trina - A blog by trina - Lipstick Tracez

Flynn's Arcade// Comic-Con 2010

One of the highlights of my Comic-Con 2010 experience was an awesome visit to Flynn's Arcade. Disney recreated the original arcade from the awesome movie Tron in an old building in the Gaslamp Quarter.
Plus, they showcased all kinds of cool Tron:Legacy merch that we can expect to be able to purchase closer to the film's release date...Dec 17th, 2010.

and here's the new trailer they showed exclusively at Comic-Con:

Tron: Legacy Comic-Con 2010 trailer

By Trina Calderon, July 27, 2010 2:16 PM, Comments (0)

John Hill, Jr at THIS LOS ANGELES

The fairly new and charming gallery THIS LOS ANGELES in Highland Park has an amazing exhibit up right now. "DRAWN" features the very detailed ink drawings of John Hill, Jr.

John is a graduate of the MFA program at UNC, Chapel Hill and he lives and works in Charlotte, NC today. The basic concept for the show was to exhibit works he has drawn "directly with pen onto paper without the aid of plans or reference material." He compared them to pages in a sketchbook when I spoke with him about the very resolved pieces. Which is crazy, because when you see sketches, usually there are lines that may not be finished or not very rendered or even misplaced, but that's not the case in John's work here. The drawings seem methodically thought out due to their perfection and fine attention to detail. John's approach is simple, he just sit down and starts drawing, letting whatever comes to his mind flow out through his hand and onto the paper.

Recurring images I found in the work include animals, horns, things that float or fly, and plenty of phallic objects. John explained to me that he thinks a lot of what comes up are images and thoughts from the dark recesses of his mind, from adolescence and from pockets of his mind that may have obsessed on certain ideas or concepts. It all makes sense, even though when you look at it closely, the images make really no sense together (which is the awesome part)! It is stream of consciousness art, and so it works, especially in the larger pieces. The more space he has to create in, the more prolific the designs become. Honestly, the work looks so beautifully resolved and ultimately is eye-candy for hours. It's something you really must come and see for yourself.
The show is up at THIS LOS ANGELES as of July 16th and is well worth the outing.
This Los Angeles, 5906 North Figueroa St., Los Angeles, 90042 (Highland Park)

By Trina Calderon, July 17, 2010 1:38 PM, Comments (0)

John Baldessari iPhone app

In connection with his retrospective exhibit, Pure Beauty, contemporary artist John Baldessari has created an iPhone and iPad app (with the help of a design team) to add a bit of the future to the large show featuring works from 1962 to present day.

"In Still Life 2001-2010, the first ever to be created by a contemporary artist. The program allows users to interact, tamper with, and ultimately recreate Abraham van Beyeren's Banquet Still Life from 1667 by rearranging 38 items however they please."

more here:
http://flavorwire.com/102449/lacma-iphone-appjohn-baldessari-and-the-future-of-art

By Trina Calderon, July 17, 2010 12:57 PM, Comments (0)

L.A. Flea Market Grand Opening this Sunday!

at Dodgers Stadium - L.A. Flea Market!

By Trina Calderon, July 15, 2010 5:16 PM, Comments (0)

SPRAGWERKS

Check out this amazing hand-made jewelry line my friend Rich makes. It's serious gearhead stuff, and so cool that they were just asked to do the jewelry for Michael C. Hall's next photo campaign for Dexter - so when you see Dexter looking all tough and cool on a billboard on the side of the bus, know it's some Spragwerks all up in there! You can purchase Spragwerks online at : www.spragwerks.com

Rich, hard at work on Spragwerks!

Here's some more cool photos and details on the company:

ABOUT THE COMPANY: Spragwerks is a small, independently-owned and operated company. When you make a Spragwerks purchase, you are supporting local business and environmental sustainability: Any vendors we use are locally-owned and painstakingly selected for their regard to personal and corporate environmental responsibility and excellent work ethic. Spragwerks endeavors to recycle and reuse everything we can (including your packaging!) and keep our carbon footprint as small as possible. So, macabre tastes and wild hearts notwithstanding, our customers are ethical consumers!

INSPIRATION: My prior career as a heavy-duty diesel mechanic, as well as my upbringing in the post-industrial wasteland of northeastern New Jersey, clearly informed my aesthetic. My work explores the tense intersection of the organic by the industrial, and particularly the consumption of one by the other. Each piece goes through my hands, and all jewelry is cast in either New York City or Los Angeles and hand-finished by me. Because of the hands-on approach to making jewelry, each piece is unique. Everything is made on an as-needed basis. My main objective is to create designs in which form follows function. SPRAGWERKS is made to last a more than lifetime, and I personally back each piece with a lifetime warranty. One of my strongest beliefs is that fads come and go, but style lasts forever.

HOW IT STARTED: Around 1995, a coworker and I were on a job overhauling a pair of 12-cylinder engines in an old 110-foot motor yacht. The job was tough - the engine room where we were working was hot and the space was really tight. There was also a lurking captain on the ship, a drunk, who kept poking his head in the engine room, going on and on about "sprag" clutches he used to rebuild for Ford in the olden days. To say he was annoying would be a major understatement. After about a week, we started calling him "Captain Sprag" - we still goofed about Captain Sprag and his antics long after the job was done.

Fast forward to 2002: I had been making jewelry for around seven or eight years, mostly for myself and my friends. As my work started to get noticed by friends, and friends of friends, I realized that this could be something that I could pursue on a more serious level. I knew the business needed a name - something that embraced my love for machines, decaying urban surroundings, the obscure, and the organic. The word "sprag" kept popping into my head, so I went with it. I bounced between different names, when, finally, a friend suggested I add "werks" to the end. "Spragwerks" was born.