Thank you!

I want to take this opportunity to thank all my loyal readers over the last couple years.  I might not have the readership of say...Jezebel...but I'm proud that I've accumulated 5000+ site visits!  In the coming year I hope to increase the frequency of my posting, and develop stronger content.  Additionally, thanks for bearing with me as I contribute to the City Arts Blog in addition to Molo's Sketchbook!  I know it's a little weird to be directed from here to there at times, but I appreciate everyone who does.  I believe that the City Arts Blog (the CAB) has the potential to become a unified and comprehensive online community arts resource  more expansive and thorough then anything currently out there for Seattle.

Thanks again, and check out my latest posting on the CAB , about The Off Hours Reading Series.  

with respect,

Ryan Molenkamp

CHBP Sunday

Mad Rad and friends

 S (Jenn Ghetto)  performing on the Vera Stage

Book of Black Earth and a bunch of devil-eyed fans (fitting, no?)

Grand Archives on the Vera stage

MOLORAZZI @ Capitol Hill Block Party - Friday night

Damn that will-call line was long!  Thankfully I ran into my friend Kara and cut in halfway up.  Block Party...wow.  I didn't go last year, and I had for gotten how sardine-like the event was.  Even with a better layout this year, it was still insanely cramped to try to get up to the main stage at all.  Oh well, it's a concert, right?  Highlights for me were Shabazz Palaces and Champagne Champagne.  I really didn't get much out of seeing Yeasayer or even MGMT live, but then again, by the time MGMT came on, all the kids were freaking out and the crowd felt agressive - so I bailed.  Funny thing though, the sound from the 76 station on the back of the stage wasn't half-bad, and completely free.  So long as you didn't mind standing next to some cops.

Here's a couple pics from the event -

This is what all the bands looked like till the sun went behind the buildings

Shabazz Palaces!  Highlight was Butterfly's purple get-up

Champagne Champagne put on a great show

Everyone was envious of these guys.

"It's like a pretentious version of the Matrix"

I heard a guy say that to his date as we left the theater after seeing Christopher Nolan's Inception last night and it made me chuckle a bit.  With its clean, visual dazzle and dreams inside of dreams where reality can be bent and and morphed with various real-world implications-I'd say he had a good point.  But in this film there is no evil terminator machine army to defeat, in fact the only real enemy is the character's own memories. 

Okay, I'm going to stop myself here and redirect - by now you've seen the previews, probably read some reviews and decided if you want to go see the movie or not.  I say go see it.  It's a very smartly done film, even where it falls into familiar territory it still does so with skill and style.  The climatic sequence with several overlapping plot lines is worth watching just for the impressive ability of the filmmaker to keep it all going w/out confusing the hell out of the audience. 

Unfortunately there ate times when the film is just too focused on it's own beauty and the characters suffer for it.  When the occasional humorous moments appear, brought on by Ellen Page's Ariadne and Tom Hardy's Eames, we are reminded that these people are in fact, real, and not the "projections" that habit these dreamscapes.  More of that, and less slo-mo and we'd have a great film....

That being said, it's still one of the most imaginative and impressive things I have seen this year, and it beats the hell out of every other summer blockbuster to this point.  But no one has set the bar very high this year. 

There's always The Expendables.

Inception gets 3.5 Molos



PS  SPOILER ALERT:  Don't read this if you don't want to learn a little something about the ending.....but one of the most amusing experiences of seeing this film was when at the very end of the film, the movie ends on a highly ambiguous note, very highly, and a guy in the audience yelled out "ahhhhhh come on!"  which got the entire crowd laughing.  Good stuff. 

Hoot Hoot - Joey Veltkamp at The Living Room

Somewhere in the middle of my vacation I found the time to check out Joey Veltkamp's new show at The Living Room, It is Happening Again, which was very enjoyable and which I wrote about for the CAB.  Check it out here, with more pics!

Molorazzi @ Blitz in July

Head over to the City Arts Blog to check out my full report and pics from the Blitz last night!  Molorazzi-Blitz-aka-Sweatbox.  Here's a couple bonus pics from the night:

Daniel Carillo's installation in Gallery 40

Bad angle of one of Bette Burgoyne's amazing drawings

Is that who I think it is?

Diana Adams in the courtyard at Ghost

 Lauren, Amanda and Justin (eyes closed) outside of ACTION.

The End is Near

Sometimes you just have to end it.  Time to move on.  I've been working on paintings in my Place series since 2006, and I've now completed 94 paintings in the series, including the 2 most recent ones pictures below. More than any other work I've done, creating the paintings in the Place series taught me what I wanted to do with my work...what I mean is they lead me down the current path that resulted in the San Juan series, and the more recent Flood series I am embarking upon.  These works have allowed me to explore directions in style I might otherwise have not approached. They have helped me understand my own interest in landscape, in structure, in, well, place and how I could use painterly techniques and drawing techniques to find interesting ways to illustrate my ideas.  And color, or what an exploration in color this series has been!  (with a few B/W exceptions).  But all good things must come to an end, and once I reach the 100th painting, the Place series will be over.

93 Place, 22 x 28, oil on canvas, 2010  On display at The Hideout starting this week.

94 Place, 28 x 34, oil on canvas, 2010. Showing at my studio during  Art Walk July 1st, 619 Western - 3rd floor, South side. 

It is a little daunting, and perhaps misguided, to publicly declare the end to a series.  In all reality, though, they are not ending.  I'm still making work, work that is a bit more illustrative, work that may surprise long-time supporters with more direct representation.  Work that will keep focus on structure and certainly maintain some of the link work present in the Place series; but I am shifting.  Trying to.  It can be scary.  I've always gotten pleasure and even some attention for these colorful paintings, and leaving them behind, well, is a bit unnerving.  But it must be done.  Granted, I'll make colorful paintings again, I'm sure.  But I hope, that after the 100th place is complete, that I can put this body to rest and push forward.

Pity, fool

Have I ever told you about the time I met Mr. T in Hawaii when I was 8?  It involved getting roped into a private party for Hollywood big wigs and other "important" people...the party had a lady in a mermaid costume, there were various soap opera stars, but I didn't care about all that, because Mr. T was there.  BA Baracus himself!  The only person I would have been more excited and frightened to meet at that point in my young life would have been Darth Vader.  My friend Derek and I were way too scared though, out mothers basically had to drag us over there to meet him.

Check out my  City Arts Blog review of the new A-Team movie to read more about it! 

Molorazzi at BLITZ - June 2010

Last night was the one-year anniversary of BLITZ! the official Capitol Hill Art Walk.  Cap Hill has been giving Pioneer Square a run for it's money with fun, innovative galleries showcasing some of Seattle's best and brightest artists, with the galleries Vermillion and Grey Gallery leading the way.  Last night was no exception, both the Cyptomenagerie show at Vermillion and the Greg Boudreau/Robert Hardgrave + highlights from other Grey Gallery artists (Emily Pothast, etc) on the mezzanine level kicked ass!  While it was a bit of a sad note as Erik Guttridge is having to give up his current location for Grey Gallery, it was still a hell of a send off and he will fine a new spot on the hill very soon.  And a great place to have the the City Arts Art Walk Awards event!  And to top that all off, we headed over to Unicorn for stunning psychedelic visuals for the PENETRATION show.

Gallery 40, parked in front of Vermillion.  I really like the battery-powered lights

Michael Alm in front of one of his sculptures

Vermillion was a packed house, once again!

Artists Shaun Kardinal and ERIN Frost in red.

work by Jody Joldersma

Tiger's Lament

 Trevor Johnson and I have been hard at work on a mini-golf hole for the Kirkland Arts Center Links Invitational

Read all about it on City Arts Blog

Here is the artist statement about the show:

Tiger Woods is widely recognized as the most famous athlete in the world.  He has done more to promote the game of golf and to break down racial boundaries in a very exclusive  game than any athlete before.  His stardom and success has made millions, billions for the companies he endorses and the game of golf in general.  Tiger was better than everyone, and he knew it.  Nothing could touch him.  Except, well, for the women.  Tiger's Lament explores how far one can fall when one thinks, as Tiger himself put it, that he thought he "could get away with whatever [he] wanted to" and that he  "...deserved to enjoy all the temptations...".  Tiger thinks "it's not what you achieve in life that matters, it is what you overcome."  Tiger's Lament challenges you to overcome some of the same obstacles that he has been facing over the last several months, with putter and ball in hand.