Emvergeoning

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..a few things I experienced this weekend in San Antonio.

Seeing the EPA, back on site at the old Big Tex Grain Silos, testing again? (last update from SA Current) Riding my bike by today it seemed like they were set up for the night, this would make the second time they have spent time gathering samples here. When I spoke with the manager onsite last time he told me it was a waiting game, if the results came back conclusive they would be back for more tests..It was turned into an EPA Superfund site sometime last year(oops, maybe longer).
(disclosure : I shot this photo weeks ago for the Current, when the EPA were first onsite.. I had to be driven onto the property in a protected vehicle..It was not the first time I had to question the four years I spent out here working on and inside of FL!GHT Gallery, which was once housed in the now fenced off Silo # 18)

One more of the mayors new projects came online last night, the reopening/renovation of Main Plaza (in front of San Fernando Cathedral) was celebrated with a fountain lighting and an LED piece with the San Antonio Symphony and Bill FitzGibbons collaborating..

Also opening with much fanfare was Mignon Harkraders “Swellegant,” this last Second Saturday at FL!GHT. We’re all pretty proud of the improvements in our dry goods room around here also (2nd image). Mignon’s show will be up through the end of the month.

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Spaztek Test Flight # 2

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The crowds in Alamo Plaza (photo by Justin Parr)

Houston Street (photo by Justin Parr)

Chuck Ramirez in front of Bill FitzGibbons‘ Alamo installation holding a Parr mylar sculpture (photo by Justin Parr)

The Mixing Chamber (Stuart Allen / Potter-Belmar Labs) at SAMA (photo by David S. Rubin)

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(The community gives him a saucy welcome.)

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(sorry about the political intrusion, folks)

Local artists Cruz Ortiz, Bunnyphonic, Joe De La Cruz and myself spent 3 or 4 hours earlier tonight screening our own Obama campaign signs. We made one for every voter’s personality. Apparently nobody thought Texas was going to be very important in the whole scheme of things, so very few campaign signs have made it down our way yet. Cruz thought it better that we represent in grassroots style for the TV cameras coming through town when he speaks. If you would like one of these, there are more than 70 from tonight alone and plans for more in the next few weeks. Call to get one or to volunteer time or ideas for more. These are 2-sided, hand-screened and can come with a stake.

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This last weekend, I got the opportunity to shoot some photos of Bill FitzGibbons‘ recent work Katonah Lights at the Katonah Museum of Art in Katonah, New York. (Can I say Katonah again?) Creighton Michael & Leslie Cecil were amazing hosts for the weekend, and I can’t say enough nice things about the show (Shattering Glass: New Perspectives). I’m a longtime fan of innovative glass art after having taken a short study in borosilicate lampworking a few years back. The show did a good job of melding together increasingly versatile genres and styles of glasswork, from poured crystal rope to offhand glass jellyfish charged with neon and incorporating pyrex tubing. Bill’s Katonah Lights, made up of glass L.E.D.’s pulsing to an elaborate 8 minute program, became really great ever-changing eye candy for the steady stream of traffic going down Route 22 in Katonah.

(thats Bill in the photo above)

Katonah Lights will be on view @ the Katonah Museum of Art until Feb 24, 2008.

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A little while back we did a series of posts on publicly accessible outsider artwork in San Antonio. One of the artists we covered was the Rev. Seymour Perkins, a controversial figure who lives on the east side of town. While others argue over whether he harbors drugs and prostitutes, and his lawyer battles with the city over the fate of his home, we here at Emvergeoning decided to take another peak at the work that isn’t so publicly accessible — the work inside his home. As Rev. Perkins gave us the tour I tried to absorb all the details, while Justin Parr snapped shot after shot of the inner sanctuary. From what I was able to gather, Seymour Perkins’ daughter, Debbie Jo Christi, was killed in a drug-related conflict on February 22, 1994. Here is a drawing on one of the walls that depicts her murder:

On the same day, the tallest angel in Heaven appeared to Seymour Perkins, revealing to him a tunnel that runs under his home, which is in fact the famous Underground Railroad. This tunnel connects his home to the Alamo and the Menger Hotel, and runs on down into Mexico. After receiving this prophecy (which I am recounting in only a very fragmentary and woefully incomplete way), Perkins founded the Debbie Jo Christi Museum, and Hanging Tough Ministries. Here is a painting of the tunnel running under the Perkins estate:

Here are a few shots inside the Debbie Jo Christi Museum:

The Museum is located in a small building in the back of the house. But within the actual house, where Rev. Perkins delivers most of his sermons, there are a number of fascinating works. In his bedroom, the pieces below are painted on the wall. The first is a self-portrait of Rev. Perkins with his son:

Next to this painting, is a larger work depicting one of his assistants, whose ass is stuck to his ass (i.e. he doesn’t know if he’s coming or going):

Below are a few details of one work painted on a window shade, depicting a man named Timothy Ringer, “the funkiest man in San Antonio”:

In addition to these works, dealing with himself, his family, and other meaningful people in his life, Perkins showed us a few pieces dealing with his relationship with God and History:

Now, this post isn’t intended to rally support around Rev. Seymour Perkins, or to say anything about his proper place in our community. I’ll leave that to his neighbors, his lawyers, and the city’s elected officials. But I did think it would be good for people to see what is inside his home — if it is destroyed in the coming months, this may sadly be one of the most complete documents of what it contained. To see more of his work, please visit the San Angel Folk Art gallery in the Blue Star arts complex.

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exhibit a : Audio from Karen Mahaffy describing the execution.

exhibit b :

(photos copyright Justin Parr 2008)

INTRODUCING NEW EVIDENCE:

exhibit c : futureWorkerGirl reflects on artist as murderer, victim, pimp and ho.

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(words: Aaron Forland, photos: Justin Parr)

Who would have thought the day would come when the mighty Emvergeoning machine would get scooped on its home turf by a little-known upstart lowbrow/street art magazine called Juxtapoz?  Not only that, but with photos we took, documenting a one-of-a-kind, one-night-only (thanks to our crack City maintenance crews – good lookin’ out, fellas) extralegal public art installation coordinated and executed by a group calling itself Uniting Artists Through Crime.  Word has it that Scotch! and co-conspirators utilized the awesome networking power of to pull off this small coup.  The diverse international show was mounted (after a false start one week prior) during daytime hours Monday, December 17th on the defunct, boarded-up former haven for the transient on North Saint Marys at Convent, directly across from our beautiful Greyhound Bus Station.  As the press release (which also contained the magic word emerging) stated, the show ran “until the buff,” which, as mentioned, went down the following day.  Fortunately, Fl!ght World Headquarters received a telephone tip late Monday night and we were able to semi-thoroughly document it in the wee morning hours.

The show featured the work of artists from four continents, and may be the largest wheatpaste-based collaborative installation ever mounted in Texas.  Standout works came from (Florida), New York City’s stencil-mad Bot, the sociopolitical stylings of (Malaysia), and San Antonio’s own fevered x-acto imagists and .  Other contributing artists included (Califas), Aphro (SA), Bomit (Houston), Chis La Notte (Madrid, España), Dual (Houston), Dwell/Oneunit (NYC), Enosh (Califas), Enos One (SA), Genevieve (SA), (Queensland, Australia), Give Up (Houston), (SA), REPS/EPSR (SA), Washer (DC), Wes (SA) and probably a few others (apologies to anyone left out – I did my best to ID you all.)  Media varied from traditional wheatpaste methods of xeroxed, screened or stenciled paper to hand-painted pieces and even stenciled metal plates.

Here you will find the entirety of Justin’s photos, and here are some supplementary celly snaps I took attempting to show a little more detail.

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To celebrate Emvergeoning’s first birthday, we will be meeting at the Tower Bar at 8 pm Monday evening. All our readers are invited to join us. We have arranged to have the first $100 worth of drinks covered. Once the altitude starts making us dizzy, we’re heading over to Tucker’s for a night cap. Hope to see you there!

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Shameless self promotion? possible. This is for the opening of our show at FL!GHT Gallery tonite on South Flores. Over 40 artists have brought new and old work to be sneezed out of our “Dry Goods” room. The image you see is of the halfway completed hanging..just a taste of what you’ll see tonite.

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(updated on 11/29/07) follow up by the landowners “buff” crew :

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Heres a little recap of the Ken Little performance of Yoko’s “Cut Piece.”

(all photos by Justin Parr, click here for a more extensive folder of images)

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I took part in San Antonios semi-regular Bike Gang Summit the other night for Halloween. During the process of riding through spooky parts of the city, we stopped at a cemetary on the East Side. It quickly degenerated into a game of Wheres Waldo..take a look (Waldo makes an appearance in each of these images).

To see images from the entire night go here.

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Efterklang is a good way to start the day…

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So, it depends on who your list is made up of, but to some folks at La Tuna this past Friday night, it reminded them a little bit of of high school when they thought they knew somebody in the crowd..

he looks kinda familiar.. wait.. heres a Bryan De La Garza Polaroid of him :

oh wait.. here he is with Tori Amos.

…

oh!

Now I remember.

what a wierd Friday…

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Everybody has their own story about who won this year, Please post yours in the comments below.

All of these photos (and bunches more with labels) are located here.

click on the link below for more action!

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Emvergeoning’s NYC correspondent fvc sent the following account of a day on which mushrooms threaded together Max Neuhaus’ Times Square sound installation and the Boredoms’ recent “77 Boadrum” concert in a park under the Brooklyn Bridge. As luck would have it, I happened to get ahold of a recording of this very concert through another friend. Follow the link at the bottom of the post to download the MP3. Photos provided by generous Flickr users.

Several weeks ago some friends were sitting around at my apartment on a hot lazy sunday afternoon. They wanted some weed so they called a guy who sent his runner over with a briefcase of pot, hash, mushrooms, pills and powders, each in at least 2 or 3 varieties. The dealer even had a neat “menu” with descriptions of everything for sale. Drugs are a very professional service industry in Manhattan, if you have the right numbers.

Everyone bought some weed and then the dealer gave a 20 sided die to J — who called the number three and then tossed the die — a three. So he won a bag of mushrooms. After the sun set and we had gone to go look for a place to eat dinner, the mushrooms where left behind. They sat around my apartment for almost a month.

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