states of the flomm

Aaron: “But I thought every­one was a FLOM­MIST already.”
Me: “Hm. That’d make it eas­i­er than me al­ways asking.”
 

PRE­VI­OUS­LY ON FLOMM  • • •
A lot has hap­pened since the last time I wrote a STATE OF THE FLOMM, which was a a great in­tro­duc­tion to wat we’re up to

BUT
now it’s Much Lat­er and The World and FLOMM’s coun­ter­ac­tions have tak­en us to whole oth­er territories.

The hottest club is 2018.
It’s got every­thing:
-Kids eat­ing de­ter­gent
-Chips, but for ladies
-Rich guys launch­ing cars into space pic.twitter.com/I49eJjHsyc

— Ana Bre­ton (@missbreton) Feb­ru­ary 7, 2018

1.
SO THE FLOM­MISTS  • • •
We have many – and you can see most of them on our In­sta­gram ac­count, on our AU­THORS page, or fol­low­ing us on Face­book – where we’ve de­cid­ed, ‘Fuck FACEBOOK’s al­go­rithm. We’re post­ing on our page A LOT. Even if it’s JUST for the THREE peo­ple out of a THOU­SAND that FOL­LOW US.’

While FLOMM start­ed in Sacra­men­to, we now have neo FLOM­MISTS all over the world. And I’ve been hav­ing in­cred­i­ble con­ver­sa­tions with most of them – about wat they make, life and for many, a love of the ear­ly mod­ern art that in­spired wat FLOMM does everyday.

@mike_nicoll_art

@suha.musallam

@tati_art_love

@riefroehlich

@juliegless

@tasirupeka_haro

@taulant_salihi

@idaver111

@fili_papinho

@artdjg

You ever have one of those nights where you wake up in a cold sweat won­der­ing what­ev­er hap­pened to the Lawrence brothers…?

— Anne [The] Hero (@AnneTheHero) Sep­tem­ber 16, 2017

Go fol­low a #flom­mist or a dozen.
Lis­ten to Bryan’s nü tracks.
Read Ruby’s posts.
See what An­dru is do­ing.
Dive into Brian’s con­spir­a­cy views from the dark side of the internet.

And buy his art­work. Buy everyone’s art­work.

OWN REAL ART FROM LIV­ING ARTISTS. We’re here to give FLOM­MISTS sup­port for wat they do and love.
 

2.
SO PROTESTS  • • •
I wasn’t an­gry when I used the phrase “an­gry mod­ern artists” back in 2012 when I was pro­mot­ing the FLOMM game. That was be­fore the world changed on a dime. Be­fore the first Nazi ap­peared in my Bauhaus class. Be­fore the racists came out of the wood­work. Be­fore be­ing ig­no­rant be­came a proud way of life.

FLOM­MISTS have tak­en to the streets in the past cou­ple of years. 

We have protest­ed our gov­ern­ment and its policies. 

We were part of the now an­nu­al Women’s March (logo de­signed by FLOM­MIST Nicole laRue, and do check out her new book AND pres­i­dent of Wom­ens March Sacra­men­to is our very own Jasper James, hear an in­ter­view here.)

And with Black Lives Mat­ter Sacra­men­to, a protest at the week­ly SN&R news­pa­per end­ed up be­ing tied to boy­cotts of the lo­cal mu­sic awards AND the shut­down of the awards themselves.

As artists – as hu­man be­ings – we’re not hap­py with the sta­tus quo right now, with the es­tab­lish­ment, with every­one cling­ing onto an im­per­fect past. For chris­sakes, we want the 21st Cen­tu­ry Dis­ney promised us.

Art is a bat­tle­field. —Pat Be­natPablo Pi­cas­so (1881–1973)
 

3.
SO OUR BLOGS  • • •
DER TUNG has been on fire – with the per­son­al­i­ties of our writ­ers dri­ving our con­tent. Hu­mour to pol­i­tics to po­et­ry to the evil things hu­mans do to each oth­er (hu­mans can be real shits. es­pe­cial­ly the men), our blog is still proud­ly un­cen­sored (we only edit for gram­mar) and there isn’t a top­ic we’ll back away from.

We’re LIT. And we do have a lot to say.

Read Bwargh.
Read Na­tal­ie.
Read Aman­da.
Read Ja­son, who last year got him­self one month Face­book banned for call­ing some­one a “cousin fuck­er.”

Nü writ­ers in­clude Lexy in Sacramento,
Emi­ly in Portland,
Court­ney in Berlin,
Tris­ti­tia in Antwerp, and Michelle every­where else.

FIRE BACK at us thru DIS­QUS, we’ll match you word for word. And if gram­mar ain’t your thing, we’ll re­mind you why be­ing ed­u­cat­ed leads to a larg­er world to live in *in which to live.

Over on Tumblr,
PRO­TO AVANT AL­TRO (our first blog) is still post­ing vi­su­als (or­ga­nized by colour) de­spite a HUGE dip in au­di­ence be­cause Tumblr’s plat­form-killing, ‘com­mu­ni­ty’ cen­sor­ship poli­cies im­ple­ment­ed De­cem­ber, 2018 (this was our protest – click on any of them for our ‘artist’s state­ment’) – and FLOM­MIS­CHEN is still mu­sic + MOR, with kabarett, jazz and sym­phon­ic works on the week­end – plus nü SPO­TI­FY playlists EVERY MON­DAY morn­ing. Been in a mood. This may continue.

Qui­et­ly added in 2017 was our ‘off-brand’ FLOM­MORO­MU tum­blr blog, a J‑FLOMM gam­ing + ani­me です care­ful­ly cu­rat­ed by Jamie Sum­mers of Or­ange Lounge Ra­dio fame. Tho no longer ac­tive, this blog still has LOT of mod­ern Japan­ese cool­ness still posted.

Also in 2017, we also added a Pol­ish art and cul­ture blog, FLOMM­S­Ki. We now have MOR than a few East­ern Eu­ro­pean FLOM­MISTS, this blog loose­ly posts a bunch of things that were once be­hind an Iron curtain.

And else­where – a FLOMM fan ac­count show’d up – l’flommausiliario. We’re not sure who runs it (a for­mer stu­dent??), but it does post a lot of re­al­ly cool meme and ed­u­ca­tion-based content.

ALSO add to your feed the RADíO FLoMM tum­blr. It’s where all our lat­est pod­cast episodes are post­ed, aside from iTunes, Spo­ti­fy, tunein, etc.
 

4.
SO OUR POD­CASTS  • • •
Al­ley Schef­f­ki’s FLOMM­CAST start­ed in 2017. It was the FIRST FLOMM project I was not di­rect­ly in­volved in – it was Alley’s thing – and it ran for (al­most) three seasons.

AF­TER it end­ed – and since we were still pay­ing for Sound­cloud host­ing – I sat down with De­von Parks-Clouti­er and our sec­ond pod­cast, RADíO FLoMM, was born – with MOR in­volve­ment from me, be­hind and in front of the mic.

“FROM SACRA­MEN­TO, THE HEART OF CAL­I­FOR­NIA AND AROUND THE WORLD”

For RADíO FLOMM, our goal was some­thing to­tal­ly dif­fer­ent, to cre­ate an ‘un­cen­sored, ag­gres­sive ver­sion of NPR’ (sug­gest­ed by long­time FLOM­MIST + per­for­mance artist Bwargh von Mod­nar) that harkens back to Top 40 Ra­dio (which I lis­tened to as a kid) and Old Time Ra­dio (ra­dio was pret­ty much tele­vi­sion with­out pic­tures in the 1930s and 40s) with a DADAist ex­per­i­men­tal mix of mu­sic, in­ter­views, com­e­dy, mu­sic, sound col­lages, clas­si­cal remix­es and any­thing we can think of. 

Since FLOMM is about ed­u­ca­tion, seg­ments in­spired by the orig­i­nal ver­sion of The Elec­tric Com­pa­ny end­ed up in the mix, es­pe­cial­ly in our sec­ond sea­son. We also went af­ter some awe­some in­ter­view sub­jects who we nev­er thought we could get.

Lo­cal and in­ter­na­tion­al artists, his­to­ri­ans, au­thors, ad­vo­cates, an­ar­chists, and The Peo­ple are part of the se­ries – with a cast of reg­u­lars who in­clude my­self, Milk Sur­face, Chad An­dré, Jes De­prez, Kevin Scott Brown, Jeni Soto, Kit Cour­dial, Chelsea Davis, Ja­sons Spyres and Malm­berg, Louis Her­nan­dez with Blu, Au­drey Daggett and Cliff Allen and many, many MOR.

milk sur­face

And on 30 Oc­to­ber 2018, we de­stroyed Sacra­men­to as a cel­e­bra­tion of (to the day) the 80th An­niver­sary of Or­son Welles’ War of the Worlds broad­cast – an en­tire old time ra­dio dra­ma rewrit­ten, per­formed and pro­duced (some­how) in about a week (we’re big on mak­ing it up as you go, we only had the idea the week prior).

In prac­tice, our goal is to get lis­ten­ers to won­der, “Wat the hell are they go­ing to do next?” And I hope that’s wat we’re ac­com­plish­ing here.

As I write this we are in plan­ning for our THIRD SEA­SON, which starts 1 Oc­to­ber 2019.

 

kalen­dar ²⁰¹⁸⁄₁₉₂₃ van FLOMM

5.
SO THERE’S SWAG  • • •
Over at FLOMMHAUS, we’ve added a few items to our col­lec­tion – in­clud­ing these, three, scarves that will add a bit of mod­ern to the last days of winter.

And for fun, Bwargh von Mod­nar and my­self cob­bled to­geth­er a sec­ond FLOMM store.

Dif­fer­ent than our oth­er FLOMM store, we have plans to sell lim­it­ed edi­tion prints and odd wares from the FLOM­MISTS at large.

We came up with an odd name – L ’EDI­TIONe di FLOM­Merce – and had a soft open on Cy­ber Mmon­day 2017, just to see what re­sponse we’d get. We’ve sold a few of the few things we have. And we’ve got a few things left!

Right now I’m sort­ing thru some stock of rare prints, paint­ings, mu­sic, hand­made jew­el­ry, books, a mod tele­phone and a few oth­er FLOM­MU ob­jects. We will have MOR soon!
 

@artbysarahmarie

@kainanbecker

ELSE­WHERE some FLOM­MISTS have been book­ing on art sales – in­clud­ing work at the 100under100 show at the Sacra­men­to WAL Pub­lic Mar­ket Gallery – plus the Stranger Things 2 show sold a lot – AND it is so coool that Am­ber Witzke sold piles of her ty­po­graph­ic neigh­bor­hood map of Sacra­men­to.

Bri­au­na Ru­bert’s Melan­choly Mon­ster men­tal health char­ac­ters are now on shirts, stick­ers and mugs.

And that’s just lo­cal. We now have FLOM­MISTS all over. (See para­graph above)

So, again, BUY SOME REAL ART. Di­rect if you can.
 

Dan­ger­squir­rel: “You mean that wasn’t print­ed letterpress?”
Me: “Uh, no. We don’t have that kind of mon­ey right now.”
Dan­ger­squir­rel: “Can you silkscreen some then?”
 

6.
SO OUR PRO­PA­GAN­DA  • • •
Over the past few years, we’ve done sev­er­al dif­fer­ent kinds of guer­ril­la fliers and stick­ers and buttons.

But our lat­est ‘dada play­bill’ faux-let­ter­press cam­paign is ac­tu­al­ly work­ing. Cause (we be­lieve) there’s words in­volved. And the words are sil­ly. De­signed by my­self with text from Bwargh von Mod­nar, we’ve been per­son­al­ly hand­ing them to artists every­where we go.

And I mean every­where. Grass­roots style. FLOM­MISTS dis­trib­ut­ing our own pro­pa­gan­da. We even vis­it­ed The Los An­ge­les Print­ers Fair, where we met EVEN MOR in­cred­i­ble people.

@oblivioncomics

@ruby_roth

@shoptwine

@thesleepyhippie

in­ter­na­tion­al print­ing museum

And we keep run­ning out. Right now there are over 5,000 fliers float­ing around Cal­i­for­nia and a few places else­where. If you’re a FLOM­MIST and want a batch to dis­trib­ute, drop me a line. we’ll send some out. Uh, if we haven’t run out again.
 

7.
SO THE 423  • • •
FLOMM 423 was in STOCK­TON, CAL­I­FOR­NIA twice, then in SACRA­MEN­TO, PARIS and kin­da ANTWERP. 

Our sec­ond 423 event was put on by the ad­vanced graph­ic de­sign course at Uni­ver­si­ty of the Pa­cif­ic; they planned and ex­e­cut­ed a 100th An­niver­sary of de Sti­jl evening that in­clud­ed let­ter­press print­ing, silkscreen­ing, work­shops, a fash­ion show, ven­dors, live en­ter­tain­ment with a NYE–like count­down to the next day.

With #team­van­does­burg and #team­mon­dri­an. And this some­how in­volved Tup­per­ware as door prizes. Be­cause this is FLOMM, dammit.

So far every 423 has been dif­fer­ent from the last, so we do keep our promise of 423 be­ing a ONE NIGHT ONLY event (cept 423 Red which we’re still not sure when it hap­pened be­cause of the time dif­fer­ence be­tween FRANCE and CALIFORNIA).

Over the past few years, 423 has in­clud­ed mul­ti­ple artists, techs, mak­ers + mor. 

And for an­oth­er quick overview, check out my PER­SON­AL HISTÓRY oF FLOMM so far PART 10.

In­ter­ac­tiv­i­ty! Bill Mead’s ran­dom HTML art gen­er­a­tor from 423 RED! Just add foto and text via this in­ter­face link:

 

8.
SO FILM­MAK­ING  • • •
This past sum­mer, I joined a bunch of FLOMM film­mak­ers (as an ex­tra) for the short film Banned. And while stand­ing around (this is wat ex­tras do) I man­aged to com­pile a pho­toes­say of the Stock­ton mid­cen­tu­ry mod­ern mu­nic­i­pal airport.

De­tails on the film are here. And my pho­toes­say can be found on our Pa­tre­on.

AND

I am still work­ing on the FLOMM short ex­per­i­men­tal films, and they’re now part of a film edit­ing class I am teach­ing. And just added to the crew are cos­tume de­sign­er Vik­to­ria Rygg and tal­ent Kylie Jack­son, Monique Lussier, Aman­da Mau­r­er, and Bet­ty Nelsen.

PLUS

On the film side of things, some FLOM­MISTS were HOT FOR TEACHER for about a minute or so.

 

9.
SO LIVE ART
There are FLOM­MISTS all over putting on LIVE shows. We’ve pro­mot­ed them on RADíO FLoMM and con­tin­u­ous­ly list them – wher­ev­er they may be – on our Face­book page.

Lo­cal­ly, the same crew that puts on NOR­CAL NOISE­FEST and were a huge part of 423 RED, has SACRA­MEN­TO AU­DIO WAF­FLE hap­pen­ing month­ly at The Red Mu­se­um.

And Red Mu­se­um events are un­der­ground, live and to­tal­ly awe­some!

And there’s FLOM­MISTS at Green Val­ley The­atre, The Dar­ling Clemen­tines and be­cause I’ve been want­i­ng to do a 1920s Kabarett show, The Vix­en Dames did one up in Col­fax, with us cheer­ing them on.

FLOM­MIST Lind­sey Es­kild­sen went and be­came a NIN­JA WAR­RIOR.

Plus, FLOM­MISTS at The In­ter­sec­tion. At the edge of gen­tri­fi­ca­tion in Sacramento’s Oak Park.

 

10.
SO ANY­THING ELSE?  • • •
WELL, there is FLOM­MIST Mark E. Sack­ett’s let­ter­press, stone lith­o­g­ra­phy print­ing and ephemera shop – called THE BOX SF – now open in San Fran­cis­co. And check out the events at The In­ter­na­tion­al Print­ing Mu­se­um, Sol Col­lec­tive, the oth­er Hamil­ton, Type­con and Let­ter­form Archive.

ELSE­WHERE, if you’re one of our few pa­trons, you’ve found that we do treat you like a GOD. 

Once you do­nate over four bucks, we tend to send you any­thing FLOMM-like that’s ly­ing around. So if you want GOD sta­tus, please drop us some (real) Hamil­tons.

And don’t get me start­ed on #the­flom­m­man­i­festoof­food, which I’m work­ing on with Rob­bie Ed­monds.

 

SUB­SCRIBE and STAY TUNED
THANK YOU for join­ing us for our li’l ol Re­vival of the Whole Mod­ern Art Move­ment ex­pe­ri­ence. In­clud­ing the writ­ings, the shows, the protests, the cops and the oc­ca­sion­al bans of wat we say and do.

@idaver111

@laurenartistry

@mehallo

@itaylorray

@laurenartistry

@vero2dos

@grrropius

@kelliemac123

@louis_studies_letters

@runn_ing_late

@ijustcabrina

@lexylovestruck

@rikkimorehouse

@courtofkings

@fili_papinho

@djladygrey

@parkscloutier

@taspencerinmo

@audreyedaggett, @milkmyth

@mehallo

@modemoiselle

@sacramentohistorian

@togrowagander

@coyotecreates

@armatora

col­lab­o­ra­tion with @weblicitynet

@aldo1799, @mehallo

 

up­date Au­gust 2019
This 2018 post has been up­dat­ed to re­flect where FLOMM is to-day. Not too many things have changed – we have MOR flom­mists world­wide – and a few projects in the works we’ve yet to re­veal. It’s most­ly been us adapt­ing to our so­cial en­vi­ron­ment internationally. 

For MOR about us, please read my se­ries A PER­SON­AL HISTÓRY oF FLOMM so far.

 

—steve mehal­lo

Flom­mist Steve Mehal­lo is a graph­ic de­sign­er, il­lus­tra­tor, font de­sign­er, ed­u­ca­tor, food­ie and gad­fly. He is the cre­ator and founder of FLOMM! Most im­ages came from can­did fo­tos over the past year and stuff we’ve had post­ed on In­sta­gram. HUGE Thanks to Bwargh for help­ing edit all of this from top to bot­tom. And up top: De­tail from the work of Lás­zló Mo­holy-Nagy (1895–1946) – one of our mus­es – from the Past Fu­ture Present ex­hi­bi­tion. If I’ve missed any hap­pen­ings or over­looked any­one, fire me a note. We’ll do a sep­a­rate fea­ture just for you.

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FLOMM
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