new prints & books & tees up in the shop!

Hey kids,

It’s been a busy summer in the silkscreen studio, and finally I can share some of the work I’ve been producing. There’s a mess of new stuff to peruse on the shop page: the collaborative book by Mister Jim Winters and myself, Queen for Two Weeks, numbered and signed and packed up pretty in a cellophane wrapper. The super-tall-and super-fifties Sutro Tower screenprint. The longer-than tall Lake Merritt (featuring the also-longer-than-tall Lake Merritt Monster). There is also a photograph of an attractive young man modeling the t-shirt design (it looks just like the Sutro Tower print) I did for therethere.

xm

‘Secrets of the Dog Park’ selected for American Illustration 30!

Friendlies,

‘Secrets of the Dog Park’, my screenprint that explores the issues of the gay dog community, has been selected for inclusion in American Illustration 30, a sooper groovy hard-cover compendium of hand-picked images. This is the seventh time my work has appeared in the book. “From more than 7,000 pictures entered by over 1,100 illustrators, magazines, agencies, publishers and schools, the jury selected, by a majority vote or better, only 316 images to appear in the book and represent the best pictures from 2010.”

Buy yourself a copy of the print here.

Yay!

xm

Songs in Reverse – a print collaboration

Dear Friendlies,

Jim Winters and I just finished a print collaboration called Songs in Reverse. These prints will be shown in conjunction with the SGC conference in Philadelphia in March 2010.

The idea behind the Songs in Reverse show is to highlight a favorite piece of music of each artist, re-contextualizing each song in a queer fashion. I chose There’s a Moon in the Sky (Called the Moon) by the B-52′s. Jim chose The Man That I Am With My Man by the Hidden Cameras. Our collaborative print was based on Do You Really Want to Hurt Me by Culture Club.

There’s A Moon In the Sky (Called the Moon) (inspired by The B-52′s).

‘There’s a Moon in the Sky (Called the Moon)‘ is one of those songs you hear as a teenager that reaches out of the speakers and taps you on the shoulder. Pssst: we wrote this song for you. Yes, you, the awkward one with the bad skin and weird feelings. Charles Nelson Reilly was my first queen on the TV. Fred Schneider was my first queen on the turntable. If you’re in outer space, Don’t feel out of place. ’cause there are thousands of others like you.

The Man That I Am With My Man (inspired by The Hidden Cameras)

Jim sez: “The Man That I Am With My Man, by the Hidden Cameras is a love song to men. Men and their rituals. Rituals that provide close proximity to each other, and in the song, ones that blossom into homoerotic experience. I find the song beautiful, humorous and sexy, and by mentioning both ‘the Army’ and ‘the Klan’ within this sexualized male ritual scenario, it becomes a political commentary reminiscent of a piece by Barbara Kruger: “You construct intricate rituals which allow you to touch the skin of other men”.”

Do You Really Want to Hurt Me? (inspired by The Battle of the Naked Men and Culture Club)

‘Do You Really Want to Hurt Me‘ was such a great song. I remember coming home from Junior High School to see Boy George on the local video show (this was before MTV). He was so confusing: is he a boy? Is he a girl? It didn’t matter. I didn’t know if I was a boy or a girl either. I was the girliest boy I knew, that’s for sure. Boy had a great look, to be sure, but this song packs an extra punch because it speaks to the anger and potential violence we experience for loving one another. Americans would much rather kill than kiss, and this Brit used makeup as his armor.

You can see a few photos and video of the print process (including visiting Nat @ Bloom Press to cut the prints down) here. It was great to collaborate with Jim, and I’m thrilled with the results.

I’ll get these up in the shop for sale soon.

xm

no on H8 – vote NO on proposition 8!

i just hacked the ugly-ass yes on H8 logo. if you live in california, you should know about this proposition. it will remove civil rights from gays and lesbians and will *rewrite* the california constitution to include bigotry. vote NO.

xm

p.s. by the way: to the folks who vote YES on 8: I will no longer cater your weddings. i won’t spray your crazy up-do and put baby’s breath in it. I won’t be the deejay and watch everyone dance to YMCA (oh, the irony)… i won’t even tell you you look good in that dress.

because hate is never pretty.

postscript 11/6/08:

california! vote NO on proposition 8 (andy and i will thank you for it with a piece of cake in january).

hey guys.

it’s no secret to most of you that andy and i have been in a committed, long-term same-sex relationship. this coming up january 30 (2009) marks our twentieth anniversary together.

i’ll repeat that. we’ve been in a committed gay relationship for (coming up on) twenty years.

we had a “sweet sixteen”, with family and friends coming together to celebrate our relationship and to hear our commitment ceremony. it was so, so wonderful. andy’s brother evan was our “officiant”, and cari and phil were our bests. we had about 125 people there.

we would like to do it for real this time, in january. andy feels strongly about keeping the date of the marriage on our anniversary, so we don’t have to remember two dates. we would like to go down to city hall, fill out an application, and get married. legally.

if a bunch of small-minded bigots have their way in california in november, we won’t be allowed to do this. i’m hoping you’ll all join me in donating generously to the NO on 8 campaign.

we don’t tell people how to live their lives. why should they have the right to tell us how to live ours?

i gave $100 today. and, believe me, i can’t really afford it. come on, grab the wallet and make a donation.

if you do, and you post a message here to let me know you did, i’ll invite you to the reception.

and there will be cake. lots of cake.

think of it this way: if proposition 8 passes, there will be no cake.

don’t you like cake?

love, michael

grizzly bear

gentlepersons,

remember how i was over for the moon for the bjork cover by final fantasy & ed droste ?

well, the obsession grows.

xm

thank you, andrew sullivan. finally.

i’ve had big problems with andrew sullivan. i don’t consider him friendly to folks like me. he’s a conservative religious gay man who voted for george w. bush, effectively voting for a man who would take away his civil rights. but finally, finally, finally: andrew sullivan pulls his head out of his ass where john mccain is concerned.

people!

xm

milk trailer

i hope it’s good. it looks good.

“you gotta give ‘em hope.”

xm