Post navigation

Prev: (08/08/12) | Next: (08/09/12)

On the List | Perseids, Oz in Cal Anderson, 12th Ave Fest, Conservatory benefit (+24 more)

Posted on by

(Image: Levi Hastings)

It’s a remarkably busy weekend line-up for Capitol Hill starting with Thursday night’s art walk, continuing with Friday’s Cal Anderson movie, the East Precinct’s annual picnic on Saturday and the third annual 12th Ave Festival on Sunday. That day also brings you the fantastic opportunity to support the Volunteer Park Conservatory with a little croquet and Victorian Day dress-up fun. Good, summer-y times on the Hill. Enjoy.

August Capitol Hill Art Walk Highlights
Levi Hastings, full time graphic designer, and returning artist for Blitz!, will be showing his illustrative, hand drawn work at Poco Wine Room. In July, Levi contributed to group show “Wunderkammer” at True Love Art Gallery and before that, he showed at 00 Salon (just around the corner from True Love). Levi’s work, which fits into what could be dubbed as “fine art illustration, or illustrative fine art”, combines the use of ink, and watercolor, and while he does use his graphic design skills to “clean up” the work, Hastings works entirely by hand.

“Partly because I work on the computer all day, I react to that by just wanting to go analog,” he said. “If I’m working for something that’s going to be seen digitally, I will edit and take out the irregularities digitally.”

The use of watercolor, a loveable yet fickle medium, plays heavily into his work. “The unpredictability of it is something I really enjoy as well because even when you’re working in digital color it’s very deliberate. With watercolor there’s a certain amount that’s out of control.”

The thick, haunting edges of the watercolor in Levi’s work just might remind you of that wine ring you might find on your table at the end of the evening at Poco. In a great way.

(Image: Brandon Vosika)

Among the names that have started popping up regularly at shows on the Hill, Blitz! is also featuring newcomer Brandon Vosika to the walk with his first show at Cupcake Royale. Despite being a newbie, Vosika has 57 pieces of work on display at the hills’ guilty pleasure, which gives us the idea that he’s done this before.

A few free-association words that came to mind when first viewing Vosika’s work: mustaches, ships, tobacco, old timey sea captains. Picking his brain helped me discover the truth behind my associations.

CHS: So, you have a niche which is interesting…I can tell you dig mustaches, and I can sense something folky about the portraits (‘scuse me if I’m off point here)
Brandon Vosika: I listen to a lot of Tom Waits and Ukranian Lemko music and I like to have fun when I paint now, and drink.

CHS: So in your old timey yarn-tellin’ chamber you create for yourself, do you think you make portraits as a form of storytelling or are they all from your head or self portaits?
BV: I draw what I want and then it comes out different (sic) sometimes. Then I sometimes add words. There is a story for almost everything though. I make them up or work from others.

CHS: Any writers you’re inspired by? Or artists?
BV: I would say…Waits, Bukowski, Basquiat. I used to be very into Scheile.

CR: I knew it! (About Scheile.)
BV: I’m inspired very much too by antique photos. I have a huge collection…photos of carnival folk from like 1890, shit like that. I prefer photos prior to the ‘30’s but that’s neither here nor there I suppose. 

CHS: They’re a bit creepier. In a good way. In like, their eyes can’t open, way. So where can we see your work after this show at Cupcake Royale?
BV: Well this fine lady from a place called RetroFitHome asked me to show my work for Dec/Jan.

Not only does Vosika spin out tons of new work, he also sells it for a modest price. “About the prices of my art, a lot of people say the prices are too low but I am a firm believer that everyone should be able to own original art. And it’s better to be taken now with someone than to sit in a box in my closet, waiting for the next show.”

In addition to Poco and Cupcake Royale, check out the full listing for Blitz! right here.

You can also check out the informative @blitzarts Twitter feed for live updates on arts walk happenings.

Here is the rest of this week’s On the List: 

Thursday 8/9

Friday 8/10

Saturday 8/11

  • Perseids peak:

    As of early morning on August 10, 2012, the zenithal hourly rate (ZHR) of meteors visible in a dark sky has gone up to 42! That’s according to the International Meteor Organization. It’s time to watch meteors! The peak mornings for the annual Perseid meteor shower will be August 11, 12 and 13, but clearly any time now is good. August 12 might be the best morning. August 11 might be better than August 13. The moon is waning now. The Delta Aquarid and Perseid meteor showers combine in late July and August to create what most consider the best and most reliable meteor display for Northern Hemisphere observers. As always, after midnight is the best time for meteor-watching. The moon will be there, but getting thinner every morning. On the mornings (not the evenings) of August 11, 12 and 13, the moon will be a waning crescent, and the meteors should be flying at a rate closer to their peak of 50 or 60 meteors per hour. As an added treat – on August 11, 12 and 13 – the moon will be sweeping past the brightest planets Venus and Jupiter in the eastern predawn sky. You can’t ask for more!

  • Pike/Pine Walking Tour by SAF 10A Outside of Broadway Performance Hall
  • SPUN Collective Closing/Sample Sale 11A – 7P at SPUN
  • Fabulous Felines Cat Adoptathon 12P at Miller Community Center
  • Kate Bornstein: A Queer and Pleasant Danger 7P at Elliott Bay Book Co.
  • On The Sly 7P at Northwest Film Forum
  • East Precinct Picnic, 12th Ave between Pike and Pine, 1-4p
  • Everything for Everyone Festival, August 11th and 12th. Free! Jefferson Park on Beacon Hill

The Everything for Everyone Festival is a free, two-day music, art, and politics festival scheduled to take place in Seattle, Washington on August 11th and 12th.

In 2011, the rule of the 1% began to be challenged in brand new ways. A wave of discontent with the old older of things began in Egypt and Tunisia in the Spring. This wave gained strength and momentum into the Fall with the Occupy movement. Now in 2012, there is a desire coming from everywhere on the planet to continue that spirit of resistance of 2011, and to develop it in new and meaningful ways. This desire for change is not manifesting itself in the traditional forms of opposition to the current system, nor is that desire seeking just to “fix” the old oppressive order to make it seem “fairer” to the relative few on the planet.

Sunday 8/12

Subscribe and support CHS Contributors -- $1/$5/$10 per month

Comments are closed.