JACKIE CHAN IS BORN: A Cut above Street Art

After 4 Monday week nights at Pine Sts A Cut Above Street Art with stencil extraordinaire Chris Tamm, I was exposed to this underground form of expression.

Chris introduced the intimate group of 6 to stenciling, pasting, tagging and graffiti art and the various “rebellious” ways that stereotypically street kids would express themselves through.

But the gist of street art is really any form of expression done in a public space, it is pretty much a poor man’s art or art that wasn’t sanctioned by the government.

Types of Street Art

Graffiti artwork: public markings on property

Stencil graffiti: makes use of a paper, cardboard, or other media to create an image or text that is easily reproducible.

Sticker art: image or message is publicly displayed using stickers. Below is Craig's a.k.a "Bunkwaa" red balloon artwork. He also teaches at Pine St Community Arts Centre.

Others include street poster art, Video projection, Art intervention, Guerrilla art and Flash mobbing  

BLAST FROM THE PAST: Click here to have a read of “Ninjas of Dawn” Flash Mobbing social experiment I coordinated with the Rumble Pictures and 9Lives Parkour crew in August 2008.

Im not too great at creating designs but I managed to come up with this little Jackie Chan Bear design of mine during the workshop.

 

This was the original done in free hand with a black marker, then it was scanned and fixed up in photoshopped. I made a felt bear from it, then took a photo of this and cropped it out, reshaped and with the help of Marie Setiawan a more experienced graphics artist, who did some touch up work of it.

Perhaps I might have taken the long way to get this done, but Im still content to get the final product in the end.

So in conclusion, Ive got 5 shirt giveaways across Australia. Just email me in with your details and tell me creatively, where you would wear your Jackie Chan shirt.

Click on the link for the vlog - Quest for Jackie Chan - How to Print on a Shirt - Maria Tran.

STENCIL GRAFFITI: Week 4 of the course and Chris gave us the low down of what stencil graffiti was all about and this inspired me to create the 60cm x 50cm giant Jackie Chan stencil that was permanently installed on that same night at the legal wall in Darlington.

Click on this link for the vlog Quest for Jackie Chan - Stencil Graffiti - Maria Tran

Quest for Jackie Chan via street art? Yes. I think that’s one aspect I will venture down, particularly when I am a poor woo ”man” fundraising my way for my August around Australia trip to extend this project and share it with the rest of Australia. You wouldn’t believe the amount of knock backs I’ve got from the richest law firms in Australia, top investors, business owners, entrepreneurs etc…I know, I’m not Baz Luherrman, Nicole Kidman or their Hugh Jackman nor do I hold a household name.

At the end of the day, I’m just a crazy “Lil Azn grl afta Jackie CHAN!!!!!”. Apparently its more marketable. Bla! Why I can’t be me not so chopsocky!!!

Until next time my followers….

P.S - Shout out to the people from my course!

And of course, other photos!

Be my first customer! Jackie Chan Fan shirts on sale!

All it took was less than 30 mins and now my Jackie Chan Fan shirt has gone worldwide! Just imagine people from all over the world can now log online and with their credit details purchase and sport this original in their country!

That’s the fast paciness of modern day digital living. And to think this morning I purchased 20 plain shirts, a silk screen printer, cutter and all the paints, not to mention 4 x 2 hour sessions of silk screening printing training to start up my hobby-slash business.

About Redbubble: Its sort of like a virtual community for artists (particularly in photography and graphic design) to share their works. That includes selling it too! These guys are responsible for handling all the hassles of making, printing and shipping of the shirts, while all you have to do is sit and wait for the payments to come in. All they need is a digital file and the rest is history! They do of course charge a simple (yet very large) base price but that’s ok if all you want is to get your stuff out there in the physical realm.

I’m still intrigue to find out who may first customer would be (age, gender, martial status, country…the lot!) and how long will I wait till the first virtual one rocks up.

Only $30 (excluding postage and handling) worldwide!

In the meantime, to check out my account click here.

P.S - Shout out to Marie Setiawan for cleaning up my design up. 

Quest for Jackie! companions sporting the design. 

Jackie Chan at Sydney: Lattice

I thought would make sense to trace the very beginnings of "Quest for Jackie Chan". I must pay homage to a particular event that connected with the right people that marked the very initial beginnings.

It was at Lattice: Collaborative Anarchaeologies of the City a collaborative workshop and exchange labs between UK based artists Proboscis with Western Sydney artists in early 2007.

In this workshop I had the opportunties to explore the ways culturally diverse communities engage with their environment and consider what “environmental sustainability” could mean. What happens when people come to a city? What knowledge is lost, or created? What are the impacts of migration and emerging new identities on cities? Proboscis and ICE will work together with the participants to develop new methods of sharing knowledge and creativity, imagining the city through the eyes of those who live in it.

It was through this project. my long time mentor Tiffany Lee Shoy and through our discussion of how urban Fairfield has become and how it is very supportive of community made feature film "Maximum Choppage: Round 2" and Parkour team "9Lives".

We spent an hour on utilising all things creative to build our idea space and Tiffany had created the one below.

I think she may have meant that she would like to see more culturally diverse faces in the Australian industry and what better place to start is in Western Sydney and the different communities there.

Its an outdoor cinema with "Jackie Chan" on the big screens and an audience of course! Yup, this was one of the instances when I realised how prevalent one Asian man Jackie Chan can be and how inspiring his works are that even today finds its relevance in a creatives workshop like this one.