OFF THE WALL 3 blog
By Earth Day 250,000 people will see my eco-logicl art exhibit in the first day.  By the end of the month the number of people who will see LA's first "Drive-By" gallery will be over 7 million. There's only one small problem-- the art that will make up the OFF THE WALL 3 show...it doesn't exist yet.
GIMME SHELTER ART! youth Eco-Art Project-- will be seen over 11 MILLION times!

         Be a part of:  “GIMME SHELTER ART!”
            Recycled Billboard Youth Art Project will be Seen Over 11 Million Times in the Bay Area.

    
Peter Schulberg and the Los Angeles based Eco-LogicalART Gallery present “Gimme Shelter Art!” The public eco-art youth project will feature new works painted on recycled billboard vinyl.To be displayed in 25 Clear Channel bus shelters across the Bay Area in June, each “Gimme Shelter Art!” piece will be seen an average of 15,000 times daily and over 400,000 times by month’s end. It is estimated that alltold the 25 GSA art pieces may be viewed over 11 million times.

THE PROJECT. The theme of the project is “The World That I See/The World That I Hope Could Be.” Either or both themes (incorporated into a single image) can be chosen. The work can but need not be Earth Day or “green” related. The “world” can be a reflection of your personal urban environment. Be creative and bold. Remember though that general public will see the work (thousands of times daily!) so images that may be offensive in nature are not appropriate for the exhibit.

The project starts with an 11 by 17 inch vertical initial submission. It can be created in pencil, pastel, markers or paint (no collage or mixed media please). Works should be unframed and on paper or illustration board. If the initial submission is selected you will then be provided a 40 by 60 inch recycled billboard vinyl “canvas”onto which you will paint the final piece.

WHO CAN PARTICIPATE: Open to individual youth (ages 12-18) residing in the general Bay Area.

PROJECT DATES: Initial submissions and contact info (name, address, email, contact number) should besent to the Eco-LA Gallery, 4829 West Pico Blvd, LA, CA, 90019, Attn: Gimme Shelter Art, and received no later than April 15, 2008.

SELECTED SUBMISSIONS: The top 20 entries will be selected by an art jury at the Earth Day opening (April 22, 5pm-8pm) of the “ReVisions; San Francisco” recycled billboard art event to be held at the Thoreau Center in the Presidio (bldg 1014, Lincoln & Torney, SF, CA, 94129). Additionally, five “fan favorites” will be chosen by those attending the opening--participants and the general public are invited to attend. “Winners” will be mailed the eco canvases by May 1. Completed works are due back to the Eco-LA Gallery no later than May 31. The “Gimme Shelter Art!” will go on display across the Bay Area by approximately June 9th, 2008.

“GIMME SHELTER ART!” is an exhibit created and sponsored by the nonprofit Eco-LogicalART Gallery. The generous donation of bus shelter display space is thanks to the cooperation of Clear Channel Outdoor.

            Eco-LogicalART, 4829 West Pico Blvd, LA, CA, 90019, 310-525-0676, eco-la@sbcglobal.net

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Posted by Peter v Schulberg at 3/10/2008 11:56 AM | View Comments (0) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (0)
It starts today-- "ReVisions" recycled billboard art project.
!2 new artists, a dozen recycled 14 x 48 foot billboards to go up around LA by Jan 12th, 2008 as part of the "ReVisions" public "drive-by" art exhibit.  It all started today.   The scale of the project is daunting.  Besides the size of these things; think whales-- this time I'm trying the whole process open to the public-- which means creating free standing installations 48 feet around and 15 feet tall.  On top of that on Saturday December 15th we're throwing a block party" GREEN SATURDAY AT ECO-LA"  at which all the billboards will be out on the street, painted by the aritsts so people can see it "up Close".    Even in drought stricken LA I'm praying already for no rain.  Happen to have several Native american painters... Steven and Tschetan get those (anti) rain gods on our side.

Here are some of the images that-- hopefully... will make the translatin to 10 feet by 13 feet each; three to a 14 x 48 foot billboard.  Ultimately when they go up for "ReVisons" they wil be seen over 40 million times.

   

 

    
 
  

Somehow I've got to figure out how to "curate" these images, plus another 8... By tomorrow you can check back to see how i do.

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Posted by Peter v Schulberg at 12/1/2007 9:31 PM | View Comments (0) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (0)
It's coming along!
Well we had a great "Layers in Motion; the Art of Dance" event.  About 200 people there, amazing music from the Good Listeners and ultimately from the evening a piece of unique fusion art/dance was produced.  Will be adding pictures of the event shorlty.

But in the meantime work on ReVisions is coming in nicely. Here are some studies of the billboards-- in some cases
     


actual shots.  Above; Keri Rosebarugh, Patricak Farrand, Steven Deo.  Below; Meredith Hayes, David Pease, Siuan McGahan. Want to try to curate this stuff?  
     

Below another threesome look like this; Thchetan Esse, Jan Wurm, Jeff Robinson

      


And not to be outdone...!

     


Joe O'Niel, Barry wolfryd, John Nimitz.

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Posted by Peter v Schulberg at 11/30/2007 9:55 PM | View Comments (0) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (0)
Pictures at an exhibition
Here are some more pictures of the opening.  I'm now going to post now in real time.  If you want to track the progress of OFF THE WALL 3 then scroll down a bit and you'll be able to read about it in story mode.

We figure that by now the four billboard have been seen almost 4 million times.  I am talking with a great CBS guy in Sanf Francisco about the exhibit, big and small traveling there in the summer or fall. 

Patrick Williams's "LA Allegory" was definately a show stopper at the opening.  Until you get up close to them the scale of the billboards don't register.  Patrick had never seen his work hung.  It was great to see him finally able to take it all in.  By then end of the week it's going up over the gallery.    

The artists group shot and more from the opening. 

 

  

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Posted by Peter v Schulberg at 4/30/2007 11:57 AM | View Comments (0) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (0)
In The Beginning
OFF THE WALL 3 began today. This year I'm working with 36 artists and providing them with recycled billboard vinyl canvasses-- free. I give them away in exchange for exposure on the exterior of my Mid-City Los Angelels gallery.  I started this three years ago and amazingly the work has survived wind, rains, heat-- and the dreaded kid with a paint ball gun-- who has yet to appear. 

OFF THE WALL 3 takes turning the old billboard vinyl and staid gallery world inside out to new heights.  That's because this year I have advertising heavyweights CBS Outdoor and Van Wagner to give me actual display time on real billboards for the run of the month long gallery show.  It's great, very exciting.  But I just found out that over 250,000 people will see the art IN THE FIRST DAY.  The Getty gets 4000 visitors daily. 

Nervous now. 

11 artists painting on five 14 x 48 FOOT billboards, simultaneously?  Will they get cold feet, are they good, how do you curate images seen at 200 feet?  Do I put Leebs' Poquitos dog next to the abstract?  "Kim has a good skip" in the middle?  And is that a naked breast with nipple T? 

It all starts with the raw or "dead" vinyls.  Here I with the lowly paid crew-- son Bennett, daughter Laura start rolling them out.  They apparently don't value my laying some heavy "bread" on them.


     

But I like the bread so it will be stretched into an 8'x8' art canvass.  That's small potatoes because with OFF THE WALL 3--SIZE MATTERS ... 

Above right-- some of the courageous souls who will paint the "bigs" start laying them out. Three 10' by 13 foot pieces will be on one billboard, though several demented (but determined) artists are painting whole 14 x 48 footers themselves.   We get them taped off.... rolled... now what was my plan for hanging them again .... ?
 

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Posted by Peter v Schulberg at 3/30/2007 5:20 PM | View Comments (0) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (0)
DAY 3-- SELECTING THE WORK
  
Picking the images is a bit intimidating.  I want provocative stuff, edgy-- definitely not a field of daises.  On the other hand we're working with some pretty conservative companies and I don't want this to be a one shot deal...  but before that we had to get the canvasses up.  Seven person job, hoisting the flag-- 15' x 50 feet.

         

 
That done.... Here are some 'studies of what I and the artists are thinking of....
   

Patrick Williams and Matt Adrian are doing whole 14 x 48 foot billboards themselves...




Doing them in their driveways, I'm laying in sunblock, advil and kneepads for them. Both have an end of the world quality about them-- their pieces, not the people (though when done who knows). 

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Posted by Peter v Schulberg at 3/29/2007 10:52 AM | View Comments (0) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (0)
Coming Along
I love these artists. Initially I thought some would get cold feet; that we'd have to have periodic group hugs and that I'd be laying in massive amounts of sedatives, or at least green tea. It is a bit intimidating working ten feet by 13 feet....

       

... working side by side, on ladders, scaffolding but billboard #1 is starting to come in nicely. 

Dawn (left) started today.  Her image is from personal; "50's San Fernando Valley" is how she described it.  Strong colors, long shadows.  The gun in the window is too big not to mean something. I don't know her well enough to ask.  Keri (middle) had concerned me, being a vegetarian, she said she wanted to do an environmental Pete Seeger piece. Peter: "Not going to be a  touchy-feel-y thing..."   Knowing Keri's work I should not have worried. 

"Kim has a good skip" is like looking into a personal time capsule.  Kim-- now, then, THEN, at 7.  Apparently that's all her first grade teacher could come up with-- the skip part. Happily now in her (somethings) Kim's skipping right along. 

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Posted by Peter v Schulberg at 3/28/2007 11:41 PM | View Comments (0) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (0)
Poor guys in their driveways...
He said he wanted to do it.  I didn't discourage him.  Hey, for all we know he may get a cartoon show out of it.  What, exactly, the Sponge Bob charm is I have yet to decipher.  Patrick has good commercial imagery. I've sold several of his pieces. The characters make me laugh, nervously.

From his own blog:  Fortunately or not, I can't work on the Billboard every day. Sometimes I just do not have blocks of time large enough that will make rolling the thing out worth my while. Here's some progress I made on it a couple days ago before running out of paint. I rolled it out at 7:30am, sanded, primed and laid in the drawing until about 11am, took my dad to his radiation treatment and on a couple errands and was able to be back working on it from 2:30 to 5pm. It doesn't look like much progress, but believe me it is. I'm buying loads of paint today and am seriously going to try to finish this thing up in the next three days. Wish me luck.
Half Way There (Almost)

Patrick-- PETER HERE... halfway done... can't even park you car anywhere near the driveway.  Maybe a scooter.  Think it's time to stoke up on the coffee and advil. You've got 2 weeks to get this thing done-- honestly. 

From P's blog again: Here's an in progress shot of the piece taken from the roof yesterday evening after a few knee-crunching hours of work. The rectangle near the bottom is my palette, the two white things are the socks I've been wearing to walk around on it. I have sticky feet I guess.

From Seal Beach-- it's up to Reseda where Matt has his hands full.  Matt does this series called "disasters".  You only see bits and pieces of cars spinning out of control, a train flying as if in a tornado-- but there's no wind.  Were he older you might suspect some LSD-mushroom "help."  Actually, as it's been in the high 90's he may, in fact, be seeing things. 

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Posted by Peter v Schulberg at 3/27/2007 6:23 PM | View Comments (0) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (0)
The Chariot scene
Warning, this whole process has led me to many glasses of wine (tonight) - thankfully not Charles Shaw...

One of my favorite scenes from Ben Hur is when he's talking to his chariot horses.  Not to suggest the artists are dog food, but it's a beautiful moment.  One of his stallions just pulls-- pure horsepower.  That's Leebs.  But she could run herself into a breakdown lather, or without some checking straight into a wall.  In billboard 1, Dawn and Kim are the tenders; the ones that make it not a drag race but a long haul.  I love that about them, that they're willing to be noticed a bit later in the run.

Dawn gave me the idea.  A part of her piece is less detailed.  I thought it was a mistake but it wasn't-- as she told me.  I realized that though on the surface that billboards, seen in 20 second bursts as you're driving by,  certain parts of the images jump out.  But after 15-20 days, when you've gotten past the obvious stuff, other elements start to emerge.  It's like a flip-book where suddenly the pages stop.

I find that very interesting; using the billboard vernacular but tweaking the paradigm.  I'd love to talk to the strangers that walk or drive by the pieces every day.  What story is starting to evolve in their minds as they get familiar with the images?  Do they even notice? Can I flag them down three weeks into it? By the end of the month there will be hundreds of thousands of them, millions maybe.   Frustrating not to know how deep the relationship is. 
 

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Posted by Peter v Schulberg at 3/26/2007 10:12 PM | View Comments (0) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (0)
Wind in the Sails
I used to have an old 16' Hobie Cat catamaran.  I sailed it by myself a lot.  Hobie's are very fast. Unfortunately mine was also very old (kind of like half what I am now).  When I'd see wind off in the distance I'd always be excited, but fearful too.  Equipment used to break all the time and it never does when you're luffing... So I'd get ready hike out, and hope.  I feel that way with billboard #1. It's done and now I'm just waiting for it to go up.   

A few days ago I saw the Van Wagner billboard installation guys taking the one off the other side of the board that's above the gallery.  I assumed they were here also to put the art piece up. Turns out they weren't but I was convincing, which got someone yelled at.   I felt terrible but... take a look. First they took down the Fantastic 4 vinyl-- which was actually a pretty cool image.  Then Kim, Leebs and Dawn started going up....And in about 30 minutes is was actually up there...

    
  It's now 14 days later and we estimate that that billboard #1 has been seen over 200,000 times.  Amazing. 



That was yesterday.  Today I got some bad news which is throwing the whole OFF THE WALL 3 event into jeopardy.  Too depressing to write about but call it a major rip in the mainsail.
 

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Posted by Peter v Schulberg at 3/25/2007 4:39 PM | View Comments (0) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (0)