Originally published at GIBBERINGS. You can comment here or there.A while back I ran out of cash and desperately took a series of small commissions.  Although a few of you (Rydell; some guy who wanted a wacky zany random painting for his buds; etc) are still waiting on the finished pieces, I’m haunted by this piece, for which no owner has appeared: IT LIVES Behold CLEAVER PIG.  Although I have hunted desperately for the email that started the horror, and posted here and on Twitter looking for the owner, I can’t find the person who commissioned this piece.  Therefore, I am making an official pronouncement: If the owner of this painting does not claim it by the end of the day on Friday, I’m selling it to the highest bidder. I will then refund the owner and send them a print, if they ever do appear. PHARAOH HAS SPOKEN. Cleaver Pig original art auction [SWEATSHOP.tv]

Originally published at GIBBERINGS. You can comment here or there. THURSDAY JULY 29 – 9PM Berlin/12pm PST/3pm EST – This is my first solo art show in Berlin, and will be broadcast live on SWEATSHOP.tv. If you can’t make it in person, even for the absinthe and snacks, you should drop in online at http://sweatshop.tv/ The STAINS series is worked on marble slabs, salvaged from rubble piles in St. Marien cemetery in Prenzlauerberg. Details are scratched in using scrapers, wire brushes, and fiberg…lass buffing. Meant to illustrate the tendency of people and events to sink into the masonry of a city as old and absorbent as Berlin, STAINS is the work of an expatriot of the American West Coast. As the ghosts of a city press themselves into the stone, they leave traces behind, like nuclear blast shadows, leaf prints, or fossils. STAINS will feature between 6 and 8 never-before-seen ink paintings on marble and sandstone. During the show, SWEATSHOP will be simultaneously broadcast, bringing the vernissage into every machine that will have it. Absinthe, beer, fruit, ice cream, licorice, and other delectables will be served in person. Online, we can offer only the sparkling wit of your hosts Phil Nelson and EG Gauger, plus the opportunity to participate in the ongoing auctions of all of the artworks. Starting prices will range from $50 (roughly €40) to $300 (roughly €230). The auctions will continue for the duration of the show, until appr

Originally published at GIBBERINGS. You can comment here or there. SWEATSHOP.tv is my live drawing/painting broadcast. If you haven’t dropped in to see it all go down, you’re missing the only wholesome fun the internet has to offer.  Everything else is just that picture of that man’s gaping asshole. Recently, Phil Nelson and I have been rolling out updates to the video, chat, and tipjar interface. Here is a list of changes: 1. High-resolution slideshow running parallel to the video feed. Since the video stream is always crap quality, we’ve added a side-by-side slideshow that updates every 90 seconds with a high res shot of the cam feed.  This is displayed during the broadcast in realtime, but also goes to Flickr, where it’s archived. 2. Chat is faster, simpler, more customizable, and all chatlogs are saved. I’ll be able to offer transcripts of any good chatroom lectures or discussions. 3. thee Sweatshoppe. In addition to the tipjar, we now offer emoticons, custom colors for your chat text and name, and the ability to upload your own custom avatar for display next to your name.  Finally, you can get something tangible for your tips, instead of those mysterious feelings of shame and remorse! 4. Twitter login. Instead of dealing with crap Livestream logins you can now just login with your Twitter account.  Be extremely annoying in two places at once! 5. Live tracklist of current sweatsongs, with links to buy them on Amazon. SWEATSHOP’

Originally published at GIBBERINGS. You can comment here or there. What follows is a collection of questions I was asked on Formspring.me, in an ongoing public interview with mostly anonymous users. Some answers have been slightly edited for clarity between Formspring and here. Q: Will you tell us more about SILAS DIRTYMAN, PHD? A: Ah, Silas. I still remember the color of his eyes, slate grey, reflecting the sea, just after breakfast aboard the Apologetic. The old people were shuffleboarding behind us, I think we must have both needed the air. I remember that I returned his long gaze with a nod, and he smiled, lifting one corner of his mouth like a shrug. “That handkerchief is silk,” I said, drawing next to him at the rail. “The rain will ruin it.” Silas’ long hands moved to his breast where he grasped, and pinched, and finally pulled that long, dove-colored swatch from his pocket. It crumpled protectively in his fist, soaked raindrops blinking on the silk. Silas held this out to me. I covered his fist with my hands, moving nearer. “It will get wet,” I said. “Please, be careful.” The wind had picked up, and my hat ribbons lifted like pennants. But my words were soft, and I knew he heard them. The bright clouds and cold made his skin snowy, rosy around the cheeks and nostrils. I thought of yellow cherries. The blush of them, and how sick you’d get in February, racing to eat them all before t

Originally published at GIBBERINGS. You can comment here or there. The Stains series is Walnut inkwash on marble slabs from bulldozed junk piles in St. Marien cemetery in Prenzlauerberg, Berlin (they are not taken from intact tombs or graves). Details are scratched and buffed in using scrapers, wire brushes, and fiberglass buffing. This wee guy didn’t make the cut to be a Stain. His dynamic, 3-dimensional appearance makes him more of a traditional illustration and not really the fossil ghost that the others in the series will be. Lucky for you, this means the little reject’s up for sale! Much like your unwanted older siblings. This little skeleton will be auctioned over the next several days. Payment will be in the form of PayPal or other arrangement within 24 hours of auction close. HOW TO BID: Comment here, email me, or reply to me on Twitter. Bids must be in increments of $10. AUCTION BEGINS: Now! AUCTION ENDS: Sunday, July 4th, 8PM Central European Summer Time (local Berlin time for me) CURRENT HIGH BID: $300 (via Twitter) The 2-cent Euro is the same size as an American penny.

Originally published at GIBBERINGS. You can comment here or there. Exactly one year ago, I was living in Kreuzberg in a sublet with a friend. I had long gone absolutely insane with being cooped up with another human being, which is difficult for me even in a large house, and our little one-bedroom apartment was maddening to my brain. I took to going on long, meandering walks through the city, occasionally getting lost down Berlin’s cobbled corridors, hiking from bus shelter to bus shelter and squinting at the maps, trying to find my way home. I was then, as I am now, obsessed with the idea of being an alien immigrant to a strange and welcoming world. The ambivalence of feeling both at home, and abroad, were stimulating. I took jars of ink under my coat, and a ratty bristle brush, and did quick sumi-e graffiti where I saw fit. This was a collaborative piece. The red face and long neck were already on the wall, and I added the helmet, goggles, and English imprecation. I spent the next year blasting off, and now I’ve returned. I saw this graffito as I was walking with Brother Paul and started smiling and couldn’t stop. There are others, scattered around the neighborhood. I am amazed they lasted. The ink was water-based, and came off when I rubbed it with a licked finger. Only in Berlin would this drawing have remained through a year of wet weather, without being buffed out, sprayed off, or obscured with other scrawls.

Originally published at Gibberings. You can comment here or there. TO SPACE!, originally uploaded by vebelfetzer. Exactly one year ago, I was living in Kreuzberg in a sublet with a friend. I had long gone absolutely insane with being cooped up with another human being, which is difficult for me even in a large house, and our little one-bedroom apartment was maddening to my brain. I took to going on long, meandering walks through the city, occasionally getting lost down Berlin’s cobbled corridors, hiking from bus shelter to bus shelter and squinting at the maps, trying to find my way home. I was then, as I am now, obsessed with the idea of being an alien immigrant to a strange and welcoming world. The ambivalence of feeling both at home, and abroad, were stimulating. I took jars of ink under my coat, and a ratty bristle brush, and did quick sumi-e graffiti where I saw fit. This was a collaborative piece. The red face and long neck were already on the wall, and I added the helmet, goggles, and English imprecation. I spent the next year blasting off, and now I’ve returned. I saw this graffito as I was walking with Brother Paul and started smiling and couldn’t stop. There are others, scattered around the neighborhood. I am amazed they lasted. The ink was water-based, and came off when I rubbed it with a licked finger. Only in Berlin would this drawing have remained through a year of wet weather, without being buffed out, sprayed off, or obscure

Originally published at GIBBERINGS. You can comment here or there. The chin’s way too small, but I dig the facial expression anyway. Love charcoal these days. Just fast, unforgiving, black, stylish lines.

Originally published at GIBBERINGS. You can comment here or there.Gentlemen are a cowardly and superstitious lot. On Sunday the 20th, Brother Paul and I will be moving into the Henrike Stahl Galerie in Kreuzberg. I’ll be taking over the front room atelier space as the residential artist until early July. I intend to stream SWEATSHOP live from the gallery almost 24/7, and Phil Nelson and I are working on a new SWEATSHOP user interface that will be much less painful than our current, embedded Livestream one. In this new design, a high-resolution snapshot will be grabbed from the video stream every 60 seconds, sent to Flickr, and hosted side-by-side with the live video. Although we don’t have the bandwidth to be able to stream in high-res, the automatically-refreshing slideshow should give you a much better idea of what you’re looking at during a broadcast. In addition to the slideshow, we’re taking chat to our own server, where we can log it for later editing/posting. This will be especially useful during Discount Art College broadcasts, where a lot of time and energy is put into typing up explanations and lessons. It would be better to have a lesson archive, complete with logged snapshots, for later reference. There will also be Project Wonderful ads running unobtrusively nearby. Think of them they same way you think of our tipjar, please, and disable Adblock on SWEATSHOP. I’ll post when the new interface goes live.  Until then, know that I

Originally published at Gibberings. You can comment here or there. Batspy, originally uploaded by vebelfetzer. sfjna

Originally published at GIBBERINGS. You can comment here or there.What follows is a collection of questions I was asked on Formspring.me, in an ongoing public interview with mostly anonymous users.  Some answers have been slightly edited for clarity between Formspring and here. Would you get insanely angry if someone has been promising to buy you a commission for four months and then all of a sudden calls it off? asked by ATwistedMishap It depends on whether or not they signed a contract.  In general, I don’t expect people to follow through with things unless they’ve already paid for them, and I don’t hold them to their word unless there’s money and/or a contract involved. Shit happens.  Art is justifiably low on everyone’s priority lists but the artist’s.  Art doesn’t feed or clothe the person that buys it. So always get money up front, 50% at least, with any commission or project. And MAKE THEM SIGN A CONTRACT. Even if you don’t have the time or money to take people who screw you to court, the threat of being legally proven an asshole is enough to keep most people honest. Here’s a really good contract template: http://www.acuitydesigns.net/freelance-contracts/ When I was 12 years old, I had some gallery space above a vintage clothing store. A man came in, liked my stuff (I was working in chalk pastel at the time), and commissioned a large pastel drawing of the Lady Godiva from me, for $60. It

Originally published at GIBBERINGS. You can comment here or there.

Originally published at GIBBERINGS. You can comment here or there.What follows is a collection of questions answered on Formspring.me, a site where people can ask questions anonymously. I’ve been spamming Twitter with the answers but there are too many and it’s turning to spam.  I’ll post them in chunks from now on. Are you naturally gifted or did you aspire to a proffesional standard? What is proffesional standard when it coms to art? How do you know whic direction to go? Do you do daydream a lot? What should I cook for breakfast? Well uh. Listen, there’s no such thing as “gifted”. What people think is “talent” is the brain being drawn like a magnet towards whatever subject it happens to be. That kid that was insanely good at trombone in 5th grade was good because he liked practicing more than the other kids did, so he did it three times as much. You have a finite amount of effort to invest in developing a skillset. Kids who are attracted to drawing give up a lot of other skills in order to spend that time and energy on their chosen path. That’s why we’re all fat, ugly, and awkward (artists). The only way anyone gets good at anything is by doing it constantly. 9 to 5 or 24/7, remember? When you give up the 9 to 5, you can go 24/7. But anything less than that, and you’ll fall behind the people who just want it that much more. I’ve had friends see what I’m doing and want to do it, too. Drawing is just a skill, like knitting. You learn the motions and then you

Originally published at GIBBERINGS. You can comment here or there. This little guy is a speaker case prototype. He was handed to me blank by a rep from the Arty Farty Gallery in Cologne, who was distributing them to various STROKE artists. AF intends to present all the prototypes to a client who will choose one (or more) models in order to produce a limited run of the toys. Beyond that, I’m fuzzy on the details. Since my pens wouldn’t set on the smooth plastic very well, I embraced the smudginess.

Originally published at GIBBERINGS. You can comment here or there. Those of you that guessed In Gotham We Trust was a cake were absolutely correct. I wish I could send you a piece as a prize, but it was devoured by the horde within minutes of completion. The slurping noises were incredible. That’s how Germany is: you spend two hours slaving over a cold fondant with airbrush, schnapps, and black food coloring while people scream “LEKKER” at you and laugh like drains, but do you get to savor it? No. No, you are handed a cakechunk the size of a bucket and told to eat it immediately. No matter that with the amount of airbrushing it had gone through, the marzipan was 120 proof. But that was last night. Today was significantly less crowded, and I spent all of it just loafing around in the gallery I’m sharing with Kooala, Icon73, and Hatch Kingdom (my gracious host). Kooala and I pooped around and made buttons and stickers all day. One of Kooala's buttons. I like his geometric princesses the best. At one point an actual fan showed up, which is unprecedented. In exchange for revealing wu tang secrets about how to live in Berlin on a work visa “teaching English” (telling anecdotes in your native tongue), I presented him with a button version of the cake. To his credit, he did not attempt to eat it (I would have). We really do. For the rest of the night, I doodled dayglo stickers and chatted with whoever I could claw at as they made a ci

Originally published at Gibberings. You can comment here or there. Guess what this Batcoin is made of., originally uploaded by vebelfetzer. Go on, guess.

Originally published at GIBBERINGS. You can comment here or there.One more time from the top, but BIGGER. I’m embarking on the first leg of my Berlin pilgrimage in the next ten hours, which means driving my Pontiac from Deimos, a moon of Mars, to Pittsburgh, where I pick up my brother Paul, and catch a connecting flight to Munich. In Munich I’ll be presenting Nubshirts, Priority Mail Series 1, and the never-before-seen Series 2, at the STROKE.02 Urban Art Conference on May 27th to 30th. I don’t yet know what booth/room/table number we are, but I do know I’ll be palling around with the likes of Icon73 from Switzerland, Kooala from Berlin, and 2sickbastards from England, all under the auspices of Hatch Kingdom, the world’s first (and only?) sticker museum. Location: Ehemalige Landeszentralbank – Tucherpark Street: Sederanger 3, 80538 München I will also attempt to broadcast via SWEATSHOP, but the DV cam is in sorry shape, I don’t know how much tripod room I’ll have, and whether or not there’s wifi in the Landeszentralbank. This is a bigger deal than I’m making it out to be, in my blitheness. STROKE is a massive event; I’m being graciously tolerated by bigtime Hatch Kingdom, and Germany is far more enthusiastic about my flavor than the States ever could be. I love being foreign. I’ll be in Berlin with my brother for about 3 months. After that, the plan is fuzzy. You may have heard that California is rap

Originally published at GIBBERINGS. You can comment here or there. There are freshly-pressed original art buttons available now, and in honor of my 16th birthday tomorrow, May 5th, I’m setting up an insane deal: For the duration of the 24 hours of the 5th of May, 2010: order one set of buttons and get 10% off your order. add a second set of buttons, and get 20% off your order. go hog wild and order three sets of buttons and get 30 fucking per cent off your entire order. each May 5th order will include 1, 2 or 3 buttons from this grab bag set: Details:  Discount will be granted in the form of a quick rebate, since PayPal buttons aren’t that complex.  Offer only good for 12:00AM – 11:59PM 5/5/10, Pacific Standard Time.

Originally published at GIBBERINGS. You can comment here or there.

Originally published at GIBBERINGS. You can comment here or there.Samantha Klapp is in my studio, arrayed in paint, feathers, braids, and fine cloths. I will style her, photograph her, and draw her. You will join us, make merry, buy art, and tip. Inspired by an orgy of African tribal photography, we’ve made arrangements to adorn Sam with the urban minutiae equivalent to the beads, pendants, and oche one wears in the bush. Possible guest artists include Tara Brannigan for Kind of Strange Jewelry, new model Rufio, and Chris G of Team Mummy. SWEATSHOP.TV

Originally published at GIBBERINGS. You can comment here or there. Shit just got real. Or it will be gotten real, in a few weeks.

Originally published at GIBBERINGS. You can comment here or there.As a man of wealth and taste, I have a vested interest in boutique cosmetic retailers such as the inimitable Aromaleigh, makers of fine mineral makeups.  Recently, Aromaleigh’s owner, a charming woman by the name of Kristen, decided to start using a website called LiveCloud to manage how Aromaleigh interacted with its large customer base.  I received an email a while ago notifying me that some sort of registration was taking place while she moved her user accounts to LiveCloud.  Fair enough.  I ignored it, never having been active on the Aromaleigh forums but certainly open to the possibility. In the past few days I have been receiving topic reply spam from LiveCloud, where the Aromaleigh discussions had apparently just gotten started.  I received twenty or thirty emails and wondered just what the hell I had been signed up for, and why I was receiving notifications on forums items that I had nothing to do with.  I clicked from a LiveCloud email through a “notification settings” link to the LiveCloud site, where I was forced onto my own profile page, and not allowed to leave the page until I had filled out information such as sex, location, and so on. At that point I was just looking for a Delete Account button, LiveCloud having pissed me off.  I looked and looked, turned up no such buttons in all the Settings, Account, and FAQ tabs I investigated, and absolutely no instructions on the topic in

Originally published at GIBBERINGS. You can comment here or there. MC Frontalot has given me the go-ahead to let all you little sweat cadets in on his new album a full month ahead of schedule. We’ll be listening to ZERO DAY, for which I did the back cover illustration, starting at 3pm PST TOMORROW. I’ll be running the sweet tunes while Clayton Chenault and I team up in my studio to paint some massive bullshit. Will you be there? You bet your sweet bippy! SWEATSHOP.TV

Originally published at GIBBERINGS. You can comment here or there.Have you been to http://toxoplasm.org/gibberings/ lately? Turn off Adblock and give it a shot. The right sidebar has a stack of new Project Wonderful slots that are willing and waiting to be filled with your ads. The minimum bid right now is a whopping $0, and will continue to be until the price is driven up by bidders. Project Wonderful is pretty badass; we’ve been using it on Ectomo for years and have always been pleased with it. As I slide further into self-sufficiency, it’s vital that I find ways of monetizing my entire operation, and this is a fine first step. So do me the favor of adding TOXOPLASM.ORG to your list of Adblock exceptions. Consider it a tip in my rattling, filthy cup.

Originally published at GIBBERINGS. You can comment here or there.Continuing my proud tradition of cutting out the middle man, and by that I mean actually taking a knife to Etsy headquarters and waving it around the mailroom until security showed up, I have created an onsite page that will make all your dankest fears manifest. All you have to do, is turn your monitor to its lowest setting. Stare at your reflection in the screen for a full minute, then say “CANDYMAN” in a quiet falsetto until you smell bees in the room. Ith liek thith cubcaketh ith awivvvve! Now, make sure your cursor is hovering over THIS LINK. The VERY FIRST sting you receive, click like you have never clicked before. A warning, though: anything on the BUY ART page that you do not personally purchase, will be transmuted to raw gaseous apitoxin, which will then be packed in an inflatable orca and mailed to you C.O.D. THE KILLER WHALE: africanized honeybee of the sea. Original art is now available at this link: http://toxoplasm.org/buy.php

Originally published at Gibberings. You can comment here or there. Tonight’s Batman, originally uploaded by vebelfetzer. I’ll vectorize the shit out of this.

Originally published at GIBBERINGS. You can comment here or there.And then Stabler gets really upset and roughs up some perp and gets in trouble! In the internet broadcasting system, art-based offenses are considered especially heinous. In the SWEATSHOP, the dedicated artists who perpetuate these vicious felonies are members of an elite squad known as the SWEATY VICTIMS UNIT. These are their t-shirts. (t-shirts with DICKWOLF [not to be confused with Dick Wolf] reverse are $3.00 on top of the price, due to CafePress fees for back-printing.) http://www.cafepress.com/sweatshopSVU

Originally published at Gibberings. You can comment here or there.NO CAKE. EVER. You should RSVP on Facebook here. THE CAUSE: Remember when we raised an obscene amount of money for pinup model Lorraine’s medical bills? Well, it’s the time again. THE ART: Sweathog Skinny Rydell’s $45 Commission is far overdue. Since the lady herself is in Scotland, and we want her to be in the audience, Saturday will feature a special afternoon SWEATSHOP to allow for the time difference. There will be a break at 11:30pm for lunch. HOW DOG GO BALLOON? THE MODEL: Samantha Klapp is a filmmaker, clothing designer and fashionista from Seattle. She and I have been friends for nigh on seven years, and recently she underwent surgery to remove pre-cancerous aberrations in her very GUTS. Being a student and an American, the medical bills have nearly bankrupted her. As she refuses to accept charity like any sane person would (my generous offerings of blood-stained dolla billz), I’ve offered her some work as my model: Sam will be posing for one of my commissions, and you will be stuffing benjamins into her garter. Sam has featured in many of my best works over the years, including The Cardiographer (oil on wood, 2007) and The Ectomancer (digital, 2008). She is a sylph-like brunette with huge, dark eyes, elegant tattoos, and a carriage that is both pristine, and unassuming. Do not miss your chance to really study her. GO TO SWEATSHOP NOW.

Originally published at Gibberings. You can comment here or there.I saw her at one of the tables downstairs first, sitting and examining her nailpolish, the maribou on her collar stroking her jaw like cilia. This pink fluff pulsed in time with the band onstage, their bass punching us all, forcing our heartbeats. But it was small-scale warfare in the nearly-empty club. I had felt bad for them, knowing how performers must suckle at their audiences, until I had watched them for a few songs. The lead singer threw himself into his lyrics, but his self-focus was revolting, like he was massaging some deep pressure point. His band was feverish, punishing their instruments, playing for each other. Spaced, he lifted his face to breathe between squalls, caught me looking, blinked away. I was close enough to see his blown pupils, his brows crimped in grief or anxiety. But all singers look that way. It’s affectation. Artists faking passion, to make it palatable to audiences embarrassed by real feeling, which is there all along. The girl in the maribou was talking to a man when I turned back. The strobe obscured his specifics, he was just a hulk in front of her. One of the security guards, I thought, until he dropped something that she snatched from the table, stuffed into her bra. She stood and smoothed her front, yelling something to the older woman beside her, who nodded, and smiled tightly. Maribou held out her hand to the man, who brushed past her and towards the