found in the washroom of casa del popolo

UFORG

Flyer I made for Jon Asencio's UFO Research Group performance piece, using the new Montreal bus transfer.

Beaubien Cover Graphics

Modified Found Diagrams

No Division

copy and paste

Over On Another Blog ....

I have been concentrating my web efforts on maintaining my Monastiraki blogspot.

The shop forces me to update regularly so if you find this place and my drawing blog waaaay too slow in terms of updates, please strut on over to where the air is clean with activity.

'Nuff Said

Leadership

This little red book, a business manual dating from 1920, has been a source of constant delight for me.
It would have us believe that ALL the titans of industry used psychic powers as just one tool in their toolkit to success.
And I've wasted precious time trying to speak to dust mites and trees.



Some of the ALL CAPS page headers include :

SWEEPING PEOPLE OFF THEIR FEET
THE IMPORTANCE OF BELIEF
THE POWER OF ENTHUSIASM
COMMAND! - NEVER ENTREAT
INFLUENCING BY THOUGHT FORCE
PUT THOUGHT BEHIND WORDS
MOST PEOPLE ARE "PSYCHIC"
PEOPLE WHO THINK THEY THINK
KEEP HIS MIND OCCUPIED
THE USE OF MENTAL PICTURES
LEARNING OTHERS' THOUGHTS
ANDREW CARNEGIE USED THIS
HOLD YOUR POWER IN CHECK
A LAW OF THE OCCULT WORLD
WE GET BACK WHAT WE SEND OUT

Wehman Bros.' New Book Of Fun, Magic & Mystery. 1905

This wonderful catalogue/sampler for Wehman Bros. of New York is chock full of excerpts and ads for many of their joke books and parlor games and such.
I was particularly struck by the illustrations gracing their myriad books featured on the back cover. They remind me of some the ink work from american underground comix of the 60s but, of course, they date from at least 1905.
I've separated individual illustrations for a better look.
& please don't shoot the messenger regarding the blatant racism depicted on some of the covers and their wording.
Dutch jokes ?

Wehman Bros. Books Part 1

Wehman Bros. Books Part 2

Wehman Bros. Books Part 3

Wehman Bros. Books Part 4

Wehman Bros. Books Part 5

Billycan !

By giving me this postcard, my friend
S.W.Welch reminded me not only of important potty habits but of general life affirmation.

Guess What ?

There are so many ways to say this. Here are two found examples.

And Another Thing

I'll be at the Helen Pitt gallery in Vancouver for the next few weeks to make art in public. In the hood ? Do drop in !

here's the info :

Billy Mavreas: And Another Thing
Helen Pitt Gallery


Friday May 23 to Saturday June 14, 2008
Reception: Friday, June 6 at 8:00 pm

Montreal-based artist and cartoonist, Billy Mavreas, presents And Another Thing as the second installment of the Helen Pitt Gallery’s Workaday series, a three-exhibition experiment addressing issues of creative process, labour and the performative gesture. For each of these exhibitions, the artists involved will be spending three weeks working live within the gallery space to develop a new project or body of work in situ. Viewers are invited to drop in regularly to witness the evolution of these projects and see the artists at work.

Working largely with a photocopier, but also with sculptural elements and found objects, Mavreas will be creating an improvised, collaged installation that defies the divisions of writing and drawing; narrative and semiology; anthropology and science fiction.

At the Helen Pitt Gallery, Mavreas will, in his own words, undertake “a radical expansion of ideas. An accumulation and sloughing off. A shared play and a solo manic exercise. A turn or phrase, a rant, a monologue, a listening, an encouragement. The texture of things noticed or felt. An array of tenses, dislodged temporal streams. Layered noise. Hidden information. Buried text. Lost meanings. Worlds within worlds.”

Throughout the exhibition, audience members will be invited to participate in Mavreas’ exhibition by coming with photocopiable items (objects, original artwork, pocket or wallet contents) to be incorporated in Mavreas’ project.

Notoriously difficult to pin down, Mavreas’ process-based practice does nonetheless suggest a critical response to Modernism’s severity, reductionism and paradoxical dialectics, engaging instead with its less ordered, more expansive traditions of mysticism and transcendentalism developed by such diverse figured as Wassily Kandinsky, John Cage, René Daumal, and Aleister Crowley. And yet, Mavreas’ work is entirely his own. His distinctive creative universe—often populated with bunnies with keen knowledge of dimensional portals and time travel, gourd-like blobs that conflate the phallus/vagina dichotomy, talismans and runes—evokes a social urgency, a reconsideration of language and action, and ultimately seeks a metaphysical understanding to the hard edges of thought, reason and the structure of contemporary life.

--

BILLY MAVREAS is a Greek-Canadian artist living in Montreal. For almost twenty years, Mavreas has produced rock posters, comics, artist books, visual poetry, installation, mail art, web art, performance, essay writing and guerilla consultancy. His artwork and various projects have been shown and published internationally. He is the author of The Overlords of Glee (conundrum press, 2001), Hell Passport Commentary (Perro Verlag, 2006) and the upcoming Inside Outside Overlap (Timeless Books, 2008) among many others. Mavreas is also the proprietor of his enduring project, Monastiraki, a Mile-End magickal curiosity shoppe and art gallery.

Helen Pitt Gallery Artist-Run Centre
#102-148 Alexander Street
Vancouver, BC, Canada V6A 1B5
604.681.6740 / pittg@telus.net

http://www.helenpittgallery.org/

Contact: Lance Blomgren, Director/Curator

Inside Outside Overlap - My New Book !

I have recently launched, and will continue to launch, my first full length graphic novel called Inside Outside Overlap.
It's published by Timeless Books, Toronto and it's now available for purchase from them and at finer retailers around Canada and the US.

Metaphysical Goose Chart

From 'Metaphysics' by Richard Taylor

Kosher Discordian Logo

I chuckled when I found this kosher foods logo on a teabag. It's the golden apple !

Free Yoko

Alootook Ipellie

I remember you.


I just found out of the passing of amazing Canadian artist Alootook Ipellie in Sept. 2007.
I was lucky to have met him and publish some of his art in my Monster Island Three anthology. I had hoped for more meetings but alas, such is life.
He was a generous artist and truly important canadian storyteller, cartoonist, artist, editor, publisher, writer, journalist, etc., etc., etc.,

You As A Machine

An awesome cover by Frederick E Sayfarth for a 1955 edition of a basic science booklet by Bertha Morris Parker & M. Elizabeth Downing, Chicago, USA.

Various Seals

Forest Noises

L'il Dudes Peeking Out

thanks to Robert Labossiere

Fools Mirror

this image (or half of it) was found embedded in a corner of a noise field
i made by manipulating an "Abstract Analog Scratch Pattern".
i released the little dude from the surrounding noise and flipped him over to face himself.

and how are you ?

Quantam Tetrahedron

Cave Wall Face

They Say

all kinds of things.
right now it's about the prehistoric mammals.
and the people. and raised platforms. and carpeted nests.
all the right papers to go on.

posting like this as fast and
message out in no time.

---

tell me how consciousness doesn't come in frequencies
-
a debased literature.

---

right now it's about the near future,
the pulls and pushes
the reaching, the piles of litter long neglected
the tasks that build to boiling
a difficulty breathing.

-

let's see what happens.

Hey Man

My Secret

,MAN

ZZLLOLLZZ

ZZLLOLLZZ
i like this formula.

My Band

The Fudge

Rocket Of London

In my copy of the Rocket Of London Catalog 1977 edition,
I came across this fine piece of promo swag !
Though a tad off topic as far as this blog is concerned,
I've always shown it to guests
so I feel obligated to show it to my hosts.

It's a thing to marvel at!

ROCKET OF LONDON!

Using Our Language 8

Wonderful illustrations by Lloyd Scott for the grade 8 grammar,
Using Our Language,
by T.I.Davies for J.M.Dent & Sons (Canada) Limited (1942)

Using Our Language 5

The following illustrations come from a grade 5 grammar book called Using Our Language by T.I.Davis,
published by J.M.Dent & Sons (Canada) Limited, 1947.
I couldn't find any information in this volume pointing to whether the artist was Davis or someone else.

In the forward to Using Our Language 8 (1942), a Mr. Lloyd Scott is thanked for 'his effective illustrations'.
I believe Lloyd Scott did the drawings for both books.

Enjoy!

Historic Doodles From "Everybody's Pixillated"

The following doodles are from a piece in the
May 24, 1937 issue of Life Magazine discussing
Russell M. Arundels' book 'Everybody's Pixillated'.
I'd love to see a copy of this book!

"Found taped to the wall in the washroom in the basement of the church
at 309 Rachel East Nov 7 2006"

Courtesy of Jamie Salomon

Acid Nightmare