cells. Did you know Shepard is a diabetic? Well, he is. Could we maybe have teased out a connection there to create a project with any of those health care giants to an end that would be more productive to our local economy instead of cuffing Shepard? I'm just brainstorming here, but I bet we could have.

Instead, we have 29 felony charges. Those 29 felony charges are Shepard's to bear and to deal with, and he will. He has good counsel and plenty of money to address those with. But what begins as an attempt to make an example of Shepard as a vandal who met the law only makes an example of Boston as a city to avoid when investing any culture dollar.

Those charges against Shepard are what keep investors in our businesses - people who we will never meet, people far from Boston - renewing their negative impression of our city. It's those charges' black eyes that we all in this room must live with and do business around. And it's the mockery of students future that we all live in; no different than that with which we look back on in Boston's dealings with Whitman and the artists that followed.

For remember, Whitman's work, and that poem in particular - was illegal by the letter of Boston law as well.

BUMPING UP SOME NEWS

BOSTON: I'm part of a day of programming at the Boston ICA this Saturday, April 4. My artist talk is at 3:30 pm with a book signing to follow. The ICA is gonna ask for money to come to this day of stuff, but there is a lot of programming that day, so hopefully it will be worth while. Show up earlier in the day for more stuff, and to see the Shepard Fairey show.

SAN FRANCISCO: My show at White Walls Gallery opens on Saturday, April 11. Be there, or see the works at www.whitewallssf.com

WHEREVER: Caleb Neelon's Book of Awesome is out on Gingko Press. Buy it somewhere, amazon.com perhaps, and don't forget to post snarky reviews of it somewhere, because like everyone who has been published, I no longer have feelings.

TEN DOLLAR OREO

OH YES I DID!

Some more serious, careerist-like news to follow....

Boston Cut and Paste

Next Saturday, March 14, at the Boston Center for the Arts Cyclorama: Boston Cut and Paste design contest. I'll be a judgmental judge.

Also on the topic of design; I have another short article in the March issue of Print Magazine. It's about the Powerhouse Books release Vandal Squad. There we go.

April 4 talk at the Boston ICA

You might have heard of this guy Shepard Fairey, who has a show at the Boston ICA now. April 4, I'll be doing a panel talk about Shepard's work and another talk about my own, along with a signing for the new book of my art and travel stuff, Caleb Neelon's Book of Awesome. Tickets and info HERE.

I'll be running my mouth all day at various Shepard-related panels and so on, but if you just want to hear me talk about me, and who doesn't, that talk (and Book of Awesome signing) is at 3:30.

See you all there.

2008 Boston Art Awards - Caleb Neelon's Book of Awesome

Thanks to the Boston Art Awards for the critics' pick for my Book of Awesome! The fold-up trophy looks like this, except mine is filled out and signed and real.

The Whimsical Works of David Weidman and Some Serious Ones Too (Ferdinand, get out of the picture....)

For the past couple of years I've been part of a small team working with Los Angeles artist David Weidman on his monograph, which is now out on Gingko Press. David was born a million years ago in 1921 and worked on animated cartoons like Mr. Magoo and Gerald McBoing-Boing before turning his attention to prints and posters. It was a big undertaking to go through this man's life's work, gather it up, and put it in book form, and I'm glad to hold it in print finally. Some interior images are in the 'see the photos' link below.

Laguna Art Museum catalog

In the mail the other day came the catalog for the Laguna Art Museum show I was in this past summer, "In the Land of Retinal Delights: The Juxtapoz Factor." It was an honor to be a part.

Swindle Magazine issue 19

Mike Giant is one of those dudes who gets real good real fast at anything he puts his mind to, and what's so great about the guy is that his successes are based on hard work and curiosity. It was a pleasure for me to write a Swindle Magazine cover story on him. Check a sneak peek here and go grab a copy of the issue for many other interesting stories.

We were there, dude!

Commonwealth Award Object, and a moment on my soapbox:

So here's a curveball for me: I spent Tuesday, January 13th at the State House in Boston, attending the Commonwealth Awards, which is a state lifetime achievement in the arts award give by the Massachusetts Cultural Council. It's a biannual award given to people like longtime museum directors, philanthropists, arts-friendly civic leaders, artists, educators - people like that. Rather than give these people some corny plaque or something, they commission an artist to make an edition of objects as an award. I hadn't done an edition for an award before, I'm always interested in trying new things, and I needed the dough, so I applied and was selected. I painted a set of 15 wooden bowls: pretty big at 15" and 18" wide. They were handed out at the State House, and the awardees included Jean Kennedy Smith, Ted Kennedy, Gunther Schuller (who played on Birth of the Cool), a dope young artist named Thona Ep, major art collector Barbara Lee, and several others. The keynote speaker was actress and Pittsfield native Elizabeth Banks, and she also got a bowl. The point of all this is two-fold: one to hand out recognition where it is due, and two to make a big beautiful scene in the State House to make sure the legislature keeps the arts afloat here.

This brings me to my soapbox. I've always felt a little conflicted about government-supported arts: the same government that buffs graffiti art and makes the countless walls it owns off-limits to volunteer public art also supports it. Yet all unease aside, as an artist in the last couple of years, I've really been helped out by work and fellowships from the Massachusetts Cultural Council and have been denied every time I've stepped to a local private foundation. The art world is totally subject to the tastes of the very wealthy, and of course that will never change. But tastes of wealthy individuals are individual and not subject to oversight and review, and government art support is founded on principles of democracy and merit. You need them both. But just as important, the general public of regular means - that's you - needs to help. Let me explain why.

I'm 32 years old, have lived in the Boston area all my life, and while my job involves knowing a zillion artists all around the world, I do not know a single artist who supports themselves solely by their artwork in the area. When there are more museums in a city than full time artists, it shows a set of priorities that has gone awry: the dead and the out of town over the living and the local. My artist friends have left and found success, or stayed here and found other jobs. But wait, who really does make a living doing only art, you might ask? Actually, a good amount of people in many cities: just not here. Give me any other major city in the USA and I can rattle off five or ten artists who make their livelihood with art, simply based on people I know personally. The idea that making a living from art is a fantasy is simply not true, but I can't blame people for feeling this way when they don't know of someone in their city that does.

When artists leave this town, their absence leaves Boston a less happening, less with it place, and that adversely affects entire swaths of the economy here - any business at all that depends on surrounding itself with the cool and the contemporary. You can snicker at that phrasing, 'cool and contemporary,' but think of the professions where this is a must: media, apparel, entertainment, advertising, and when you think about it, not that far removed from the money-making heart of our local economy: education, science, medicine, and technology. It chases away people who work in more staid professions but want a culturally rich out-of-work life. It adds to the truly scary rates of attrition by which young adults ages 22-35 are leaving the Commonwealth. It wreaks hell on our local economy by taking away dollars that were ours until we ignored them and they left. A local art economy doesn't just matter to hipster cool kids and middle-aged art ladies who wear funky clothes: it matters to our roads and bridges, our fire departments and our public works. The same piece of advice that I give young artists on the come-up, I give to the public: art doesn't always make you money, but it'll make you things that do if you let it.

The sad part of this is not what it does to the adult population and what it does to the economy - it's that it robs generations of children and young adults of the mentorship and sense of possibility that having local artists in their midst provides. Government support for the arts is important and vital, but it is also important for regular people to get involved in supporting visual artists in Boston on a personal basis, and that means buying art both cheap and expensive from local, living artists who make work you enjoy; putting your friends on to them; finding new spaces (public walls, unused real estate, etc) for art and pairing them with local artists; figuring out ways for your workplace to commission work from them that respects their integrity and taste; and encouraging the local community to support, showcase, and celebrate them. It might even make you money in the long run.

Book of Awesome is available on Amazon and elsewhere....

Now available on Amazon is Caleb Neelon's Book of Awesome a book of my artwork done around the world from the past twelve years or so, with a few stories as well.

Click on 'see the photos' below for a sneak peak inside the book courtesy of Alex Lukas at Space 1026, who has a product shot for all occasions.

Do a good thing for the new year.

My man Justin Van Hoy, designer of Caleb Neelon's Book of Awesome, needs some help. Please read:

His leukemia has relapsed, and he needs a bone marrow transplant. So do many other people, but as it so often is with these things, it hit home with someone I know.

Here's what you can do: get yourself tested and put on the National Bone Marrow Registry. It's as simple as going to one of many hospitals and marrow registry drives in your area, filling out a short form, and doing a quick test which basically involves wiping a couple of q-tips on the inside of your cheek.

Ellen and I did this in Boston at Dana Farber this morning, simple as calling and heading over. Took like fifteen minutes and didn't cost a thing. If one of us happens to be a match for a patient who needs a donation - like an 8% chance, so I am told - the marrow donation is a matter of a short visit to a hospital.

Info about marrow donation is all over the web, but start here at the National Bone Marrow Registry to learn what you need to do wherever you are.

Do this the next chance you get, and bring your friends when you go. Thanks.

Calendar Caleb, Cheap

Tis the season now for dirt cheap 2009 calendars, right? Abrams has a nice graffiti one featuring some of my favorite writers, notably Wane COD. Because really, if you don't think that Wane is one of the best ever, you just don't get graff yet.

Oh and I'm Mr. May, too.

Ferdinand's Metal Mini-Me

My dad and stepmom gave us this little metal dude.

We put him on the floor. Ferdinand stared him down for a couple seconds, cocked his head to the side, went around back, sniffed the little metal dude's butt, and gave us a look like we were gonna have to try harder to fool him next time.

Life lesson from zen master Ferdinand: sniffing butt of potential foe reveals true level of threat.

AWESOME CHRISTMAS PRESENT

UPS brought me Christmas Eve joy joy: my big stack of author advance copies of CALEB NEELON'S BOOK OF AWESOME.... hot from Gingko Press!

Jim Cramer gives my book a BUYBUYBUY and you know that dood is just never wrong. Never.

Happy Holidays

Don't get depressed.

Mural Art: Murals on Huge Public Surfaces around the World

This book just showed up yesterday while I was on a nine hour drive up to Vermont and back. The book - called 'Mural Art,' by Kiriakos Iosifides, and published by Publikat - is a great big collection of the work of muralists from all over the world.

The work ranges from us contemporary streety-graffiti-Peteys of the world to the guys that do the completely ill Belfast political murals to the more straightforward guys who do less edgy civic and commercial gigs, to the odd famous dead guy, like Diego Rivera.

It's an honor to be down!

First Advance Copy.... Caleb Neelon's Book of Awesome

Ferdinand gets his copy, but everyone else needs to wait a few months.... crazy to see this thing in hand finally!

Swindle Magazine Icons Issue 3

Swindle Magazine for three years now has come out with an annual 'Icons' issue profiling a number of the world's influential, notorious, and renowned individuals.

This time around, I got to profile former NYC Mayor Ed Koch; Washington D.C. graffiti legend Cool "Disco" Dan; and in one of my new favorite stories ever, the author of the best drawing books for kids ever, Ed Emberley, of Ed Emberley's Big Green Drawing Book, Big Purple Drawing Book, and so on.

Also in the issue: Gary Panter interviewing Paul Reubens (Pee-Wee Herman, whose set Panter designed,) Paul Smith, Merle Haggard, Jenna Jameson, Charles Burns, Pam Grier, Naomi Klein, and Philippe Petit, the guy who walked between the World Trade Center towers on a tightrope - subject of the best movie I've seen in a long while, Man On Wire.

Bant Magazine 50th Issue

Bant Magazine out of Istanbul just dropped their 50th issue, and I had the privilege of writing the cover story, on the ubiquitous Shepard Fairey and the special commissioned portrait of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, founder of modern Turkey, that the artist did for Bant's publisher and art collector par excellence, Selim Varol.

Shepard is just about every which where these days, what with his Obama portrait having hitched the Obey Giant wagon to the stars. Whether he turns out to be our generation's Andy Warhol or our generation's Peter Max is his test from here out, but it's images like this one of Ataturk that I feel show Shepard at his best.

11/4-5/2008 ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE!!!!!!!!

I am so happy right now. Anything is possible, just ask Kevin Garnett

Caleb Neelon's Book of Awesome (different proofs)

I got some different proofs in for my book, and this time I remembered to take a teaser pic. Real book coming soon.

Bant issue 49

Cover story I did for Istanbul's Bant Magazine on Danish artist Husk Mit Navn is out... issue 50 is coming next of course and will be a special one. Stay tuned.

Caleb Neelon's Book of Awesome

I just got the proofs back for Caleb Neelon's book of Awesome, and I was going to post a teaser photo of the wet proof uncut sheet, but in my excitement I forgot to take a picture of it before approving the proofs and sending them back to the printer. So here's a picture of my dog Ferdinand instead.

Transformazium benefit

Check out Transformazium, which is a new project in Braddock, Pennsylvania, 15 minutes outside of Pittsburgh. Brooklyn artist Swoon and a group of artists have taken this church where they want to make an arts based community center and urban farm. So, they need money to do this and I donated a piece for one of you to buy and get the bucks to this project. Flyer is above, where I am going by my alter ego 'and many more.'

New Swindle, Juxtapoz, and Bant

Swindle Magazine number 18 just came out - politics issue, featuring a longish profile I did of 'Subway Vigilante' Bernhard Goetz among a lot of interesting stories. Also out is a little blurb I did on artist Bill Dunlap in Juxtapoz Magazine. If you read Turkish, a new issue of Bant Magazine with a feature I did on artist Alex Lukas.

Caleb Neelon's Book of Awesome

This thing just went out the door, a book of my indoor and outdoor work from the past dozen years. 128 pages, hardcover, Gingko Press. More on this in a bit.

Juxtapoz NYC Graffiti issue

Jux's all NYC graffiti issue just dropped, and it's got some great stories in it. Hopefully, some of them are the ones I did... profiles of Chino, Revolt, Cycle, Tuff City Tattoo, and one of my longtime favorite artists, Freedom.

Article on Greg Lamarche in Print Magazine

There's something special about the things that get you gassed up at age 16... they can really have a staying power and a special place in the heart regardless of how old we get. For me, no band's ever going to top the Pixies, and no graffiti writer's pieces are ever going to get me as open as SP.One's. He was the guy painting in Boston who had that NYC flavor, and to boot, his letters were kinda sorta close to mine, so I could try to smoosh them together. Now obviously I've taken a hard right stylistically from SP, but as I said, get me at age 16 and I'm down for life. All of this is to say that it's a total pleasure to get to write an article about SP - Greg Lamarche - in Print Magazine, which is out this month.

It's also just occurred to me that graffiti has now consumed my attention for more than half my life.

White Noise Drawn Together at V1 Gallery, Copenhagen, Denmark

I've got some artwork in the White Noise Drawn Together show at V1 Galley in Copenhagen, Denmark. Have a looky at the flyer for more info like when it opens, and the wonder that is my name in bold face along with many others.

Sinking shirt....

Available at dirtypilot.com with one of my boat graphics....

Laguna Art Museum show

There's a painting of mine in this summer's Laguna Art Museum show called " In the Land of Retinal Delights." It's a huge show, and it's a trip to have something of mine in it. A small number of the other artists in the show include R. Crumb, Henry Darger, Shepard Fairey, Phil Frost, Os Gemeos, Doze Green, Don Ed Hardy, Jim Houser, Barry McGee, Stanley Mouse, Takashi Murakami, Manuel Ocampo, Gary Panter, Raymond Pettibon, Big Daddy Roth, Mark Ryden, Saber, Kenny Scharf, Andrew Schoultz, Andres Serrano, Swoon, Kara Walker, Robert Williams, Basil Wolverton, and Matt Leines. To have my stuff anywhere near their stuff is unbelievable to me.

May Solo Show in Los Angeles at Carmichael Gallery

LOS ANGELES: CALEB NEELON IS WORKING ON IT, a solo show at Carmichael Gallery which is at 1257 La Brea in West Hollywood. This show is now down and not on view any more.

Gingko Press will be releasing a book of my artwork later this year - called Caleb Neelon's Book of Awesome. I am excited and terrified about both the show and the book. Hope to see you there at Carmichael Gallery on Saturday, May 10.

Did you miss the show? HERE ARE THE PHOTOS!!

Spring

Spring makes me happy. Ferdinand too. I've been teaching Ferdinand how to play baseball. That's part of his baseball next to him.

It's happening....

Been in the works for a while all quiet like.

Here it is.

!!!!!

Baseball Brickbats and Bouquets

Up above is a cover story I did on artist Phil Frost for Istanbul-based Bant Magazine. They also feature some of my art in this issue. Phil painted me a bat....

COOL "DISCO" DAN

For the past three years, I've been working quietly away with Roger Gastman, Joseph Pattisal, and Washington, D.C. legend Cool "Disco" Dan. The result is a documentary project telling the story of Cool "Disco" Dan's coming of age in D.C.'s most difficult years. There's a lot more to tell about this when the time comes, but in the meantime, have a look around the the Cool "Disco" Dan website and learn more about the documentary project.

Swindle 14

In this issue of Swindle I got to profile Italian artist BLU and the Vermont-based theater and activism collective Bread and Puppet.

Swindle Magazine's second Icons Annual

The second Icons issue of Swindle is on shelves now. This time around, I got to profile This American Life founder and host Ira Glass, graffiti legend Iz the Wiz, and The Very Hungry Caterpillar author and illustrator Eric Carle. Also featured are people like Buzz Aldrin, Perry Farrell, Naomi Wolf, John Waters, HR, Joan Jett, and a lot more. Visit Swindle Magazine's site for more.

Street World

For the past year and change, Roger Gastman, Tony Smyrski and I have been working on this enormous book, Street World. Clocking in at 384 pages, it's a big visual mix tape of street culture stuff from around the world - everything from graffiti to monster bikes to signage to street art to fashion to skateboarding to pigeon flying to baile funk to gang placas to customized rickshaws to urban exploration and on and on. Big.

We've had some very accomplished contributors to this project, among them people like Estevan Oriol, Adam Wallacavage, Revok, We Are Supervision, Kurnal Rawat, Boogie, Angela Boatwright, Allen Benedikt, Invader, Friends With You, Giant, Shepard Fairey, Dalek, Per Englund, Dan Monick, Yuri Shibuya, Tod Seelie, and dozens more. We're honored to include them all. And to those of you who are in this thing, we're working on getting books to you. Bear with us.

Street World is out on Thames and Hudson in the UK, on Abrams in the US, Pyramyd in France, Oceano in Spain, and National M-Fing Geographic in Germany, yeah that National Geographic. Ha. Check out the Street World website or go straight to Amazon and grab a copy via the following link: Street World: Urban Culture and Art from Five Continents Click the link below to see some interior images and so forth.

NEW SPOKESMAN: FERDINAND!

This is really the most important news of the summer for Ellen and I, and we're pleased to announce our new spokesman, Ferdinand! There are more photos of him here.

Saber's Mad Society book

Saber's monograph Mad Society is out soon on Ginkgo Press. I was the "as told to," I guess you would say. You can get a copy from Amazon via the following link: SABER - Mad Society