/>Later tonight in London, we’re going to be heading over to 17 Kingsland Rd to
check out the private view of a new project we quite like called “RuggedArt”
/>
For RuggedArt, a group of artists including Ryan McGinness, Rostarr, and
Ease were asked by Nat Turner to design a series of limited edition rugs to be
woven in the traditional techniques of Nepal. The top image above is one of the
rugs done by Ryan with the one below it was created by Rostarr.

Also,
on a side note, it was great to see everyone last night at the V&A. It was
awesome to see people like Orko, D*Face, Eve, Pure Evil, Paul from Terratag,
David from Kangol, Mysterious Al, and Saru come out for it.  The room was
packed!

If you were there, you could tell that I was quite frustrated
by the discussion. It was too bad that we couldn’t talk about anything beyond
what I believe are fairly worthless and self serving conversations about having
complete independance versus “selling out” to brands and corporations.  It’s not
a black or white issue for me.

The bottom line for me is that
artists should do whatever the fuck they like. People like Shepard Fairey,
Banksy, Dave Kinsey, and anyone else who can make a living doing what they love
to do should be commended for it and not bashed for being popular and making a
nice living.

Last night I would have loved to have had the
discussion be less about crap things like “avoiding the perils of fame by never
actually getting paid for your work” and more about inspiration, creativity, and
the incredible vibrancy of communities of artists on the internet on places like
Wooster, Ekosystem, and on Fotolog.

We should have talked about shit
that actually matters. Not crap about how one shouldn’t aspire to make money
from art. Fuck that! (You can see that I’m still fired up about it)

/>My take on it is that we don’t live in the ‘60’s anymore where living in a
tenement and having no money was a romantic notion. Nobody wants to live in an
apartment that they can’t pay for. And on this point, I thought the guy from the
“idependent” record label was talking out of his ass. We live in a world where
consumerism is part of our daily lives.

The comments last night by
Mysterious Al and D*Face were great.  I loved it when Mysterious Al said -
“Dudes, I drink Coca-Cola, what’s wrong with that!”

But all this
said, I had a great time and couldn’t have been happier to have been invited by
Sascha from Marmalade. She and her team put on a great event.

Also,
it was indeed a shame that Sara couldn’t come out for it. We leave for China
next week and some last minute dealines at her work in New York kept her from
coming.

Cheers,

Marc