Beyond Baby Tattooville @ RAM (opening night)...

This past Saturday night we headed out to Riverside to take in the opening for the Beyond Baby Tattooville exhibition taking place during Baby Tattooville weekend at the historic Mission Inn. Before we got to Riverside, we made the treck down to Laguna to take in In The Land Of Retinal Delights one more time. Sadly, no photos were allowed, despite being one of the galleries helping to present the event. Regardless, was a pleasure to view without a packed house and the accomapnying exhibition catalog of the event will be ready by early November the bookstore informed us and provide us all with several photos of the exhibition and works within.

Upon arriving at the Riverside Art Museum we were greeted by the one and only Shag (see his epic new work below - one part of a gigantic tripdych that graced the back wall of the exhibition hall) who provided the week's limited editon name bages for all Baby Tattooville attendees and Mark Murphy of Murphy Design who created a really nice lil' booklet for all those that attended the getaway...

Hannah Aitchison of LA Ink was on hand for the opening, seen chating above with Billy Shire...

Brandi Milne thrilled fans of the getaway weekend with very nice lil' drawings created on antique matchbooks. Her two new works which were featured on a lil' set of walls in the middle of the exhibit (see pic below) were snapped up quickly by attendees of Baby Tattooville and this weekend really helped broaden her appeal with collectors in a big way. Brandi is pictured above with my wife Shawn. Looking super forward to Brandi's upcoming solo with us this spring...

International man of mystery Tim Biskup exhibited an amazing piece somewhat reminiscent of the works on view at his current European solo show (see above). Speaking of Mr. Biskup, word was things got a lil' outta hand on Friday night during the Baby Tattooville getaway and... well, see the man below on crutches showing us love (flanked by Amanda Visell, Joe Ledbetter and Jack from Vinyl Pulse / Daily DuJour)...

Shown above is the collector trifecta of Tanley Wong, Marcus Lo and Hung-Hei Yung - super cool to get to see 'em all together and if you get a chance, be sure to check out Hung-Hei and Tan's new venture - http://www.arrestedmotion.com/ - yet another great source for art happenings to bookmark on your browser...

A couple of our favorites from the show... Gris Grimley (above) and James Jean's epic new one below...

And by far the show stopper (for us) was the below piece from Michael Whelen (click on for high res image - this has to be seen blown up to really appreciate it fully). A name many attending the weekend were not very familiar with, but I've a feeling many now have him on their must have list.