Local artists team up for D.I.Y. creative collective

If you want something done well, you’ve got to do it yourself; the artists who work with Yeller, a collaborative of local creative minds, know it all too well.

For young, developing artists, the challenge in a city like San Diego is getting seen, drawing crowds and marketing art that is potent, affordable and accessible.

“No one is going to do it for you,” said Steph Walker, a San Diego State University graphic design grad, who shows her work with Yeller.

Local artists - many of them from Golden Hill, where the city’s creative underclass is taking up residence in droves - have joined Yeller to promote themselves and other artists who are on the outskirts of the bourgeois art world.

Yeller is a DIY-style collective; a grassroots network of artists who, tired with the local contemporary art scene, use unrented commercial spaces to display affordable art to a group of their peers. The shows, they say, draw press for spaces that may not otherwise get it - and attention to artists who very much deserve it.

The idea behind Yeller is to connect creative people and create a new art culture - an alternative to the ultra-competitive, often-generic contemporary art scene in San Diego.

“We wanted to create a platform outside the established scene of contemporary art to connect creative people with a new group of potential art buyers, who are primarily our peers,” said John Zappas, a Yeller artist who graduated from Point Loma Nazarene University with a graphic design degree last year.

Zappas and his girlfriend Lindsay Preston, also a PLNU graphic design grad, met Walker at Zappas’ portfolio review last year.

Walker, who has built a small network of local artists, invited Zappas to create work for an art show she hosts in her backyard.

When Zappas, Preston and a few of their friends developed the concept for Yeller, they reached out to Walker. The five artists whose work was featured at Yeller’s first show - including Zappas, Preston, Walker, Wes Bruce and Joel P. West - spread word to their social networks, and hosted their first show in February.

“Maybe this will perpetuate the idea there are artists here in San Diego - and really good artists - that maybe just aren’t being recognized, and I think we, as a group, are some of those artists,” Walker said.

The collective’s weekly meetings become “idea sessions” and a way for the artists to share new tools, different perspectives or give feedback. The meetings also encourage the artists to think outside their comfort zone.

“Yeller is a nice way to experiment, to do something weird, and learn from it,” Walker said.

Yeller’s first show in February at the Mxd830 space on 25th Street in Golden Hill was a hit. It drew a packed house. For its second show, next month, the group hunted for another unique space it could transform for the one-night-only gallery.

Through friends, they connected with the owners of The Wharffice at Driscoll’s Wharf. The July 11 show will feature a nautical/aquatic theme to complement the space.

The collective’s artists say their art doesn’t water down concepts, but it strays from the overly esoteric; rather, they attempt to create potent pieces that are accessible to, say, someone who doesn’t have a background in art history.

The artists also price their work affordably - $15-$75. They find inexpensive materials or methods for creating new work and reproducing prints to help keep costs down.

The collective’s first show, for example, featured screen-prints from each of the artists, which made it easier for them to create prints. They also sold T-shirts with prints on them, which were popular items. “People know how to use T-shirts,” said Preston of the wearable art form.

“I don’t think many of us are going to make much money from this, but it’s an important thing for us to do,” Preston said. “The art keeps its integrity and is true to itself … it’s not cheapening it in any way.”

Tags: SDNN

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 17th, 2009 at 4:04 pm and is filed under Arts & Entertainment, Lifestyle, Music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.