STENCIL NATION

| 1 comments | Monday, March 30, 2009
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Friday, April 10 at 7:30 pm, Russell Howze presents a slide show at Northtown Books from his book "Stencil Nation: Graffiti, Community, and Art", which features over 500 full-color photographs.

The book presents work by more than 350 artists from 28 countries, including Iran, Australia, Japan, Canada, Spain, Lebanon, Israel, and the United States. Featured artists include: Banksy, Jef Aerosol, Logan Hicks, Adam5100, Arofish, M-City, SWOON, Hao, John Fekner, Peat Wollaeger, Klutch, and others.

Russell Howze saw his first stencil in 1990, which was J. R. "Bob" Dobbs on an apartment wall in Clemson, SC. In 1995, Russell saw an amazing sight on the exterior wall of the Reichstag in Berlin: a huge stenciled Bertolt Brecht poem. He snapped a photo of that stencil, then found one in Budapest, Hungary. Then a few more stencils appeared in Basel, Switzerland. When he landed in San Francisco in 1997, he found dozens on the sidewalks of the Mission and Haight neighborhoods. He's never stopped photographing the sometimes temporary, always intriguing art form.

In 2002, Russell created the first version of Stencil Archive, thinking that he would have time to scan and upload his own collection before anyone discovered the site and submitted their own work. He was gladly mistaken, so Stencil Archive took off and ended up becoming a site with over 10,000 uploaded photographs. At the time of its inception, Stencil Archive was the only international stencil site out there (for a few months). Now there are dozens of sites with tens of thousands of photographs. Russell continues to curate his site, posting stencils from around the world and featuring dozens of amazing artists.

When not photographing, making, painting, and uploading stencils, Russell fills his time by doing one or more of the following fun things: being a carny for the Sustainable Living Roadshow, riding his bike, writing for his blog, cooking healthy food, creating vector art and putting it on stickers and buttons, producing events, puppeteering, listening to good music, traveling, and volunteering/protesting to make the world a better place.

He currently lives in San Francisco's Mission District, and is usually seen on his bike with his camera slung around his shoulder.

A "vibrant exploration of a sub-sub-genre.... [T]his volume crosses the globe for a swift tour of the world's best artists, making it a handsome and insightful introduction to the form." - Publishers Weekly, 10/16/2008

UPDATE: We had a packed house here at Northtown, and Russell enjoyed kicking off his tour here.

JJ SEMPLE

| 0 comments | Thursday, March 26, 2009
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In his latest book The Backward-Flowing Method: The Secret of Life and Death, JJ Semple examines the meditation techniques for activating the Kundalini-Life Force.

His previous book, Deciphering the Golden Flower One Secret at a Time, told the story of his Kundalini awakening.

In The Backward-Flowing Method, he examines the meditation techniques that led to his awakening, analyzes meditation practices across cultures and throughout the ages, and offers a method that has the following real world results:

Triggering autonomic self-healing mechanisms capable of correcting defects related to neural degeneration;
Rejuvenating the body, retarding the aging process, stimulating neuroplastic activity; Reversing self-destructive and addictive behavior;
Heightening and enhancing consciousness to effect release from Karmic bondage;
Facing death without fear and facilitating the transition into the next state of being.
Join JJ Semple Friday March 27th at 7 pm for this event.

For more information, go here.

ANNE IGOU

| 0 comments | Wednesday, March 11, 2009
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On Friday March 13th AT 7 PM , local artist Anne Igou presents her new book I Can't Believe I'm Creating Millefiore, and shares her techniques for creating polymer clay jewelry.

Millefiore means "a thousand flowers" and imitates the look of intricate Italian glass art.

Anne has taught workshops all over the country, and has made appearances on several national television shows. At Northtown, she'll do a demonstration of how she creates her pieces.

Please join us this Friday.



GROUP PORTRAIT

| 0 comments | Thursday, March 5, 2009
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(l-r) Erik Syverson, Monika Zerzan, Jay Herzog, Dante Digenova, Deric Mendes, and standing in for Simone Goldenberg, Max (in front).


The staff at Northtown recently was asked, along with several other local independent bookstores, to help judge the North Coast Journal's flash fiction contest.

The group picture above was taken for the paper by Bob Doran.

 

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