UPDATE:To see photos from this event, click here.
Two Buck Tuesdays was started by KALEID Gallery artists to "balance the equation” of the art business world where small, original works of art could be available to the public for $2 and artists could market their work and network. Two months ago it added a featured sketch artist session where the public could meet & greet their favorite Bay Area artists and buy freshly-sketched works by them and beefed up its performance art. It has doubled its hours and doubled its size, pulling in some of the best of Bay Area’s talent.
Each month, a different member of the "TWO BUCK TUES CREW" curates the evening’s speakers, live sketch artists and performances to keep the events lively and totally different from each other. This November 17th event is curated by Trina Merry.
On Tuesday, November 17th from 5-10pm the public can see and speak with many amazing artists, creative entrepreneurs and musicians and purchase $2 art (starting at noon.)
“Last month we had people waiting at the door to buy $2 art at noon and had to refill our art boards four times!” says KALEID Gallery staff Lacey Bryant.
The speaker series has garnered a cult following. It is similar to the idea of TED Talks where each speaker gets 10 minutes (or less) to speak and answer question. It is a quirky, eclectic event where artists come out of the cracks and the public gets to mingle with them.
“Two Buck Tuesdays have been gaining momentum in the art community over the last year. This month will be equally eclectic and quirky but will draw from the pool of well-known talent San Jose has to offer. I’m looking forward to a high-energy event where high and low-brow art will collide and collaborate to create a fun-filled, free evening. Two Buck Tuesday is our gift to San Jose in this difficult economy and a statement to the art world that artists get resourceful in tough times,” says this month's curator Trina Merry.
This month the public can speak directly with:
DAN VADO who founded Slave Labor Graphics and the Alternative Press Expo, one of the first comics conventions dedicated to alternative comics and self-publishers.
EMA HARRIS SINTAMARIAN, former KALEID and Phantom Gallery artist, is a professor at SJSU University who has shown at the Jack Fischer Gallery.
MATT CLEVENGER who founded Apples & Bandaids, a clothing company currently on display at Urban Outfitters that donates half its proceeds to “Empowering Lives”, a nonprofit agency that provides food, medical supplies, and education for third-world villages.
The performance art line-up will also include an eclectic mix of high and low-brow artists:
MANNY SILVA will live illustrate a book the audience writes on site and can then purchase later that evening. Manny is a locally grown illustrator, who’s clients include the Fillmore, Belle and Sebastian, Sufjan Stevens, and Old Navy.
GIOVANNA HUTCHINSON from Opera San Jose will share a song and her passion of the Japanese Lolita culture with a tea party.
ADAM KLEIN (Ironman endurance athlete, world traveler & entrepreneur) will share his passion of life and adventure through poetry. He frequently tours with the band “Cobalt Season”.
CHRISTINE BENJAMIN, a Two Buck Tuesday crew member and illustrator whose clients include Yahoo!, will be painting live.
Special music will be provided by Benjamin Henderson from the band “Good Hustle”.
The featured sketch artists will feature:
NICOLAS CAESAR -Nicolas Caesar is a self-taught artist hailing from Northern CA. Founder of the Scary Art Collective, his artwork brings forth a whimsical creepy landscape populated by beings both sinister and sardonic. Nicolas' web comic Mosquito and Spider was accepted into the Cartoon Art Museum in San Francisco. He and his work have been features on Late Night with Conan O'Brien, KVIE PBS Sacramento, Sacramento's Livewire, The Bay Area's KOFY Tv20 -
Creepy KOFY Movie Time, and Cleveland's The Ghoul show.
PJ GAVIGLIO illustrated the music video “Stegosaur” for Bay Area favorite “Good Hustle”.
MURPHY ADAMS is an illustrator & public works artist whose naive style draws on folk, outsider and children's work, wrapped up with a healthy dose of snarky irony.
BLAISE ROSENTHAL, an American Painter, is best known for his conceptual thickly-textured paintings of PacMan ghosts and abstract shapes.
STEVEN BORELLI is a thriving design and animation artist out of Campbell who balances the chaos he calls a life by visualizing on board the bizarre hallucinations dancing like sugarplums through the depths of his eternally deranged id.
MARK DAMREL works for an architecture firm in San Francisco by day and is an urban artist by night.
Join us this Tuesday, Nov. 17, 5-10pm, FREE and open to the public.
KALEID Gallery
88 South Fourth Street
Downtown San Jose
http://www.KALEIDGallery.com
408-947-1785