TeXt Marks The Spot

To date, more than 15 emerging artists have participated in ToyCyte’s custoMONDAYs.

Click here to read more about The custoMONDAY Project.

Click here to view the entire archive of all custoMONDAY artists.

Click here to view the website of graphic artist Jason Babler, designer of the custoMONDAY logo.

Every other Monday  on ToyCyte, I spotlight an emerging artist. Each profile includes an interview, comprehensive photos, links to the artists’ online imprints and a contest where the artist gives away a customized art toy or original creation to a lucky fan. The figures are all exclusively created for the custoMONDAY Project, and not to be immodest, but some of them are worth several hundred dollars.

I work to promote each artist during their two-week “residence” by reaching out to other blogs and fan forums. The artists who have been a part of custoMONDAY are truly tomorrow’s art stars. Some have been tapped to make production figures for Chinese and Japanese toy companies, one saw his figure auctioned in London, one caught the attention of Kanye West, and others regularly sell out in stores and shows.

Click here to read more about The custoMONDAY Project.

Click here to view the entire archive of all custoMONDAY artists.

Click here to view the website of graphic artist Jason Babler, designer of the custoMONDAY logo.

The custoMONDAY project brings significant attention to artists. A couple examples of custoMONDAY creations below are followed by the viral re-blogging of one of our biggest success stories.

custoMONDAY creation by Mike Slobot

custoMONDAY creation by OsirisOrion

custoMONDAY creation by MONSTREHERO

ABOVE: custoMONDAY creation by Dustin Cantrell

BELOW: Dustin’s custoMONDAY goes viral.

A quick note about Doodlesplatter: In my daily postings about art, toys, design and culture, I found myself blogging Jon Burgerman more than any other artist. A t-shirt here, a skateboard there, but certainly something every single week. I became very interested in the variety of “canvases” open to today’s artists, and I began to dig around. Whether you’re sick on a plane (airplane vomit bag) or stuck in the rain (umbrella collab with SIZE?), Jon’s doodles are there to cheer you. The more I searched (Jon called it an “e-dig”), the more I found. This site is meant to complement Jon’s other sites as a “blogography” or archive from a fan’s perspective. It also functions as a glimpse into what’s possible for artists who want to go beyond the easel. Under construction!

This weekend saw the opening of a custom toy show based around the imagery of Japanese toys. It Came From Skullbrain profiled the talent (much of it local) from the Skullbrain forum, an off-shoot of San Francisco’s Super7, which hosted the event. ICFSB brought out a mix of folks: from kids in strollers to old-schoolers, and of course, lots of Japanese toy fans. I’m reminded of Mark Nagata’s commentary about the Kaiju Comrades show in Tokyo where Mark writes: “They are not used to seeing one artist customizing another person’s figures, and for some the prices were ‘crazy’.”  Or as Steve Agin put it: “This is really one of the most interesting art modes of the present. I know of no precedent for it…It can be tough representing the repainting of another artist’s figure as your original work, especially in a potential ‘mine field’ of egos.”

Read the rest and see all the pieces from the show.

Never before has there been an all-resin art toy group show of this proportion and significance. Over the course of the evening, people chatted about how it is the “right time” for resin. The recession slowed down factory (vinyl) production and simultaneously gave collectors pause to rethink buying pricier products. Meanwhile, a handful of art stars rose to fame with the aid of companies and stores, leaving many artists on the periphery. Is resin the solution? Well, anyone with artistic intent can learn the process and pass on the cost savings to their collectors. This results in a vibrant art toy community, the likes of which we haven’t seen in years. I really feel like we are on the edge of a movement.

Read the rest and see all the pieces in the show.

A San Francisco art toy show like no other!

Last night, a variety of homegrown Insurgents Wilderness Gruppo mutations hit San Francisco’s Rocket World for the first I.W.G. custom show. If you’ve never been to Rocket World (aka T.A.D. Gear), you owe it to yourself to visit Patrick Ma’s haven for high end adventure gear and designer toys. Enter the garage doors to one of the most untraditional spaces for an art show, and you’ll mix it up with cops, military personnel, artists, fanboys, fangirls and families checking out customized toys, stealth jackets and titanium sporks. As Patrick says, this kind of diversity is precisely what San Francisco is all about.

Read the rest and see all the pictures.