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.

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

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Mysoiree is a fledgling online art gallery with a twist. In addition to their virtual presence, the company roams the nation’s hotspots, throwing lavish parties called soirees, a mix of music, drinking, art, and, oddly enough, crackerjacks. On February 24^th, the North American Mysoiree Art Tour hit San Francisco, landing in downtown’s trendy nightclub, Ruby Skye. The soiree was, to risk stating the obvious, an event.

All I knew going in was that there was going to be art at Ruby Sky. Okay, sounds good. Wait—where? Not to sound pretentious, but the venue tends to be known more for its booty dropping than its Botticellis, and the last time it housed any art was probably when Hitchcock screened Vertigo there in 1958. Despite my dubiousness, I went in. I was about to be pleasantly surprised.

Walking past the burly doormen, through the doors, up the stairs and onto the balcony, I was immediately struck by the presence of the event. The venue is enormous, softly lit, and thumping. Crimson drapes hang between backlit stained glass fifty feet above the dance-floor. Spotlights illuminate artwork dispersed over the upper deck as DJ Lamont (of Fingersnaps fame) provides the soundtrack. Sharing the stage, San Diego native and live artist Ryan Martinez paints a classical/street art mash-up on the spot, an engaging reminder of the real focus of the party: the art. In the interest of full disclosure, I must mention that the first piece I checked out was the bar. However, after paying a bit too much for a gin and tonic, loosening my tie, and making a little conversation with a cute blonde, it was time to really do some viewing.

The brainchild of Soiree International CEO Lyn Williams, this stop on the Mysoiree tour brought together the work of nine West coast artists. The art itself varied widely in terms of genre, from impressionism to abstract expressionism to graffiti inspired street art. Although the show may have lacked an overall theme, the work had a unifying expressive rawness that seemed to tie it together. The obvious standout in the group was Northern California based artist Karen Card. Her work, a beautiful harmony of form and space, consists of life-sized body casts made of clay and fired in the ancient Japanese method of Raku. The pieces exist in an odd paradox of seemingly opposed elements, stone-like, cold and rigid, yet at the same time warm and inviting, begging to be embraced. The work of Indian artist Mani Narayan, almost tribal in its execution, was interesting visually, however seemed to lack a consistent vision or narrative; while the work of Rob Nye suffered from the opposite condition—conceptually developed yet visually somewhat predictable.

It’s important to note that the appeal of the soiree is not one- or even two-dimensional. The real value of these events lies in the blending of music, style and booze with the art itself. The mixture of the graphic artist with the pickup artist. Leonardo meets Lil Wayne. If you’d like to purchase some art, you can. If you want to impress your date by pretending you’re cultured while at the same time drinking and shaking your ass, go right ahead. The soiree represents a new style of exhibition, more akin to a Hollywood premier than to mom and dad’s gallery openings of ye olden days. Don’t expect professorial lectures or silent reverence. Come for the art, but don’t forget to bring your dancing shoes, and come thirsty.

Rob Pierce

Mysoiree will continue its North American Tour with stops in Los Angeles, Portland, Las Vegas, and Seattle. For additional info including of upcoming tour dates and participating artists, go to http://www.mysoiree.net/ .

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Jan 8, 2010

Soiree International, Inc. Contact: Lyn Williams

www.Mysoiree.net Telephone: (330) 831-9593

Mysoiree Announces Plans for 2010

BERKELEY, C.A.

Soiree International will be kicking off the 2010 North American Mysoiree Art Tour in San Francisco in early 2010.  This is the introduction of the Mysoiree Studio Stars art and creative talent to the world.  It’s a media extravaganza event, where for the first time the artists and their work are the stars of a traveling show.  It’s starting as a 12 city tour here in the west coast, with Chico, CA, Seattle, Spokane, Portland, San Jose, LA, just the beginning.

Mysoiree.net the online gallery is becoming the art source for consumers, focusing on the consumer, with servicing the customer the number one priority.  We will find you the art you need,  whether it’s on our site or someone elses.

We’re building a community of professional buyers, this means the source for purchasing agents at companies, non profits, corp art departments, etc, and knowing what they need and what we have in our portfolio to offer them.

Continue growing the global community of artists.  We have 350 artists today, 6,000 works of art in our portfolio, and a portfolio valued at approximately $1.2 Million.

Commercial opportunities for businesses, with our ongoing contests, businesses have an opportunity to sponsor contests where artists submit their works of art and ideas for businesses to utilize in branding of their products.

We look forward to an exciting year!

Silk scarf Kandinski style