Why go to a boring, uptight art gallery and stare at art surrounded by art snobs when you can watch, cheer and jeer visual artists—of all media– compete, on live television, in a night club setting– complete with DJs, cocktails, and an enthusiastic crowd?!  Yes! Art RockX!, hosted by Lyn Williams and DJ Lamont Young, pits local visual artists, who paint, sculpt, draw, photo, and then some, to create art “against one another”, through a 45 minute challenge to create a new work of art—no pressure!  The studio is actually a nightclub, and the onsite audience, as well as the online audience, selects a “winner” through votes and art sales.

On Saturday, Sept 24th, Art RockX! filmed live at the Cellar, a gritty chic nightclub on San Francisco’s Sutter Theatre Row, featuring their “celebrity artists” round of recently top-voted local artists.  The assignment was to capture “San Francisco.” The competing artists included “Team Alcatraz”: featuring Brino Ism working on nude retro-glam model, Darla the Distraction, along side with fine arts painter and Burning Man select artist of the year, Michelle Carnes, of Camp Easel Park.  Team Alcatraz brought in a whole noisy fun crew of fans all the way from Santa Rosa!

It started when Chicago artist Diana Arand’s art work arrived at the MySoire offices, so we could set it up at the show in Las Vegas. She could not make the trek to Las Vegas but her Art did. Dj Lamont Young, our roadie Othmane, and artist Mariya Milodova piled into the MySoiree bus and started on the journey to Vegas. In the meantime Chris Haberman hopped on a plane in Seattle, his painting partner Jennifer Mercedes left her Florida holiday for LV. The energetic non stop twins Nicole and Roxanne drove like fiends from San Diego to LV, Shana Calano and her poker star husband were already celebrating it up in Vegas. Chelsea recently relocated from Seattle to Santa Barbara packed her car the night before with easels for all, and set her alarm to wake in the wee hours for the journey. Michele Rohac and her husband got an early start from LA, and picked up the family who flew in for the show. In the meantime the Las Vegas artists, Alex Kossoff, Jon De Lasalle, and Jennifer Main were putting finishing touches on their art work. While the artists were traveling the voting began from their fans. It seemed like magic that brought all of these talented artists together. As the Downtown Cocktail Lounge was transformed into an art oasis, DJ Lamont set the tone with his original sound, and as I introduced each of the artists on stage it was obvious we had something pretty special, and then it seemed a creative energy wave swept in and as I looked about our guests were treated to a site of explosive creative energy as our MySoiree artists took to their canvases and to showing their work to buyers. The phone lines were lighting up and facebook page filled with well wishes. By 11pm the voting reduced the field to 3, Sexy and sweet Shana Calano whose mosaic style work will add style to your home, elegant Michele Rohac of LA whose calming sea critters and sunsets will bring beauty to your world, and the dynamic rad team of Jennifer Mercedes and Chris Haberman are dedicated to art love and fun! With only an hour left to the show the artists painted, sketched, scratched, spilled, swore, laughed, cried, and carried on MySoiree style. At midnight the live audience hooted and hollered for their favorite as we were down to the three. The crowd favorite and vote getters were Portland’s Jennifer Mercede and Chris Haberman who won the opportunity to tour with Art RockX! in 2011, Pop Chips for a year, Michele Rohac is the alternate, and Shana Calano takes over the spot if our winners can’t. All the participating artists received  gift bags from Blick Art Materials. Thank you to all the artists and the sacrifices you make to be artists we thank you for everything.

MySoiree is so touched to have the most talented and amazing artists on our MySoiree.net community. It was two years ago, when myself Angela and Christine started our letter writing campaign to tell artists around the world that we were going to be open for business in a few weeks.  Well, we’ve made 1000 more artist friends since then, brought our MySoiree artists work to customers around the world, and covered more miles across the country this year.  Taking our show on the road has been the most inspirational experience and enabled us to meet our artists and our artists to meet us.   We are excited to the future, and in the very near future, with our national show in Las Vegas on Jan 5th at the Downtown Cocktail Lounge.  Be sure to RSVP for your tix here .  We’ve got an amazing line up, of artists coming together, Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, San Jose, LA, San Diego, Chicago (we’ve got our fingers crossed), Phoenix ( Aztec and Bradley it won’t be the same without you, we need you there!), and new celebrity artists from Las Vegas.  Here’s some photo recap of our winning artists from San Diego.

Nov. 3, three east coasters, who self transplanted themselves to San Francisco, found themselves along old route 66 on their way into Santa Fe,  and we couldn’t help but notice the sky and the stars.  Driving into the city at 3am, the only thing to look at was the sky, but it was a sky none of us had ever seen, it was like a whole new element to our surroundings , there were stars so low in the sky, it was like we were driving directly into Orion’s lucky star.  We literally stopped the car, shut the headlights off, and just stared nearly straight ahead and up to the sky, and were entertained with a site of the milky way and more stars than any of us had ever seen before.  It is of little surprise then, that the winning artist tonight, Jose Hernandez, spent an hour telling me about how he sees the elements of the earth including the sky,  how attraction and repulsion rule the day, how everything is connected into infinity, and from this he created a tepee that you look into and literally see a sight as mesmarizing as the Santa Fe sky.  If art can duplicate nature, he has mastered this.  Congratulations to Jose and all the Santa Fe artists, who brought a unique spirit that combined the elements of the earth that we take for granted, and a sweet spirit that rocked in all dimensions.

DJ Lamont Young, myself, and our new Road Manager, Daniel Wallace have hit the road again, and woke up in Vegas this morning.  We met with the Hard Rock Hotel Casino nightlife manager, Billi Conn, a character himself, straight shooter hollywood type,  how we managed to show up in his office, is another story,  to “negotiate” the Hard Rock Hotel Casino hosting the 2010 grand finale of “Art Rocks! Las Vegas.  We’re destined for the show on Nov. 21 in Las Vegas, and jury is still out on the location.  Anything is possible, and a special invite last night to the XS club in the Encore Wynn isn’t out of the picture.  We are here in Santa Fe now, 3:30 AM we rolled in, seems we were laughing and giggling too loud, we got a knock at our door, and it was the guest next door.  That might be a hint of the culture here, we’ll find out soon enough.  Show is a little more than 26 hours away, and we have a stellar line up of artists, and special never seen before installation art.  I don’t know whose more excited us or our artists, who are..
Jose Hernandez

Claudia Fluegge

William Sorvillo

Daria Yesleva-Kartsinski

Leah Saulnier

Luis Sanchez
Jamie Gagan
Shakti Kroopkin

Liliana Orozco
Nigel Winthrop

So come on out to the El Paseo Bar & Grill Nov.3 to experience Art Rocks! Santa Fe get tix @http://MySoireesantafe.eventbrite.com

Please like the Mysoiree facebook page to check out the images from the past Art Rocks events in LA, Chicago, San Joe, Portland,  Seattle, and San Francisco.

Here’s the link

If you dream it, you believe it, it becomes reality.  This was the experience when DJ Lamont Young, myself, and our newest addition to the team, cinemaphotographer Ferguson Sauve-Rogan, rolled into Los Angeles.  We arrived at the Avalon Hollywood around 1pm on Wed., to be immediately greeted by Frank Rozasy, who literally was at our bus window, and was early to install his walk on the art display.  From there on out, the talented artists continued to roll in and set up their amazing art throughout the day, Diana Yang touched us with her photography from around the world, and her most interesting, “sheep’s wool caught on a barbed wire fence”, depicting the harshness of when man and nature intersect.  Hollis Hart with her youthful  exuberance and insightful, autobiographical work, Casey Figueroa hung his expressionistic story telling pieces, Michele Rohac came prepared with a close family and art work exceptional and very becoming of an up and coming artist, next the Bob Delrose show, and it was a show, bringing the most art and an entourage to match, then Marco Almera with his surf inspired James Bond Movie type digital work came on the scene, George Marlow arranged his mask pieces and newest photography, Ione Citrine and her team brought in the most amazing works of art ever displayed at a Mysoiree.net show, with 3 dimensional sculptures and a personality almost bigger than life, Ione simply amazes, did I mention that she’s been an artist for over 40 years.  Next rolled in Loretta McNair with her biographical work, and lastly before curtain call in rolled Yun Bai with the energy and excitement to carry a show on her own.  All were winners, but Michele Rohac was the crowd and online favorite with a well deserved fan base and the family and friend support for her most unique art, that enabled her to garner the most votes and selected to represent LA at the Mysoiree show in Las Vegas. Congratulations to all of the artists, truly inspiring to us all.
To see all the picks from the show, just like the facebook page at facebook www.mysoiree.net

Diana Arand captures the Chicago Crowd

Chicago welcomed DJ Lamont Young and I to the windy city, and it was a reunion  for the Mysoiree team, bringing together Angela Kim, who’s been with us since the beginning, Joshua Kwansy our partner at Dreamco Co design, and a childhood friend of mine, Jody Zagger from Reggie’s Rock Club.   The setting at Reggie’s is pure artistic rock and, one of artists, Won Kim, already had some of his work on display at this cool venue, so he felt quite comfortable painting on stage, and adorning the guests of the show, including myself, with body painting that was akin to a black painted henna style tattoo.  Neeka Allsup showed her childhood imagination by nearly completing her latest tribute to toys, including “Joe Camel”.   Our Artist Fred DeAsis kept us entertained with his positive outlook and friendly persona and modern art. Jennifer Hines shared her breadth and depth of art from unique photography to whimsical drawings. Rachel Katzmann Farr kept the good vibes going with her bubbly personality.  Anastasia Mak, spent her day creating new work,and her fans were much appreciative voting her the runner up to represent Chicago at the show in LA.  Inna Deiry and her husband Alex, originally from Siberia brought the color and originality of their homeland in Inna’s work, to the show.  The winner of the show, Diana Arand, brought her fan club, her beautiful stained glass mosaic work, a magnetic personality, and her beautiful self to the event. A most deserving winner, whose work shines as bright as her smile.

In the beginning

After the toys come to Life