The Letter Collector



When I was about eleven years old, I loved to draw intricate ornamental initials with sea serpents twining all over them and castles sprouting out of them, etc. Sometimes my friends would have me draw ink letter "tattoos" on them, but really, the only way I could get satisfactory resolution on my letters was to use a fine tip pen on a full sheet of paper. One letter = math class. (No wonder I don't know calculus).

That's why this new group show at San Francisco's Gallery Hijinks has me smiling with nostalgia - it's a full alphabet (plus) of letter-themed artworks. The organic, flowing capitals by Hannah Stouffer (whose color work, incidentally reminds me powerfully of Christopher Reiger's) are perhaps the most reminiscent of my ballpoint efforts. But there are also mixed media works, oils, watercolors, and assemblages. Check out the adorable promo video above from Gallery Hijinks - I'd love to have a hoard of letters locked away myself!

You can view all the artwork online at Gallery Hijinks - but note, they appear to have a bug in their code for at least some browsers; the names of the artists are misaligned with the works in the zoomed viewing option. So don't be confused by that: it's not you, if you think the artwork is a "V" and it says "W". This is not some stressful variant on a captcha. :)

More info:

The Letter Collector will be on display from March 5th, 2011 until March 26th, 2011, and is open to the public during gallery hours (11am-6pm Tuesday-Saturday).

Exhibiting artists include: Aaron Bo Heimlich, Alexandra Zee, Andrea Wan, Andrew Johnson, Austin McManus, Beau Stanton, Casey Gray, Catherine Ryan, Chris Blackstock, Christian Rex Van Minnen, Christopher Davison, Claire Colette, Damon MacGregor, David Bayus, Denise Santillan, Dustin Klien, Eli Harris, Eric Helve, Erik Otto, Fernando Pizarro, Hannah Stouffer, Jakub Kalousek, Jason Vivona, Jing Wei, Jon Contino, Kyle Jorgensen, Lafe Eaves, Lisa Congdon, Louise Chen, Mark Warren Jacques, Matthew Reamer, Meryl Pataky, Mike Giant, Molly Bosley, Morgan Blair, Nas Chompas, Pakayla Biehn, Timothy Karpinski, Rich Pellegrino, Robert Minervini, Rosie Hanna, Russell Leng, Ryan De La Hoz, Ryan Riss, Sarah Patterson, Sean Somers, Seth Neefus, Shea Greene, Tanya Behar, Uri Korn, Whitney Lasker, Whitney McCabe, Viktor Layne, and Yellena James.