Quick Stop at the Street Art Store

I went exploring last week and happened upon the Street Art Store.  It was open, so I parked and went in.  The Street Art Store operates as a store that sells graff supplies, and as a gallery that shows street art.  It's a difficult thing to do- to show work as street art in a gallery setting.  MOCA's exhibit was compared to Disneyland in Sharon Mizota's L.A. Times review, an idea Artillery Magazine illustrated in their most recent issue.  The Street Art Store is pretty unassuming.  It also helps that the store is not too preoccupied with how it hangs work.  The photocopied, hand written price sheets are a nice touch.

Vampires One Day is the featured artist at the Street Art Store.  I liked the collages, but left wondering how they represent Vampires One Day's work on the the street.  Does he collage on the street and produce some pieces for the store?  Or, perhaps these street art because he uses material found on the street?  

SEX HAT FAKE FACE (right)

Street artist Homo Riot cluster.  Perhaps the best use of the repetition element of street art.  Printing and pasting bunnies all over town is cute, but constantly exposing people to gay imagery so that they become accustomed to it is utilizing the medium to its full advantage. 

A major function of the Street Art Store is the sticker exchange program.  Artists from around the world mail in their stickers.  Sam grades the stickers based on amount and quality.  An A grade receives more stickers in return than a C.  This way, street art from around the world can exist everywhere: a global street art experience on every telephone pole.  Stickers can also be purchased by the gram.

Cat Cult Cluster is street art at its most fun.  A mix of styles- and cats.

Cat Cult smushed faced, half shaved tortie Detail

Among his collages, Vampires One Day is displaying a small machine in a box.  The title is My First.  His website offers no explanation, but, I think it's a homemade tattoo gun that the artist uses to create pages in handmade art books.

I very much prefer the unpainted version from the artist's website, which reveals that the gun is made using a Bic pen held together with bent wire and some zip ties: