New to my inbox…

“Upon entering the gallery, you find yourself in the Church Of The Open Tab, a hybrid of two institutions that flourish in hard times, the church and the bar. Here music is religion, the altar is a jukebox, the spirit is the beer in the repurposed soda machine we call a Pour Box, and the sinners saints. Specifically, the saints are musicans that led tortured and tormented lives, but in those lives attained a divinity through the music they created.

As you depart after services, you enter the parking lot, a large portion of the gallery that is a snapshot of the American street. On one side of the lot sits a old/new construction, nearly finished and abandoned, stripped of its copper and anything of value. A cathode light emanates from the cracks in the door, and a broken lock signals that the place has a new tenant.

Across from that is a cement skate ramp that Dan and Mike made, as skaters do all over the world to reclaim abandoned places turn them into centers of community. Above that is a collection of phrases from the american landscape that depict a world that is running out of room with a cliff fast approaching. The final sign, EVERYTHING IS NOW FREE, reminds us that a world in ruins will offer us another chance to make something more civilized than this current civilization.

Finally I started on some paintings. I finished 4 of 6 of them, and will go back to St. Louis in a few weeks with some of the crew to work on the other two and add more to the installation. I like the idea of continuity, and offering more to the hundreds of people that came out on Saturday.

ultimately, the show is about when Opportunities disappear, new possibilities appear. We are striving to find them and embrace them. As they say in St. Louis, “we’re fittin’ to make it happen”

Best regards
steve
and the workers at Studio Gangster