After The Hunt…

Posted by Jon, onehumanbeing on November 7, 2009

The First Red­bot Hunt…

After weeks of think­ing about what a Red­bot Hunt would be like, and sev­eral long days this last week bring­ing it into exis­tence, Fri­day evening arrived and the small Red­bot Street Crew went to work…

Tania and I along with Ryan Smo­lar from GLOBAL hit the street just before First Fri­days began, hunt­ing for metal sur­faces to post the Red­bots (there is a lot of alu­minum sur­faces in Bixby Knolls) while also post­ing fliers on shop win­dows and poles, as we trav­eled from the Bixby Knolls Busi­ness Asso­ci­a­tion office, to Dis­trict 8, and down the length of the First Fri­days Art Walk.

Din­ner Break…

We fin­ished just before 6:30 and headed back up Atlantic to go have din­ner with Ryan and our friends Tina and Noel at EJ Malloy’s and lis­ten to local musi­cian Jesica Specht.

After food, drinks and music, our crew headed back up to the large group show: Gallery Expo @ Expo and the “Dia de los Muer­tos” exhibit. At the exhibit they also had some painters cre­at­ing works in a large open stu­dio area, where I was very for­tu­nate to see Jonathan Bueno.

Jonathan is a Long Beach artist who was born in Mex­ico City. Tania and I met Jonathan sev­eral years ago, but hadn’t seen him since. I love his work, he’s one of my favorite con­tem­po­rary artists. If I col­lected art I’d be buy­ing up all his work I could… here’s a photo of one I really loved.

But mean­while…

…out on the street, a Red­bot Hunt still con­tin­ued and by the end of the evening 25 new Red­bots went home with new own­ers who had redeemed their Red­bot Own­er­ship Kits at Dis­trict 8…

…and Tania and I went home to relax and talk about the hunt, art, love and Red­bot until it was time for lights out and some well-deserved sleep.

After a Red­bot Hunt…

This morn­ing I went back up to Bixby Knolls to remove all our Red­bot Hunt signs… my brain hum­ming with new ideas since we got home last night…

So this after­noon I cut out seven new Red­bots and went for a bike ride through the alleys the Bluff Park area of Long Beach, post­ing the Red­bots and tak­ing pho­tos on a lit­tle project for the day called “7 for the 7th”…

Note: If you hap­pen to find one of today’s Red­bots, let me know and we’ll arrange for you to get your Own­er­ship Kit.

The ride was a excel­lent chance to unwind, enjoy the col­ors and tex­tures of the alleys, take my time plac­ing my Red­bots and pho­tograph­ing them, and let my head clear…

The hunt had pre­sented many new chal­lenges to me, and some project direc­tions for the future.

Red­bots are GO!

PS. Four peo­ple went home with one of the mul­ti­ples of a piece called “The Man Says You Bet­ter Lis­ten” — Con­grat­u­la­tions on the find!

PPS. The Red­bot Own­er­ship Gallery and Fea­tured Red­bot Owner sec­tions are get­ting major over­hauls this next week — or so my sched­ule says…

The Hunt Is On!

Posted by Jon, onehumanbeing on November 6, 2009

Begin­ning around 6:30 or 7:00 this evening… see you there!

Going on a Redbot Hunt

Posted by Jon, onehumanbeing on November 5, 2009

The First Orga­nized Red­bot Hunt…

Red­bot Loves You! (and GLOBAL) is bring­ing a Red­bot Hunt to Bixby Knolls for First Fri­days tomor­row night, Novem­ber 6, 2009

What is a Red­bot Hunt?

This is the first “orga­nized” ver­sion of what I’ve been doing with my Red­bot project — con­densed and col­lected into one area at one time.

Instead on mak­ing a num­ber of Red­bots over time and post­ing them on the street when­ever the desire to “post Red­bots” strikes me, this event has forced me to approach my work in a dif­fer­ent way, and basi­cally, I’m not sure what’s going to hap­pen — this is where the fun begins…

25 new Red­bots from the Red­bot Army are ready to be posted on Fri­day evening with Own­er­ship Kits avail­able for all the lucky Red­bot find­ers at Dis­trict 8… “Join the Red­bot Hunt” signs will be posted on street signs at the event.

View Google Map Here To Dis­trict 8 and First Fri­days

I’ve been imag­in­ing an “Easter Egg” hunt kind of thing, but it will only be a small piece of a much big­ger event, with lots of music, art and things to see going on, that it could get lost in the rest of the First Fri­days cel­e­bra­tion… I pre­fer that it blends well with the big­ger celebration.

More infor­ma­tion will be posted on Friday.

Smile Now — Contest Over

Posted by Jon, onehumanbeing on November 1, 2009

Smile Now Con­test — Over…

And we have NO win­ners, but the runner-up prizes of Red­bot Loves You! but­ton sets will be sent out to the clos­est guesses.

Answers to The Smile Now Contest …

Artist Name: Willem de Kooning

Painting’s Name: Woman 1

About the paint­ing (from the MOMA web­site)

De Koon­ing took an unusu­ally long time to cre­ate Woman, I, mak­ing numer­ous pre­lim­i­nary stud­ies and repaint­ing the work repeat­edly. The hulk­ing, wild–eyed sub­ject draws upon an amal­gam of female arche­types, from Pale­olithic fer­til­ity god­desses to con­tem­po­rary pin–up girls. Her threat­en­ing stare and fero­cious grin are height­ened by de Kooning’s aggres­sive brush­work and fran­tic paint appli­ca­tion. Com­bin­ing volup­tuous­ness and men­ace, Woman, I reflects the age–old cul­tural ambiva­lence between rev­er­ence for and fear of the power of the feminine.

The Clues…

• Tues­day — Octo­ber 13, 2009 - The artist is NOT Andy Warhol…
• Wednes­day — Octo­ber 14, 2009 — The weld­ing mask and the artist’s name have a pho­netic con­nec­tion… try stretch­ing the sound and play­ing with the word “weld­ing” :) (try sound­ing that out now that you know the answer is Willem de Koon­ing — I know, it’s a really stretch)
• Thurs­day — Octo­ber 15, 2009 — This artist was mar­ried and their spouse was also an artist. (mar­ried to Elaine de Kooning)
• Fri­day — Octo­ber 16, 2009 — This artist came from Europe and did their major work in the United States.
• Sun­day — Octo­ber 18, 2009 — This artist was an Abstract Expres­sion­ist painter.
• Mon­day — Octo­ber 19, 2009 — The cut-out and attached smile is a big clue. (the big goofy smile on Woman I came from a cut-out mag­a­zine smile, I was think­ing about that when I first made the weld­ing mask smile the attach…)

Thanks for participating!

In reflec­tion, this might have been pretty obscure, it seemed obvi­ous to me at the time…