"Sea Legs" Jolby x Ashley Forrette show

We are very pleased to announce a new show with Ashley Forrette called "Sea Legs" at Together Gallery in Portland, OR. It will open February 25th and will run through March.

The show will explore mythology and superstitions of the sea and will combine Ashley's incredible photography and our usual wackiness. We are all working really hard to bring this show to life and are excited to count down the days with you all and share the work as it's created (the above is a crop of the first piece we've created for the show). More soon!

The Zine is Done!

And we are stoked. Welcome to the countdown to the show! More soon!

Powell's Books now selling "Wolf Am I"

It feels pretty good to announce that Powell's Books is now selling my "Wolf Am I" zine at their Burnside location in Portland, OR. For those unfamiliar with the awesomeness of Powell's, it is the largest independent new and used bookstore in the world and occupies a full city block. Being a Portland-er myself, it's great to have this zine being carried at such a well-known book store. In other zine news, Josh is working on one right now that is sure to blow your mind and make you want to purchase a penis car. Have a good weekend.

Work in Progress: Tangible PDX Mural

For Tangible's new Portland office, Jolby is painting this mural that spans four pretty gigantic walls. In the comp (the above is just a digital comp) we wanted to include Portland things in a subtle way (like coffee, lumberjacks, flannel, trees, beer, rain, bikes, and donuts). Josh will have to get his ass to Portland from Chicago so we can paint this and rumor has it he will be riding his land-shark to get here. Go Silver Birds!

The Show Recap

View pics from the show (flickr).

We will be uploading individual pics of each piece soon and into that flickr set as well as posting an updated inventory on what's still for sale!

We have so many people to thank for such an amazing opening night for our first solo show. The night was a blur as we jumped from person to person, walking them through the story, talking to people who bought pieces, seeing family and friends, and enjoying the vibe. It was a crowded opening all night and most of the art sold, too!

Jolby would like to thank: Dolls for Friends for their incredible work and amazing additions to our show and story, Andy Roush for the music, Keegan and Katy from Keegan Meegan Press & Bindry for the amazing screen prints, Chris Forrette for our rad website, Merrick, the crew at Tangible Worldwide, Greg at In to Ink, Bobby @ Kitsune Noir, Brian Willette for printing our show you saved our lives, San Diego Reader & City Beat, k10k.net and the Cuban Council Crew, Don/Dylan/Amy/George/Subtext for their amazingness and helping this all come together, everyone who bought a piece of art at the show we are so grateful, Monica Moon, Brian Haas for the frames and delicious beer/fuel, everyone that posted any word/sentence/picture/link including: Will @ its nice that, QBN, Little Chimp Society, Josh Spear, Drawn!, Dustin Ortiz, Kitsune Noir, and each and everyone for coming out, everyone that has supported us over the last couple of months we thank you from the bottoms of our hearts.

Josh would like to thank: My lovely wife Shannon for all of her support, my dad for making all our boards, my mom who is sick and couldn’t make the show, my family, Merrick & Tangible, Colby for the inspiration and drive to be a better artist, Subtext, Everyone that drove down for the show, Tem’s BBQ.

Colby would like to thank: Abby Rynko for her undying love/patience/honesty, Josh Kenyon for liking sports and for collaborating/pushing/pulling on a life-changing project like this, Josh's dad for his wood-working brilliance, Merrick & Tangible, everyone at Subtext, My Ma/Sis/Bro for the support and for the hospitality while staying in San Diego, the City of Portland, Anathallo, Fleet Foxes, Shannon Kenyon for her writings, Corey Warning for all his kindness, Tom Okerlund, Ideaworks Advertising for their support.

The day is here:

The Day is here! Above are the ridiculously under-priced hand-made plush dolls contributed by Dolls for Friends of the main characters in our story. We have almost 50 pieces on display tonight. Get there early so we can walk you through the show's story before the gallery gets over-run with attendees. We'll have paintings, prints, screen prints, plush dolls, and some painted found-objects too! See you there!

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Home Is Where You Make It: New Works by Jolby

February 21st-March 22nd, 2009

Opening Reception with the Artists: This Saturday, February 21st, 6-10pm Subtext Gallery, San Diego, CA

2479 KETTNER BLVD. SAN DIEGO, CA 92101 : 619 546 8800

1 Day Left: It's all there!

Wow. What a long road it has been to get to this point. Josh and I have been up super early each day this week finishing the pieces, seeing great friends, eating like kings, and we just finished hanging everything in the show. We are so proud of the work and have so many people to thank that without them none of this would be possible. Hope to see you out there tomorrow so that you can join us in sharing this work with everyone and eat some freshly-baked chocolate chip cookies (what says 'home' more than that?) and some beer/wine, of course. We've also already sold 5 pieces and the show hasn't even opened yet!

3 Days: Kitsune Noir Wallpaper Project

We're so honored today to be posted on Kitsune Noir, the blog of all things awesome by Bobby Solomon, with artwork from the show. The two wallpapers above can be downloaded right here in sizes of 1024x 768 up to 1900 x 1200 including an iPhone and PSP wallpaper as well. We hope you'll go and download them so your eyeballs can feast and be satisfied. We emailed Bobby a few weeks ago to ask if we could launch these in conjunction with the show opening this Saturday and he was more than happy to. Thanks, Bobby!

It's so cool to be a part of this project that has been done by big name arists like Gama-Go, Jean Julian, Peitari Posti, Josh Cochran, Travis Millard, Mike Perry, and a lot more.

3 Days: Finishing the Paintings

Josh and I arrived in San Diego yesterday and after stopping by Subtext we got right to work. We've got a lot of paintings to finish in the next few days and above is Josh smelling it up.

Today we're speaking at the Art Institute here in San Diego as well as seeing some old friends. More soon!

8 Days: We Are Blogging Every Day Next Week!

Starting Monday February 16th, we are going to be blogging every day until the show opens the following Saturday bringing you updates from Subtext Gallery, our insanity trying to finish everything for the show, and even more sneak peaks. We've just begun to scratch the surface of the art of the show and we're expecting over 40 piece there, yet we've only previewed about 20! Sit tight kids!

9 Days Remain: Dolls For Friends Sneak Peak

We got these awesome shots in the e-mails today from our collabers Dolls for Friends of the dolls they are creating for "Home is Where You Make it." This is just a peak at only three of the dolls they are hand-crafting based on our characters we use to tell the show's story. We are so excited to see the characters in plush form and to see them come to life!

12 Days Left: Screen Printing with Keegan

Only 12 days left and we're updating this week with the screen prints for the show that are awaiting your eyeballs. The dude with the glasses above (who is ever-so-carefully registering the screen) is Keegan Onefoot who is 1/2 of Keegan Meegan Press & Bindery in Portland, OR. I got to spend a few hours this week with the pressman himself talking art, color, some politics, and coffee. He is an awesome guy and a great artist as well. I would recommend you contact him for any screen print or letterpress needs if you are in the area. Enjoy the process shots above and keep an eye out for a sneak peak link that should be going up soon with even more eyeball-teasers. Cheers kids!

18 Days Left: Dolls For Friends

We are collaborating with the amazingly talented team that is Erin & Jill Lynch who are better known as Dolls for Friends. They are a husband and wife design team who work as collaborators on a wide variety of art-based projects and have joined us to sew some custom dolls of our characters and objects as one-off art pieces for the show. They are two of the nicest people I've met in the NW and they are a blast to work with. Check out their awesome work and don't forget to visit their Etsy store.

(Note: the dolls below are not from our show, but are Erin & Jill's original creations).

19 Days Until the Show: Welcome to The Forest

We are two days away from finishing all 21 prints. It feels really good to see the story come to life and we are pretty excited to start on the paintings but nervous too. This weekend myself and a good friend Andy Roush were hard at work creating music for the show. Andy is an amazing composer and has been incredibly generous to make a 3 part song that follows the artwork from the show. Once it is done and we put up the preview of the show we will make the song downloadable so you can follow the story with the music. We should be getting some shots of the plush dolls very soon so look out for that.

This week's sneak peek are from the tree top forest. This is were William comes to find out home means to him. Enjoy and keep checking back. Also if you have a blog and will post anything about our show that would be amazing.

4 Weeks Until the Show: Creeping Out

Last time we sneak-peaked you William was in the Outskirts, a scary and dark part of the forest that he must brave through. We really reached deep and got creepy with this section of the show. Don't forget to RSVP!

5 Weeks Until the Jolby Show: Our Process

5 weeks! Time is ticking away and here's another update. The sneak-peeks from this post are in the Outskirts of the forest. The Ouskirts are a sort of "limbo" area between William's birth place of Seaside and his destination of the lush, beautiful forest that his grandfather Danny has told him about since he was a little boy. This part of the story will be very dark and a nice departure for us stylistically.

A lot of people are asking about how we are collaborating on each piece and what our process has been like for the show. Well, since Josh and I are both in different States, working mostly digitally on the show was a must (there are paintings but they are coming later). The ideas for each piece come from both of us and usually one will start the idea and we'll both work on it until its there. Then we both sketch our parts of the piece. I have been drawing the characters/objects/towns and Josh has been drawing all of the patterns and the dream pieces and we both have been doing our share of the type (which is all hand-drawn). We then scan everything in, bring it into Photoshop to keep the quality of the line (no live-tracing), and start coloring. Josh finishes it all up by adding these insane textures that he makes by hand to everything that really completes each piece. So there you have it; A little insight into our process. 

5.5 Weeks Till Jolby Show: Postcards

Being a mid-week post, I thought I'd add a half to the countdown. Above is the front and back flyer for our show featuring a better look at William's town of Seaside and a dream sequence (right half of the front of the flyer) of William and Danny's instruments dancing in the leaves of the forest.

If any of you's are on Facebook, you can find Josh and myself on there as well as join our group "Jolby & Friends." Add us as friends, sign up to attend the show, spread the love. Have a great weekend!

Jolby report: 6 weeks

6 weeks to go and we got a ton of stuff to do. We just finished the first of three sections of the story/show. Here's the breakdown: part 1 Seaside, part 2 the Outskirts and part 3 Tree Tops. We are super stoked with how the stuff is coming out and are excited to keep showing sneak peeks. Here are a couple; the first is from William's grandfather, Danny's, home. It's a wall of clocks that tell the tale of Danny. The second is from a dream piece when William is in the Outskirts. Through the show we will have dream pieces that will have this border effect around it. Enjoy and keep coming back.