Miriello Grafico

BARRIO LOGAN DESCUBIERTO is a visual celebration of the working waterfront Hispanic neighborhood in San Diego, called Barrio Logan. The 88 page book is a graphic expose of the visual richness and unique creative energy of the community, featuring details of murals, typography,  sign painters, activists art and general community visual richness.
The book is designed by the team here at MG, led by Lauren English, many who have been active in the promotion and celebration of the community and it’s passionate and active creative members. The book contains a listing our neighborhood discoveries of cool, including artists, restaurants, activists, cafes, place we as designers have discovered and wanted to turn others onto.

While many work so feverishly to be wealthy, then build a fence around the property and never come in contact with the real world, the Barrio stands for the opposite. It’s a place where people share their feelings, their color, and eccentricities. The pathway to riches very much depends on how you define the riches. – RM

Preview the complete book at  http://www.miriellografico.com/mg/barriobook/. The book is available from that link for about $68.  That’s the publishers price, but they do a decent job. (We’ll even customize it with tipped-in found objects from the streets if you want to bring it in.)

Viva mejor.

The design world lost an icon the end of January when Lucienne Day passed away at the age of 93. Day, along with her furniture designer husband, Robin, were often seen as Britain’s power design couple equivalent to Charles and Ray Eames. Lucienne’s bright, abstract fabric designs pioneered the modern design aesthetic of textile design. Pick up this great book on this design duo by Chronicle Books to see what kind a genius they are. I’ve long coveted one of her mid-century fabrics and would love to have any one of these above hanging in my house (hint!). Her designs are simply striking and fresh as they were 60 years ago.

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Instead of having the circus come to town once a year, what if it was a monthly deal in the backyard of an old house- showing the bizarre instead of the banal? That’s what’s been happening at Bruce Cartier’s Technomania Circus a few blocks from Miriello Grafico, here in Barrio Logan.

Here’s what Cartier says about it, “Technomania Circus is difficult to explain, but easy to enjoy. You never know what you’ll find happening in the Blackyard: blacklight illusion, performance art, dance, puppetry, music, and more. Whatever you find, it’s never ordinary. From our inception in North Park’s Xanth Club in 1999, to a several-year stint in the Bay Area, to the current location at the Center for Amusing Arts in Barrio Logan, we’ve been breaking down the barriers between performer and audience, between culture and crudity, and changing everything you thought you knew about theater in the process. We strive to remain all-inclusive yet retain our edgy and experimental nature.”

I’m making it part of my 2010 entertainment plan. Gotta love the grassroots, underground energy behind it all. And besides I seemed to have outgrown the Barnum’s thing a while back.- RM

Muralists Crol and Werc finish up their latest commission in Barrio Logan.

Take a look at the making and the results at . . . http://www.laentradaproject.com/videos/pared1web.mov

Also check out the La Entrada Project  community arts website to see how the mural tradition is being kept alive and directed to positive outcomes.

I’ve noticed an undeniable resurgence in the interest in bicycles- older bicycles- over the past year.  Classic steel-frame bikes in particular, have made a return and are being recrafted now into individual custom-assembled, personal statements about their maker.

The show we had here at Miriello Grafico/The Logan last September – Reinventing The Wheel- featured cool frameworks by Sky Boyer and the boys at VeloCult, in San Diego.  I must have six friends currently scouting for particular frames they can build their custom creations around.  Buying off the shelf is out, scanning eBay and garage sales for forgotten and neglected bike parts is in.

Pushing the trend even further from the fine arts end, is Willie Cole, an artist from New Jersey (born 1955) who transforms ordinary domestic parts, irons, lawn jockeys, and bicycles parts into sculpture with references to African-American and West African religion, mythology and culture.  Cole has shown at The Whitney, The Walker and The National Gallery in D.C.   A Toronto friend sent me these shots from their museum where she spotted Cole’s work this week.

Find out more on Cole and his other work from Kimberly Brooks’ article on the Huffington Post.

Imogen Heap’s music improvisation at the 2008 Pop! Tech Conference is pretty amazing stuff. Heap is a combination of unique talents, as well as a fearlessness and technological playfulness that can together create on-the-spot musical magic.

SUBLIMINAL, is a LA gallery space the origins of which came from Shepard Fairey and Blaze Blouin as an artist collective in 1995. The group played an integral part in introducing skateboarding culture and design to the art world, showcasing artists such as Phil Frost, Thomas Campbell, Mike Mills, Dave Aaron, and Mark Gonzales.

As client directed innovation becomes harder to come by, the self-directed approach of Subliminal and Shepard Fairey is more important than every to maintaining innovation among creatives. Why wait for a patron to use your inherent skills.

Shepard and Amanda Fairey continued to host and curate exhibitions that featured artists such as Ryan McGinness, HunterGatherer, David Ellis, Doze Green, Aesthetic Apparatus, Space Invader, Jim Houser and Andrew Jeffery Wright. In 2003, the Subliminal Projects gallery was officially opened in the Los Angeles offices of Studio Number One. The scope of the gallery remained true to its roots while embracing new forms of graphic art, illustration, photography and time-based media.

Subliminal is now located in the historic Los Angeles neighborhood of Echo Park, Subliminal Projects continues to offer a platform for artistic exploration and innovation. The 2008 schedule is on their website and includes art exhibitions by established and emerging artists, as well as a lecture series, workshops and artist publications.

The letter forms are a collaboration between Subliminal and Delaware-based House Industries.

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 I had never spent time in Houston before so when Alex Barber, the incoming president of the Art Directors Club of Houston, invited me to help judge submissions to the 53rd Annual Art Directors Club of Houston, I was there.

In some ways Houston was what I expected, a city shaped by the oil industry, big money and conservative politics. But it was also a place of cool surprises, risk-taking creativity and reinvention. The ADCH kept the five judges running all weekend. If we weren’t huddled in a print warehouse evaluating Houston’s creative work, we were eating BBQ or becoming best friends with Houston artists, print makers and designers. With a largely traditional client base, the ADCH has a vital purpose in the Houston design scene where a creative community helps in the role of inspiring, promoting and pushing. Especially critical when the marketplace itself isn’t doing the pushing for them. And let’s face it, the marketplace is rarely the driving force for new creative invention in the end.

The judges group was stellar. It included art director Michael Borosky from Eleven, photographer Jeffrey Brown, illustrator Sterling Hundley and web expert Molly Holzschlag. Saturday night was a blow-out event with Houston artist Wayne Gilbert, a painter and Houston original whose pigments are made from human remains.

The last morning I spotted a bar room sign on the side of the road, ripped-down recently by the devastation of hurricane Ike. 10 minutes after I’d said, “I’d love to have that sign”, ADCH leader Jamie Farquhar was on the phone to her brother, “Get your truck out to highway 56 where it jogs south – right now. I need you to pick up something for a friend of mine.”  I was getting another glimpse of what makes Houston. . . Houston.

Scheduling a major party on the first day of the stock market’s downturn and the Vice Presidential debates might seem like its own form of social-suicide. Instead, the opening party of The Logan building was exactly what the masses needed. A place to meet, share, commune and understand that we are all in this together. And quite possibly, the innovation and problem-solving skills of the creative community may be more essential to the national dialogue than ever.

Ron Miriello toasted the crowd, “Our shared abilities of creativity and collaboration are fast becoming a new and important currency-type. As the financial markets waver and the myopic drive for individual wealth is paused, there’s an opportunity for the creative mindset and their unique abilities of invention, collaboration and informed risk-taking. The unique abilities of the people in this room are needed at a time like this.”

The celebration brought over 300 designers, architects, politicos, writers, artists and business people together to enjoy an evening in the creative beachhead neighborhood of Barrio Logan. The hosts – Miriello Grafico and LJG Partners – invited friends, clients and community members to a celebration – and celebrate they did. The Barrio restaurant, The Guild, managed the food and Temecula Valley ConVis organized the wines, all offerings from Temecula Valley. The Barrio Logan spokesperson Rachael Ortiz, arts tagger Crol, and the Mariachi Juvenil helped first-time visitors better understand the rich culture and history of the neighborhood. San Diego architects were plentiful, including the designer of The Logan, Jonathan Segal, who created a space where people obviously love to linger, share and invent.

Watch the party video on YouTube created by Jeff Durkin.                                                                        Find incriminating party pictures on Flickr.

The Sanctuary 143 nomadic artist collective opened their Reinventing The Wheel artist installation at Miriello Grafico’s Logan warehouse to over 700 people. “It felt more like New York than San Diego”, “I’ve never seen so many people into an art event in San Diego before”, and “I was blown away to find this level of energy, and in Barrio Logan of all places.”–were some of the comments coming out of the din.

Several artists and bikesmiths, including Ron Miriello of Miriello Grafico, contributed to the show pieces, all based loosely on the theme of reinventing- rethinking- the wheel. Velo Cult of South Park San Diego had 100 night-riding bicycle members arrive in mass to swarm the show and further expand the eclectic crowd of artists, designers, politicos, media, kids, dogs and hipsters.

Sanctuary 143 is an artist group, masterfully driven by Sean and Stacy Kelley and Jeff Faeth, with an approach to arts events founded on low egos, true collaboration and hard work. You can see photos of the Reinventing The Wheel event on Flickr.

Learn more about Sanctuary 143 and their next event  at : http://www.sanctuary143.com/category/events/