Our friends, Ben Jones (Paper Rad) and the Problem Solverz team (John Pham, Jon Vermilyea, and Martin Cendreda) will be opening an exhibition November 19th at Giant Robot 2, West Los Angeles. You may have seen our studio visit at Cartoon Network HQ with these guys. We got an exclusive tour of their studio, a behind the scenes and glimpse into putting this innovative show on the air. This is one of the most visually arresting cartoons on Cartoon Network right now. The stories and characters are awesome and it’s the team of indie comicbook artists behind this program that is most significant to me. The show is different, the art is current… when you watch it, you’ll understand what I’m talking about.

Giant Robot has teamed up with the crew for an exhibition titled, “Art of Problem Solving”. If you’ve seen the show, you understand why it’s worthy of an exhibition. It’s art on national television. And if you know the history of Ben Jones and Paper rad, you see his influence all over this… it’s Ben Jones, 100%.

Below are some images of a super limited zine that our friend, John Vermilyea (lead artist of the Problem Solverz) gave me. These are more like sketches and ideas in this zine, I’m sure you’ll be seeing concept art at the show as well, but, probably tons of finished, vibrant, tripped out pieces. Info on the show below.

Here is Jon Vermilyea… thanks for the zine Jon!

and, the show info…

This is going to be an insane show. Our friend and artist, Tim Biskup, has a new body of work combining both painting and sculpture opening October 14th at This Los Angeles. You won’t find the polished, vinyl figures you may have seen in Tim’s past, but, roughly hewn, crudely painted figures that Tim sculpted himself. From the figures, came the paintings. The paintings of course are exquisite, perfect and clearly exhibit Tim’s mastery.

Tim sent us some images over from the show, a couple of these during the installation. You’ll see the images of the sculptures and paintings I’m talking about. What you don’t see here is the scale of the originals, these are larger scale paintings and some of the sculptures are over 4 feet tall!

The show open This Friday, October 14th at THIS Los Angeles in Eagle Rock. It’s going to be a madhouse, not to be missed.

I guess you’ll have to go to the show to find out what this one is all about….

Cleaning shop this weekend, came across a bunch of original Poketo wallets from day one and even a postcard to the art show that launched Poketo. I love finding these old things, it’s like looking through old pictures of friends, parties, family trips… the “remember when?” moments kick in.

Poketo postcard for the first ever artshow in 2003

The first ever art show we did for Poketo was in October 2003. We rented this community art space called Build Gallery. We rented the space for two days and wanted to fill it with as much kick ass events as we could. We invited six of our friends (also artists) to be in the show and what would be the very first collection of Poketo wallets. Angie and I would then spend day and night printing and preparing the wallets at California College of Arts (CCA), where Angie was going to school at the time.

We finished the wallets, invited bands and djs to play at the show, hung tons of original art from the artists, got beer sponsors, and pretty much aimed to throw a big party. It was a perfect event… totally one of those weekends in SF that was unusually balmy, everyone out and having a good time, and needless to say, the wallets sold out. The success and excitement we got from this first show is what got us super excited about the possibilities of Poketo.

Nathalie Roland signing prints

Eamon and Harry, music tag team

My favorite picture of my niece digging our friend Stanley play. This pic is all love.

As we were walking back to our apartment, that is when we decided, lets do more! Over 200 artist collaborations, hundreds of products, tons of brand collaborations from SF MoMA to 826 to Nike to Arcade Fire to Target to too many to list here…. Poketo has grown up a bit, but, it’s cool to see our original vibe from day one still exists. Always about fun, always about bringing people together, and always about bringing the art into the everyday. Thanks you guys for supporting what we do!

Note: Check out our original idea for a Poketo Character (didn’t get far) and our original tagline, “Poketo makes cool stuff out of art” (changed a bit).

The Los Desperados x Bat Skates show at Hurley this weekend was insane. My brother Tom Vadakan curated the show and was all smiles witnessing the immense turnout. Over 700 people showed up to support the phenomenal art, bands, and food that kicked of the event. It was cool to see Southern California surf/skate culture continue to thrive at a show like this.

Visiting the Hurley HQ was a treat as well… their campus is pretty amazing, a 3 or 4 different building that were strictly designated as design, showroom, finance, and even an indoor skatepark! Damn. I couldn’t help but imagine a Poketo campus…. it would be art gallery, cafe, restaurant, work studio, film lab, an everything design lab, artist residency, concert and karaoke space…. one day my friends, one day.