423: ink was everywhere + yellow

In keep­ing with WAT WE DO as FLOM­MISTS, part one of our an­nu­al 423 event hap­pened last week – with a dous­ing of yel­low (and green) light­ing.

Be­cause Jo­hannes It­ten (1888–1967).
Be­cause Josef Al­bers (1888–1976).

At a new lo­ca­tion, Myr­tle Press in Sacra­men­to. And as usu­al, we were mak­ing it up as we go. FOUR print­ing press­es, with four press op­er­a­tors jump­ing in to do things they’ve nev­er done be­fore.

423 has been about vol­un­teer­ing. And at­tempt­ing to share wat we en­joy in a hands on at­mos­phere. And it hap­pened again this year. FLOM­MISTS filled the room and every­one was print­ing. Some­thing.

“We’re gun­na be run­ning 100 year old print­ing press­es that we haven’t used be­fore. This Mon­day. So Louis – the guy stand­ing in front of you? Can you give him a crash course in let­ter­press?”

Last Sat­ur­day – TWO DAYS be­fore our event – Louis found my men­tor; who, back in the 1980s, got me in­volved in print­ing my own ’zine.

Steve Ro­bi­son was at the SF Bay Area Print­ers Fair & Wayz­goose in San Jose. And Louis was de­ter­mined to learn. In about an hour.

“Did you kno this press was sit­ting here up­side­down?”

“THAT’S why we couldn’t get it to work!”

Pull up patent of­fice draw­ings and BOOM big chunk of the puz­zle is fig­ured out.

Louis jumped in, joined by Con­nie Or­tiz and Ethan Cameron to use the equip­ment Myr­tle Press had sit­ting around. They made the things work.

The wood­type col­lec­tion of Lyn­d­sie Ross with Ethan’s own print­er cuts – with some ink and clean­ing sup­plies from Full Cir­cle Press (hi Ju­dith!) made it all come to­geth­er. Plus, Myrtle’s Dix­ie Laws was on hand keep things run­ning smooth­ly.

Peo­ple who’ve nev­er used press­es be­fore – such as Milk and hon­eyfruit – be­came print­ers for the evening, ex­plor­ing let­ters and cuts and see­ing wat could be made.

Off to the side, Bwargh von Mod­nar per­formed her lat­est while backed by Eddy, Rose and the For­eign Lo­cals in a weird, but odd­ly func­tion­al space. A hall­way. That was fun to light. And was per­fect for acoustics. Kay­la Le Mas­ters was DJ, filled any gaps with YEL­LOW mu­sic and Cliff Allen ran cords, car­ried mon­i­tors and put lights every­where.

 

Our ART WALL was set up by the in­cred­i­ble Lee Canas; who jumped in with paints – AND shot some video.

Plus, join­ing us for the first time was nü flom­mist Pe­ter Gomez. Get­ting peo­ple to pick up a tool and jump in just re­quired a lit­tle nudg­ing. Cause this is FLOMM.

At­tempt every­thing, swal­low only wat seems to even­tu­al­ly stick. No fault in the at­tempt.

Some great, fucked up and bril­liant works came next!

 

Our art food was yel­low. Lots of yel­low. Yel­low CHEESE piz­za, yel­low cheese crack­ers, yel­low bean sal­ad. Mel­lo Yel­lo soda, Lemon­heads, Tangy Taffy, M&Ms. Only thing we couldn’t find was icon­ic Scream­ing Yel­low Zonkers, which Wal­greens car­ries in a ‘lim­it­ed edi­tion,’ tho it was too lim­it­ed edi­tion this time of year.

Julio Gon­za­lez of the amaz­ing FRESH­ER Sacra­men­to brought some de­li­cious hand­made low glycemic gin­ger snap cook­ies. And the pud­ding – and vo­cals – of Tam­my of Fat­so’s Fa­mous ’Nana Pud­ding kept us in ba­nanas.

Aside from the fun, when we ‘make it up as we go,’ some things ac­tu­al­ly do go side­ways. Tho we had less fuck­ups than usu­al.

For starters, we had a car break down. Which was solved quick­ly by su­per­hero Louis jump­ing in to save the day (every art move­ment needs a Louis). And then, a bunch of vol­un­teers sim­ply did not show up (tho odd­ly enough, third year in, I was ready for this. For a change.)

Our open­ing act – the in­cred­i­ble gueril­la poet An­dru De­f­eye found him­self in a last minute emer­gency and was un­able to join us – tho I will be drag­ging him to our RED event, cause we have a mic with his name al­ready on it (And if not, I have a sharpie I can write on the mic with). An­dru has to be seen live and we will some­how make this hap­pen.

(or just show up at THE IN­TER­SEC­TION, ’cause he’s there most­ly every week)

And Fa­mous Dutch Artist Mondain WAS on site this year, about an hour be­fore we start­ed, but he couldn’t find our speakeasy-like hid­den blue door. So he texted me, and along the way asked about our slide pro­jec­tor. Then all hell broke loose.

“Hel­l­l­lo. I’m stand­ing out­side here. IS ANY­BODY THERE? Like, you were SUP­POSED to send a DRI­VER. NOT AN UBER. NOT A LYFT. BUT A REAL DRI­VER. HEL­L­L­L­LOO??”

“YOU’VE GOT TO BE KID­DING. I do NOT do dig­i­tal slides. Slides should be on film. And all my yel­low art slides are on a Ko­dak Carousel. Do you know what a Ko­dak Carousel is? It’s how you show slides. And YOU left me with no way to show slides. And no way to get in. There’s things that say Verge and Axis all over the place. AND this UBER guy kept point­ing to the back of the build­ing and bab­bling about some­thing blue. EX­CUSE ME, but it says 423 YEL­LOW, he WON’T lis­ten TO ME.”

Then lat­er:

“You paint­ed the door blue. Blue. FUCK­ING BLUE. WAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEO­PLE??????”

But it all some­how worked. Again.

Smol space, print­ing, mu­sic and FLOM­MISTS cre­at­ing and do­ing.

As al­ways I am in awe of the vol­un­teer en­er­gy that makes an event like this hap­pen. From our old stand­bys to the newest mem­bers of our FLOMM­WORLD. Every­thing was pulled to­geth­er on a ac­tu­al shoe­string.

HUGE THANKS to my wife Jeanne, Dix­ie Laws, Lee Canas, Re­nee Thomp­son, Jack­ie Gar­cia, Chris­tine Zul­lo, Alex Troy­an, So­phie Tra­verse, Jes De­prez, Louis Her­nan­dez, Clau­dia Or­tiz, Ethan Cameron, Matt Rop­er, Milk Sur­face, Bwargh von Mod­nar, Ed­die & Rose and those guys, An­dru De­f­eye, Kay­la Le Mas­ters, Cliff Allen, Pe­ter Gomez, Mon­i­ca Odeh, Bill Mead, The De­sign De­part­ments at Sacra­men­to City Col­lege, UC Davis, Art New Me­dia and The Oak Café at Amer­i­can Riv­er Col­lege and Lau­ra Ben­son at Obliv­ion Comics.

Ad­di­tion­al 423 thanks go out to every­one else who helped with do­na­tions, pub­lic­i­ty, set up, light­ing, sound, food rec­om­men­da­tions (sev­er­al peo­ple helped here), clean up and all the cos­tumes and berets and hair colour and to­tal­ly suave shoes.

Plus, EVEN MOR THANKS for the con­tri­bu­tions of sup­plies, ma­te­ri­als + food from:

The Art In­sti­tute of Cal­i­for­nia – Sacra­men­to

Fresh­er Sacra­men­to

Full Cir­cle Press

Ste­fan Hat­ten­bach

Myr­tle Press

Min­ute­man Press Sacra­men­to

Please be sure to thank them AGAIN for us. Tell ’em FLOMM sent you.

 

Up next for 423 is:

SOME­THING TO­TAL­LY DIF­FER­ENT

le TRIP­TIQUE de FLOMM
PART TWO
salty
la forme ar­tic­ulée de FLOMM 423 RED

held in PARIS FRANCE + SACRA­MEN­TO Cal­i­for­nia USA

a
ONE-DAY-ONLY FLOMM event
art + noise + mu­sic + open mic + his­to­ry + yoga + di­vas

with
Stay Salty
Ac­tivism Ar­tic­u­lat­ed
Nor­cal Noise­fest
The Diva Mar­ket
Afro Yoga
and who­ev­er else ends up in the mix
(we’re still mix­ing!)

SAT­UR­DAY 9 JUNE 2018

DE­TAILS TO COME

READ der­TUNG and watch THIS SPACE, we’ll post INFO as we fig­ure things out.

(or just join us at the DEAR MOTH­ER BALL in Sacra­men­to on 12 May 2018. It’ll give you a taste of where RED is head­ed)

 
 

—steve mehal­lo

Flom­mist Steve Mehal­lo is a graph­ic de­sign­er, il­lus­tra­tor, font de­sign­er, ed­u­ca­tor, food­ie and gad­fly. He is the cre­ator and founder of FLOMM! Ad­di­tion­al pho­tos by Cliff Allen.

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