JKPP on display at Future Canvas show in San Francisco

On June 6th, the Future Canvas show opened in downtown San Francisco. It will be up until June 23rd. The show is focused on iPad art and features iPad works by several Portrait Party artists. In addition, one iPad on an easel displays a continuous slide show of the entire Portrait Party. JKPP was included to show a community where digital and non-digital artists are working together and being influenced by each other - and not making too big a deal over what media any particular artist uses for any particular piece.

Opening atmosphere:



Here is the description of the Party posted at the show:

Julia Kay's Portrait Party (JKPP) is an international collaborative project in which more than 500 artists from more than 40 countries have so far made made more than 13,000 portraits of each other, with no end in sight. Along the way oil painters and iPad artists, professional exhibiting artists and beginners, bus drivers and lawyers, all rubbed elbows online, learned from and influenced each other, became friends, and started meeting up in person all over the world. And while the community thrived, so did the portraits.

There were some funny conversations at the beginning, for instance when an iPhone artist asked a watercolorist what App they had used - and the watercolorist had no idea what they were talking about. But over time, we've gotten used to each other's terminology and have been very happy to learn from and be influenced by each other. Artists who had stopped making art when adult life got too busy, started up again on iDevices, then became interested enough in what the traditional artists were doing to dig their charcoals out of the closet. And lots of traditional artists watching the developing body of work of the mobile digital artists started borrowing friends' iDevices or downloading art Apps to their own, and mixing it up. Many artists at JKPP go back and forth between traditional and mobile digital media, others combine both techniques in single portraits, and of course some work exclusively in digital or exclusively in traditional media.

Each portrait is of a specific person, and was made in a specific way. But the body of work as a whole - multiple interpretations of each posted photo in multiple media - each made individually but influenced by all the other interpretations - is far more than the sum of its parts. Dip into the pool on flickr (http://www.flickr.com/groups/portraitparty/) or watch a section of the slideshow to see the party unfold.

The show is open to the public Tuesdays and Thursdays through June 23rd from 4:00PM-7:00PM. Hmmm... those are somewhat unsual hours. If you want to call before heading over, the number is (415) 843-1GAF.

There are also two more events this week:

Tuesday, June 7th
Theo Watson & Robert Hodgin Discuss their Work
- Open 6:30PM / Talk 7:00PM

Wednesday, June 8th
An Evening with Douglas Rushkoff
- Open 6:30PM / Talk 7:30PM

Here's the website for more info: futurecanvas.net/

The location is the Gray Area Foundation for the Arts which is in the 'historic' grotto of the 'historic' Warfield Building which contains the 'historic' Warfield Theatre at 998 Market Street, San Francisco, CA. It's between Powell and Civic Center BART stations - two blocks in the grungy direction from the Westfield Mall. I suggest walking from Powell for less grunge :)

I thought they did a beautiful job laying out the show, all the more so since the walls were concrete - you know what that means for hanging shows! Some of the iPad work was printed and framed, some printed on stretched canvas. Interactive art and art apps were on iPads on metal easels, as is the Portrait Party display.

The space is rather large. You can find the Portrait Party on the middle easel of three in a nook on the far side of the room from the entrance, next to my three portraits made with the Hansol Huh's Typedrawing App (in other words, drawn with letters). On the left easel, is an iPad allowing everyone to play with Typedrawing.

Three more of my portraits are to the right as you come down the stairs into the space, next to non-portrait pieces by JKPP member Matthew Watkins, and there are more non-portrait pieces by JKPP artists Nini Teves Lapuz (nini_nini), Greg Durrett (gdurrett), Helene Goldberg (HGBerk), Benjamin Rabe & Susan Murtaugh (suzi54241) in the furthest nook.






A very special thanks to Josh Michaels, the organizer who invited us, and who went out of his way to make it happen in the eleventh hour, when it looked like including the Portrait Party was going to fall through.

Work by JKPP artist Matthew Watkins	Work by JKPP artists Susan Murtaugh and Nini Teves Lapuz	Work by JKPP artists Helene Goldberg and Greg Durrett