Heywire Guild & Gallery

Hey folks;

If you go to the Artwork page and look at the bottom of your screen, you'll see a number. I took a screencap of said number here:

As you can see, we're close to the 2,500th piece of artwork to be uploaded to the site. Well, there's a little, quasi-official contest going on: the person who uploads the 2,500th piece of art wins a little prize. What prize? We're not quite sure yet. But it'll be cool, nonetheless.

Today's featured artist, Jaya One, hit me up to let you all know his graffiti show in Paris "Fuck Growing Up" is up and, thankfully for us, he's shared some pictures of the show on his page.

Dope, dope stuff. If you want your artwork featured on here, remember to contact me on my page.

Speaking of graff exhibits, here's some sad news... someone stole a Barry McGee and Clare Rojas piece from a San Francisco gallery.

People, we're glad you dig art, but don't steal it. Every piece you take is like a year's worth of ramen an artist can't eat. More info here.

Thanks guys and gals;

LK

Artists can sometimes be strange folk. I'm only about a quarter of an artist and I'm already halfway to weird. My collection of zebra sweatshirts should be a dead giveaway.

This is, of course, the good kind of weird. The kind of weird that makes non-artists intrigued. A lot of you guys possess the good kind of weird. One of my favorite artists on the site, 28-year-old Indonesian designer Arkiv, is certainly no exception.

Arkiv's artist statement says it all:

"Hello my name is Arkiv

I'm instantly rude

My skin is blacksatrd

I'm a half animal

And a half dream."

Only artists write poetry for their bios. Well, maybe investment bankers do too. Wait, no. They don't.

Here are a couple of my favorite Arkiv pieces:

"Generation Terrorist"

"The Ultimate Prototype of ARKIV"

I love the odd but extremely playful nature Arkiv infuses into his work. It brightens my day in a sort of David Lynch meets Kaws kind of way. Which is good.

Here's Tristan Inchwary No. 6:

Cut off your hand to spite your key, huh? Sounds a typical day at the office.

Color Lovers (one of my favorite design blogs) has a great piece on paper sculptures, with profiles of a bunch of great new artists who work with colorful paper to make sculptures. My favorite, by far, is the work of Ferry Staverman. Check out a couple pieces by Ferry:

And check out Ferry's site here.

Anyone who wants their profile featured on the site, please hit me up on my page.

Take care!

-LK

Hey folks;

I'm back! I took a secret, super surprise vacation. Sort of. I traveled out of town for work. That's as close as I'll get to a vacation, though, so it works for me. I hope y'all have more fun than me this summer. Get out there, hit the beach and, if at all possible, get on a boat. Unless it's a failboat. Those are no good.

Today's featured artist is 28-year-old Julian Lytle. Julian's specialty is mixing well rendered black ink figure drawings with digital-style collages. Imagine James Rosenquist meets Complex Magazine. Check out some of Julian's stuff:

The series "Guns and Honey" is, quite clearly, my favorite.

Since it's so cool, I think we'll try to feature every "issue" of the Heywire original comic strip, Tristan Inchwary. We last brought you issue 4, so here's issue 5:

Today's non-Heywire design/art thing-y is this really beautiful image of a baby gorilla. It's both amazing and adorable.

If you want your profile or art featured on here, please hit me up via my profile.

LK

Hey folks;

Man, sometimes the quality of the work on this site floors me. Case in point, we've got Sichi. Sichi is a multi-hyphenate artist out of the UK. The work on Sichi's Hewywire page ranges from KAWS-esque vinyl toy designs to full fledged installations. But every piece is excitingly professional.

Here are some of my favorite pieces:

That last one is cute/scary as hell. If you want your work featured on here, message me on my page.

Hey T Shirt/Star Wars fans...

All Hail The Chewbacca Shirt

The Colour Lovers blog has a really, really sweet post on Classic Video Game Color Schemes.

So anyone who wants to do up their apartment like the water level from Super Mario Bros. can now do so. Booyah.

Thanks everyone... till tomorrow!

LK

Good day folks;

Hope your weekend was great (and I hope you all gave your father's stern handshakes on Sunday... dad's don't hug, they shake hands).

Let's jump right in.

Today I'm featuring the work of Dave Riley. Dave is a 23-year-old painter/fashion designer who works with vibrant, early 90s neon style colors and, in his paintings, a fresh, almost photorealistic visual style mixed with said vibrant colors. The results are like a high art, painted Nike ad, run through a mill of ironic distance. Here are a few of my favorite pieces:

Dope work. If you want your profile featured here, remember to message me at my page.

I'm not sure what this site is (because I don't speak whatever language it's written in) but I came across a pretty sweet collection of posters. Check out some of these:

You can click through this online gallery by visiting here.

Okay folks, until tomorrow...

Lukas K.

Hey folks;

It's cooling down here in NYC and it's an absolutely beautiful day today. But I can't enjoy the sun because I'm chained to my desk.

Thankfully, I can take my mind off the paper pushing by checking out cool stuff on the webs... liiike the super awesome artwork here at Heywire. This site isn't just for the musicians and artists who want a forum to display their work. It's also for us stuck at work types who need a little culture injection in the middle of the day, lest we go stir crazy.

Today, I thought I'd share with yall the work of ERNTE. ERNTE does amazing metal work; he makes chains, necklaces and other assorted finely crafted metal pieces that mix classic, smooth lines with slightly gothic imagery. His stuff would fit a circa 2009 Guns N Roses-styled robot fronted rap group... or something. Either way, he's got some sick pieces. Check it out:

Killer. ERNTE, if you're reading this, update us with where we can cop some of these pieces.

Web Urbanist is one of my favorite sites because they tackle topics in design that I just wouldn't think of.

Case in point? Their new Listicle, The 12 Monuments Dedicated to Amazing Women. It's rare to find statues and monuments dedicated to women, which is unfortunate. So this list is both dope AND vital.

My favorite, by far, is the solid gold Joan of Arc.

Man, that looks crispy.

Check out the whole list and poke around the rest of Web Urbanist when you can. It's a great site for us fans of design.

Remember, if you want your link or profile featured here, contact me on my page.

Have a great weekend;

LK

Hey folks;

Sorry I missed you yesterday. Power outages suck.

What doesn't suck, however (obvious segue alert!) is the work of Samantha Louise Scully. Samantha is a designer whose work spans from magazine layouts to product design to her own store. Well, sort of.

One of the choice pieces on Samantha's profile is something called the "Cardboard Store." As Samantha describes it: "In 2007 a group of us set up a cardboard store in school. We designed and built all the fixtures out of cardboard. We also made all the products. The store was open for 3 days. We sold handmade rings, bags, journals, handmade clocks and t-shirts." That is really, really awesome. Check out some shots of the Cardboard Store:

Now I want to open up a cardboard store too.

If you want your profile featured here, contact me via my page.

Keeping things in the line with the Cardboard Store, I want to bring your attention to Fecal Face's interview with the artist Mike Rea. Mike Rea is a sculptor living in Milwaukee (my home town what what) who makes these wood-based to-scale sculptures that are super unique and odd. Check out some pictures below:

Crazy, right?

You can read the interview or check out more of Mike Rea's stuff here.

Thanks folks;

LK

What's up folks;

There was a Time magazine article I read last week saying that thanks to the openning of the Woodstock Museum, the '60s are officially over. That makes for good copy, but I'm not so sure. From Barack Obama's Kennedyesqe popularity to Amy Winehouse's 60s soul singing (and Janis Joplin styled collapse), I see a slow but steady re-emergence of 1960s culture. So take that, Time Magazine!

I also see that emergence in a lot of the art work you guys are uploading to the site. For instance, there's a 1960s-style combination of politics, pop culture and collage in the work of Rob1nMay.

The 22-year-old from the UK mixes intricate drawings with politically charged messages that lead to some gripping, super dope images.

My favorite piece of his is "a child of our times." Check it out:

If you want to be featured here, hit me up on my page. Do iiiit!

Keeping things in the "political" vein, I want to direct your attention to this dope T shirt (yeah, I know, another T shirt):

It's a really cool design for sure (brown is making a comeback too... I think?) but what makes it special is that 100% of the proceeds of this shirt go towards helping the victims of the Myanmar cyclone. Check out more info here.

Okay gang... until tomorrow...

LK

Hey everyone;

It's insanely hot here in NYC. I was working all day, sitting an inch from the air conditioner and barely left my home office (freelancers know how I roll) so I was basically confined inside all day.

Which reminds me of our artist of the day (and Heywire designer), Fishbucket AKA Steve King. Because he has an animation called Boredom on his profile that pretty much sums up what I'm talking about. Except it's not heat that's keeping the animated character inside. It's a nail that's sticking into his chest.

Morbid? A bit. But I think we can all relate. Check it out.

We need more animation on the site! Animators out there, upload your stuff. And anyone who wants their artwork featured on the site can hit me up on my profile.

Now, yeah, I'm a dude. A manly dude. I think my ability to grow a full beard at the age of 26 proves this (not a lot of my friends can do this). But regardless, I still think this shirt is insanely cute:

It's called the Ultimate Cute Shirt and it's the cool design thing of the day.

Awwwwww.

Thanks everyone!

Lukas K.

Hey all;

What I really love to see among artists on here is a unique point of view and style. It's of course great when people have amazing technical work, but it's even better when they've got the technical side down AND are totally in their own zone.

Lazyslug Stan is one of those artists. His work is odd but fresh. One of the main motifs you first notice on his pieces are the faces. Whether it's a cartoon or a photo-illustration, the Lazyslug Stan face is completely unique. In fact, I'd say that's his trademark.

My two favorite pieces are Mairlug:

and Grilug:

The color schemes and crazy eyes and teeth say it all. I really love his stuff and if, like these pieces say, there's some sort of Lazslug Apparel, well, dude, I'm buying some.

Remember, if you want your artwork featured on the site, please hit me up on my page.

Here's something awesome for comic book fans, design fans and toy fans out there... Tomopop, a very cool toy blog, shares with us Asunaro's series 3 Marvel Babies toy line. These are fresh as hell:

Maybe it's the summer movie season, maybe it's because I just got paid, I don't know what it is, but I'm seriously considering copping all of these. The black Spider-Man is particularly killer. Dang.

Okay everyone, have a great weekend. See yall Monday.

-Lukas K.

Hope everyone's good;

I've finally finished listening to the whole Lil Wayne album. Interesting, crazy stuff. The guy is certainly creative. Which is something we celebrate around here.

Today I'm featuring the work of an illustrator on the site who goes by the name of PRO. PRO is a 19-year-old from China whose work brings to mind artists like KAWS and Jeff Koons (sleek, commercial lines and bright colors coupled with slightly off images).

My two favorite works by PRO are ice cream:

And nohead:

Sick stuff, PRO. If you want your art featured on the blog, hit me up on my page.

All you design/marketing/advertising fans HAVE to check out Weburbanist's two part series on The History of Guerilla Marketing. The piece covers a lot of my favorite Guerilla marketing campaigns that have run, including this classic from Mr. Clean:

That's some serious out of the box thinking right there. Check out this piece, it's pretty fascinating.

Until tomorrow...

-Lukas K

Hey everyone;

Today's artist of the day is Za Izumi. Mr. Izumi is a 21-year-old painter/visual artist from Denmark who specializes in images of Far Eastern dragons. Za Izumi's pieces smash together skater culture with ancient Chinese imagery, creating an awesome visual treat.

My favorite piece of Mr. Izumi's that's on Heywire is "Dusk. (the sixth)" Check it out:

Skaters are often at a loss for what to do with their boards after they've worn out their use, so it's pretty sweet that Za Izumi thought outside of the box and painted this awesome piece on his. Good work, sir. If you want your work featured on the blog, please message me

Do you guys play around with FFFFound? It's a cool site where users post up their favorite images that they've come across while web surfing. Sometimes the images are ridiculous and funny, sometimes they're awesome and inspiring. I'd say this one someone posted up today falls into the latter:

I have no idea where this comes from, but I certainly dig it... even though I'm not sure I've ever been hugged by a book before. That'd be weird.

Okay everyone, take care...

-LK

Hey everyone;

You oftentimes hear that the 'net hurts the arts--at least when mainstream recorded music and filmmaking are concerned. But the internet has certainly HELPED visual artists--especially designers who make T-shirts.

The internet has made T-Shirts into an art form and one Heywire user, Kaiman, is most certainly an artist. Kaiman's designs combine sleek lined illustrations and a strong sense of humor, giving the wearer his or her own 2008 edition of a Banksy or Warhol.

My favorite design of Kaiman's is the one featuring a monkey with x'd out eyes, which seems like a playful quotation of BAPE, among other influences. Check it out:

In non Heywire "news," I came across this on the Colour Lovers Blog

They're called Ghost Bikes and they're basically bicycles painted white and placed in spots where bike riders were struck by cars. This is the sort of vital art you rarely hear about. And if you pass by an all-white bicycle chained up, now you know what's up.

Remember, if you want your profile featured here, please hit me up.

Lukas K.

Hey folks;

It's Lukas again. Hope you had a great weekend. It was scorching hot here in NYC.

We're still kicking around ideas for the name of the blog, but we're sticking to "Notes From The Docent" for now. Anyone who comes up with something better wins an infamous Heywire "no prize" (that reference was for all you reformed comic book heads out there).

Okay let's do this...

Today, I'm going to highlight a few artists in the Architecture section. First up is Jon But. Jon's work is a mixture of modernity and classic elegance. My favorite piece of his is the Infinity Gallery which you can see right here:

I love this piece because it's like the Guggenheim on pasta. Okay, that's a weird way to put it, but I think you get the idea.

Next up is Brandon Shigeta, a graduate of the Harvard Graduate School of Design and an amazing architect. My favorite piece of his is called garden. The futuristic, colorful piece depicts what my backyard would look like if a) I lived on Mars and b) had a backyard. Check it out here:

Awesome stuff.

For our non-Heywire plug of the day, you guys should check out Super Touch Art's coverage of artist Alton Kelley's Psychedelic Poster Art. Anyone who went through a Grateful Dead phase in high school (or who is still living in one now) will be familiar with his awesome, iconic work.

Remember, if you want your work featured on the blog, please hit me up on my page and keep the awesome art coming... you guys rock.

Lukas K.

Hey folks;

Lukas here, back from my extended Memorial day vacation. I actually got to hang out with my sister this weekend, which is rare. Since you guys are art and design fiends, I thought it might be worth mentioning my sister is a fantastic photographer whose work can be seen here. She's taken pictures for Nike, ESPN and a whole slew of other clients, but her portraits are what she loves doing best. Here's a picture she took of our grandma that I think is just awesome:

I guess she's today's non-Heywire artist of the day.

So I've named the blog. But I'm not sure I'm happy about the name. What do you guys think? Should I keep it as "Notes From The Docent"? If you have any suggestions, hit me back on my profile.

We've featured visual artists and rappers on the site so far. Today, I'm going to introduce you all to a producer named Que Rico. Que Rico has a wide array of songs on his profile, from remixes to totally original works. His sound combines the fresh digital quality of modern rap with a sprinkling of samples and funny audio cues, making the platters totally original and fun.

My favorite song on his profile is his remix of Ludacris' "Girls Gone Wild".

If you'd like your art to be featured on the blog, please go to my profile and hit me up.

Until next time,

Lukas

Hola;

Today I thought I'd feature a musician. One of the most popular musicians on the site is soulful rapper De'Von Johnson. De'Von, whose moniker is Vonchi, brings the heat over classic sounding, soul-baked sample-filled beats that bring to mind Blueprint-era Kanye West. A highlight of Vonchi's catalogue on Heywire is the track Alright. Hot.

Remember to send me your work if you want to be featured.

Outside of the Heywire bubble, here's a cool design tutorial for all you Photoshop'rs out there showing you how to create a really frickin' cool Grass Text effect in photoshop, sort of like this:

I expect to see some grass lettering on here ASAP!

Okay folks, until tomorrow...

Lukas

Well howdy. Let's get to it.

Today's featured artist is the photographer, Paul Charles Battaglini. Paul's pictures, often stark black and white studio shots, exist in that vortex that's made when fashion and street photography collide. My personal favorite is his portrait titled Christina Perrotta.

Dope work, Paul. If you want your work featured (or your Heywire/art related announcement made) here, remember to message me.

Today, I'm really loving this guy Benjamin Verdonck's Rotterdam Building Nest:

Says Uncoolhunting.org "Benjamin Verdonck is living in a giant nest hanging from a high-rise building in Rotterdam. The Belgian man says he will be there until May 22nd." Sir, good luck with THAT.

Thanks to Wooster Collective for the heads up.

Until tomorrow...

-Lukas K.

Hey everyone;

It's Lukas here, yet again. Let's keep this rollin'.

Today's artist of the day is Michael C. Hsiung. Michael is an illustrator with a unique style that brings to mind classic Edward Gorey cartoons mixed with a fresh, digital palate. The collision humor and slightly strange dramatic tension forms a set of truly imaginative illustrations, which can be seen on Mr. Hsiung's portfolio.

I came across something you design heads might love... the Rather Difficult Font Game. The game's premise is easy--you're presented with a word that's in a mystery font and asked to identify which font that is, out of four choices. I scored 15 out of 34. Let's hope you fare better.

Remember, if you want to be featured here or if you have an announcement relevant to the Heywire community, hit me up.

-Lukas

Hey there everyone;

It's Lukas, one of the moderators here at Heywire. We're going to try something different and attempt to bring you guys daily updates. We'll be highlighting some of our favorite art that's been uploaded to the site, we'll be bringing you guys announcements from us and (if you send them in) from you. Got an art opening, film screening or concert coming up? Hit me up and I'll be sure to share the news with the community.

I'll also be covering cool art, design and music news that I think you guys would dig.

For today's post, I'd love to yet again bring your attention to Heywire user Steven's DAILY cartoon Tristan Inchwary. He's bringing you guys a cartoon EVERY day, so be sure to check it out and show him some love.

Also, Heywire musicians Chester French have a song blazing up the interwebs called "Fall Back," which they recorded with Talib Kweli and Res. It's pretty funny and pretty dope and you can check that out here.

For today's non-Heywire artwork I'd like to highlight, make sure you check out Wooster Collective's awesome Athens street art:

Send me all your announcements and give me a message if you'd like to be a featured artist here on the blog.

Take care everyone and thanks for making Heywire part of your day.

-Lukas K.

We'd like to take a moment to welcome Tristan Inchwary, a comic creation of longtime Heywire member Steven Rhodes. Steven is uploading a new Tristan Inchwary installment to Heywire every day, check it out!

Tristan Inchwary, a comic strip by Steven Rhodes

Want to discuss your artwork? Want to announce an event? Want to introduce yourself to the community? Want to share anything that happens to cross your mind? 

Click yourself over to the brand new Heywire Forum and start posting!

We've just added a new feature called tags. You can add tags to your profile and your artwork. What are tags, you ask? Tags are series of words or short phrases that can be used to find your profile or your work. You can use as many or as few as you like, but try to use tags that help identify who you are or what your work is about. They might include your interests (i.e. "photography" or "music") or describe you in some meaningful way. (i.e. "awesome" or "norwegian")

As far as your work, you could add some things to describe your medium (i.e. "watercolor" or "hip hop") or the tools you used (i.e. "pen and ink" or "protools")

Your tags are displayed with your profile, on your work and also become part of our tag clouds, which are here for profiles and here for artwork.

See that big image on the left side of the homepage? It's a piece by one of the Heywire Guild & Gallery members. We selected it as a featured artwork because:  

 1. we like it  

 2. it's tall

That space is best filled with artwork that's tall. (600-800 pixels high, after it's been scaled down to 354 pixels wide.) Got some art that you think would fit in there perfectly? Upload it and let us know! 

We're growing! We just launched three new artwork categories...

DIGITAL
Upload your digital stills: Web design, 3D modeling, logos, video game design...

DANCE
Upload videos of your dance skills: Breakdancing, ballet, choreography, ballroom dancing, the robot, popping and/or locking...

INSTALLATIONS
Upload photos of your installation art.

Got any suggestions for other categories you'd like to see? Let us know!

We've added an "actors" section. If you're an actor or actress working (or starting to work) in film, television or stage, just edit your profile and check the box marked "List me in the 'Actors' gallery". Also, make sure you've got a profile picture so we can display it on the gallery page.

Okay, that was a lame joke, but it was to announce a cool feature you may not know about. If you put http:// in front of any URLs in your Artist's Statement, Artwork Descriptions or blog entries, our fancy Internet robots will make them into live links. So, for example, if you wanted to link to your MySpace page, just put http://myspace.com/thejaybill instead of just myspace.com/thejaybill and we'll do the rest.

We just added video uploads to the site! You can put your 2D/3D animations in the ANIMATIONS category (obviously) and everything else (video art, demo reels, music videos, dance routines, short films, etc.) into the VIDEO category.

Add your video now!

Heywire Guild & Gallery is proud to announce the launch of heywiregallery.com. This is the online space where artists can share their passion with a community of fellow artists in all different mediums.

A lot of exciting developments are in store over the next few months. So keep checking back here to find out the latest news. And register for an account now to start sharing your art.