Hello Follower....

Back on the blog after a slight absence filled with art and busy-ness...

It was a good week for Pastey, we got some press from Melrose&Fairfax's blog on our newest look of Mr. Men inspired figures with our own brand of social commentary...I love this series of characters because they harken back to a golden age that never really existed.  A happy land that has brought us to this Fan-TASTIC moment of overt lies, and insane social inequity... unemployment, wars and what not...
WHHHEEEEEE....I'm sooooo happy....

What problem?

I've got mine...

I'm Sorry You're Poor...

Happy APRIL....XOXOXOXO PW

Get Up Stay Up...San Diego

The following were put up in late November 2010.  Just went back to San Diego for a visit to find them still up!  GET UP STAY UP!!!!  Love the way they look weathered!

Pastey Whyte on the streets of Los Angeles

So it begins...OUTSIDER POP

Democracy...what a hastle...
The point has been made to me before...Democracy is great in theory, but you have to actually participate to make something of it.
So, here's to Democracy...something that Street Art shares more than a few things with.

I'm into Street Art for a lot of reasons:
It's egalitarian, you don't need an entry ticket to view the works, they are filled with pop imagery and often (but not always) have something interest to "say". 
But, most importantly, it doesn't just come from the street.  That's where you see it, sure, but that's not where it "comes from" just like baby's don't come from storks...  they don't just appear... there is a long and storied way they/it comes into existence-whether you know how or not.

I'm officially deeming the Street Art of the "now", the 2000s, as "OUTSIDER POP"...it comes from a place of art historical context with all the markers of a neo-post-modern Art Movement. 
So from here forward, that's what we're going to refer to it as....Outsider Pop.

OK, "Why Outsider Pop?" you ask...
Outsider: Because the world of Outsider art is truly applicable to the artists who are out there bombing the streets with their work.

• Most (but not all) are not from "formal" art trained/art school/art educated backgrounds.  They have no formal schooling on the method, production, and history of art.
• The street artists have a compulsion to create, regardless of skills and the lack of saleability of the practice of creating and posting on the streets.
• By definition, Outsider Art is: a genre of art and outdoor constructions made by untrained artists who do not recognize themselves as artists
• Outsider art also refers to works by those outside of mainstream society. Outsider art broadly includes folk art and ethnic art as well as art made by prisoners, the mentally ill and others neither trained in art nor making their works to sell them.

Now, I'm not saying anyone is mentally ill, a prisoner or anything like that, but I am more favoring the standard of folk art and artwork made by those who are outside of the "mainstream" ART WORLD society, counter culture in their bold deface/defilement of the general public's standard of what defines a "clean" street.

As for Pop...
Well, that's a whole world of art historical context that is ripe for the mining with the current scene. 

• Use of popular culture and consumerism's images in new and often ironic ways
• The imitation of the techniques of commercial art, and the styles of popular culture and the mass media
• Appropriation of commercial imagery 
• Appropriation of past artist's contributions to the art historical "cannon"
• Use of non-traditional materials (i.e. oil paint on canvas), and non-traditional methods of production
• A return to representational art

There's more I won't expound on here, but you get the idea.  Outsider Pop is where the "Street Art" has been going.  The postings on the street have moved beyond the B-boy's graffiti.  The Outsider Pop artists have begun a new tangent and they are documenting and curating it. 

Places like "Melrose and Fairfax" (http://melroseandfairfax.blogspot.com/), "The Dirt Floor" (http://www.thedirtfloor.com/), "The Site Unscene" (http://thesiteunscene.com/) are early bloggers and identifiers who have elevated the scene into a movement but recognizing early what has become an ever growing shift of a few early posters to a much broader movement of participants.

Without a doubt Shepard Fairey and Banksy are the super stars, the "Ur-Outsider Pops".  They were there first and have inspired plenty with their efforts.  They are the blue chip standard of where the Outsider Pop's can go if they just do what they do, when and how they do it.  Eventually it gets noticed.  Read Fairey's Obey Giant Manifesto...it really does say it all(http://obeygiant.com/about)

So to wrap it up (for now)...I'm about getting your work and ideas out on the street, but also want to add a little something to the conversation that I believe has been lacking up to this point.  I'm here to add a little conversation/information when I see connections to the art historical past as it's happening in the new OUTSIDER POP movement.  Watch this blog for photos and connections and more of my "views from the street"

Pastey Whyte