Poster-boy: "Ursa Miner @ Ursa Major"

Here's a little tease of the self-promotion going on behind the scenes for the upcoming annual exhibition - my year-in-review down at the distillery. Follow below the fold for more... 

As with just about everything that comes out the other end of the pen, it all starts with a doodle on a little scrap of paper.

Then the initial idea gets mentally masticated while churning through the five or six chambered stomach of artistic inspiration... creative cud barfed up a bit then chewed over again (repeat). Which reminds me, if I ever do get around to putting together a book, like one on teaching art or just a general memoir, there's gotta be a dedicated chapter with that as the subject + heading in the index: "creative cud."

Somewhere along the way the miner shows up, yee-haw, and the original concept of "Go With the Floe" (recycled from an antique tshirt design of mine) got discarded in favor of a more multilevel in-joke. Now all the pieces of the puzzle are in place: bear + miner = the business.

Which is how we arrived at the final title + theme for this year's gig: "Ursa Miner @ Ursa Major." One goal in formatting the layout was to have a poster design that, while admittedly wasting some empty space, when trimmed down made a strong vertical strip format - so not only slightly unique enough to stand out from the rest of the crap on the bulletin boards but also occupy a more interesting real estate amidst the visual clutter. Plus I get to make the rounds and strategically post the posters at dozens and dozens of locations about the Interior, and defend my territorial pissings by disposing of other events that get tacked over mine. To say nothing of the traditional hundreds of bookmarkers on cardstock passed out in person - as in individual gesture I like this best as an excuse to put it someones hand as a way to say thank you for being a friend & fan.

This'll be the ninth annual show, and probably only one more next year to mark a decade before tying off and focusing time + energy more on some longer, bigger projects - though to be sure long-time readers have heard that before about this blog, but we'll see... only so much left to go around these days and burning the candle at both ends always winds up burning out. 

But from bus stops to gas stations to public bathrooms, and from downtown to upper campus, putting in the actual legwork in addition to on-line posting is still ground zero. Well, below that technically - one thing I won't miss is stapling shit up when it's twenty-something degrees below zero outside. 

Here's a landing page to bookmark backlinks to the very first one back in 2016, then 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023. More to follow about the upcoming gig... CHEERS