LVSK8 II

944 Magazine Dec 06 by:Henry, Jennifer

Originally conceived as a collection of 15 pieces by Todoran and his close friends, excitement about LVSK8 One prompted eager artists to approach the organizer for an opportunity to work on a board. “I was getting phone calls from people I’d never met who heard about what I was doing and wanted to be part of it,” he says. “I’d buy 10 more boards and then more people would approach me. That’s how the show grew, gradually, 10 boards at a time.”

With last minute submissions pouring in during the Grant Hall opening and more than 20 no-shows, Todoran cursed the chaos and vowed never to organize another group show, a declaration the artist first made while compiling a 2003 print exchange at UNLV. But both shows paid off, garnering accolades and record attendance. “There was a crowd of people waiting for Grant Hall to open,” Todoran reminisces about LVSK8 One’s reception. “I don’t ever remember a show getting that kind of response.”

This time around Todoran planned for the pandemonium, asking artists from the first collection to take on another board and feeling out a fresh crop of contributors that he is confident will come through. “We’re at about 100 artists,but you never know how many will show up,” says Todoran. Among the most reliable are his fellow UNLV alumni, in-progress BFAs and MFAs. LVSK8 One included boards from post-thesis MFA Chad Brown, ’07 MFA Danielle Kelly and Associate Department Chair Helga Watkins.

But fine art isn’t the focus of Todoran’s skateboard shows. Nor are they about the tattoo subculture, though many of the participants are prominent tattoo artists such as LVSK8 Deuce’s co-sponsor and Bad Apple Tattoo Company owner Boom. It isn’t about skate art either. “You can’t paint on skateboards without introducing that culture into it,” says Todoran. LVSK8 One and Deuce have been a vehicle for Todoran and invited artists to “break the fine art rules.”

Repeatedly characterizing LVSK8 as a “refreshing experience,” Todoran says the excitement level surrounding the events mirrors the enthusiasm he feels from the participating artists. “It’s a low pressure environment; no juries, no criticism, just the artists and their work.” Friendly competition is yielding ever more inventive submissions and though Todoran is reluctant to preview pieces before the show, he promises LVSK8 Deuce will be even better than the first. And there might just be a third collection on the horizon. “Maybe,” smiles Todoran. “Let’s see how I feel after this one.”

BFA

Bachelors stripped bare: 11 presents the work of the latest crop of UNLV art graduates

BY GREGORY CROSBY

In a cavernous and over-lit arena, a figure steps up to the podium and looks out over a sea of black mortarboards. He speaks:

"My thanks to the regents, faculty, distinguished guests and graduates for this opportunity to speak at these commencement ceremonies. As I gaze out at you, in your caps and gowns that cost you 40 bucks, your young faces wearing that expression of accomplishment, excitement and extreme boredom that only a college commencement can induce, I am given pause. What words of advice and wisdom can I possibly dispense that you don't already know? If you are diligent, scholarly, solvent and cunning enough to wend your way through college, you likely have enough skills to enter the world of work and consumption. Unless, of course, like me, you got a liberal arts degree. (Pause for laughter.) Therefore, I can only sum up for you what's most important now that you have downloaded your last paper from the Internet, and that I can do with a word. Just one, single word. Do you know what that word is?

"That's right: plastics.

"Of course, most of you are too young for that joke. Except it's not a joke. By 'plastics,' I mean the plastic arts, which refers to art producing works to be viewed, as sculpture, architecture, painting and the graphic arts, as distinguished from those involving writing or composing, as in literature in music.

"Graduates, as you move onward now to the land of 9 to 5 and mortgages, or further up the slippery stairs of the Ivory Tower, remember that the plastic arts remain a mirror to those sensations and aspirations you cannot approximate with mere money. Remember that money merely conveys human wishes, it does not replace them, and if you're going to turn money into something worthwhile -- into an obscure object of desire that we have no choice but to label 'beauty' whether it's beautiful or not -- than you're better off turning it into art than anything else. Besides, your fellow graduates in the College of Fine Arts don't want to work behind the counter at Dick Blick for the rest of their lives. (Pause for laughter.)

"Remember that those fellow grads, those Bachelors of Arts and Fine Arts whose works hang right now in the 11 show at Donna Beam Fine Art Gallery, the Grant Hall Gallery and the Jessie Metcalf Gallery, might someday manifest, in two and three dimensions, the inarticulate ache in your breast. Anybody can incarnate your desires in money, but only they will be able to incarnate money into aesthetics. You might feel lost in a sensuous haze of purple and blue, like Josephine Lo Baido's ethereal color prints. You might find yourself struck by the wonder and artificiality of a neon facade, as in Ben Schkade's photographs -- C-prints on aluminum that turn signage into a landscape. You may find yourself staring at glimpses of happier times, the overexposed flash snapshots of wedding receptions with their strange faces floating up out of darkness, as in Lora Crammer-Feely's fragmented oil paintings. You may swoon under a particularly gorgeous and evocative computer font like Todoran -- designed, naturally, by your fellow graduate Michael Todoran. Or you may fall asleep and dream of rabbits and of Alice's Wonderland as if it was drained of its whimsy, like the drawings on Yuen Wong's sculptures. Or doze, exhausted after a 60-hour week, and confront the disjointed and mysterious landscape of Gayle Jones' photos and sculptures.

"If you're really lucky, you'll find a woman whose imagination, playfulness and independence of spirit is as multi-faceted and sexy as the photo-booth self-portraits of Regan Blayne. But don't hold your breath. (Laughter).

"In short, graduates, remember that your college education is your ticket out of academia and into the real world of things and desires, the marketplace of wishes incarnate and dreams thwarted, that only art refreshes and refracts. Remember that art belongs not to professors or pedants, but to all who gaze and respond -- oh, and to those of you going on to law school with an eye on corporate practice.

"Good luck, graduates. You may now beat your mortarboards into swords." (Applause.)

Plastisol

“Plastisol” review by Laura Jenkins October 8, 2002

Todoran takes from his photographed art-portraits super-imposed onto pictures in black and white that attempt to defy authority. Such pictures from his gallery show him in uniform with protesting banners and other displays of angry sentiments to authority, there were some photographs that depicted people holding what looked like cue-cards with various expressions. The art resembled the elements seen on an alternative or punk rock album cover engrossing a teenager with the obvious stupidity of some (2+2=5 picture), or the angry individual defying authority (Todoran in his uniform against defiant backgrounds).

The walls of the art show were painted in gray and white with a concrete floor giving the viewer the feeling of being imprisoned. The art was pasted on the wall or hanging in portions of three from the ceiling. From a small portable stereo music sets a scene of punk rock individualism shouting against repression and dictating angry threats.

Ironically, the setting for this artist's work is framed in the city of Las Vegas . This particular region is known for its lack of oppression and authority. The artwork seems displaced in a city that is built on sin where prostitution is legal in near counties and drinking is permitted twenty-four hours a day, at what authority could one possibly be angry with?

The viewers idly strolled through the exhibit enjoying Pabst Blue Ribbon beer in cans while they discussed the art works. Much like the attempt of the artist to leave the negatives with scratches or dust to convey that garage feeling, he has succeeded in producing it in his closing reception.

The viewer can leave the essence of their teenage years behind in a garage band album cover reception and go back to the confines of life feeling a little better for having visited.

Archinofskys

The world below the pool
Michael Todoran's "Liquid Pool Service" inspires, disturbs
By: Aaron Thompson, A&E and Features Editor

Michael Todoran thinks he's going to die.

But unlike those who believe their deaths will be peaceful, surrounded by family and friends, the 31-year-old UNLV Bachelor in Fine Arts graduate sees his fate in his own pictures.

"I'm probably going to drown," Todoran says as he looks at a piece from his series "Liquid Pool Service" showing at the Archinofsky Gallery at 1551. S. Commerce St.

"I'll probably be surfing and take on a rough wave, and I'll push it. Who knows what will happen."

"Liquid Pool Service" is a series of color photographs from inside the water of swimming pools looking out onto the outside world.

"Water is really important to me," Todoran says. "It's a huge part of my life."

Growing up in Los Angeles, Todoran says he spent his early years on the west coast, shooting curls and shredding concrete as both a surfer and skateboarder. He says that it was these early experiences as a teenager that are reoccurring themes in his art.

"It's what me and everyone else did in California: go out, surf, skate, have a good time, that was important to me and still is to this day."

In Todoran's photos, one is immersed into a bizarre light-blue world of visual distortion and chaotic bliss. In one photo, a silver railing appears out of the water like a mirage, begging the viewer to try to touch the world within.

Todoran says the very nature of his images dealing with submersion bring out dramatic memories of water within viewers.

"A lot of people look at my pictures and say 'This reminds of the time my father threw me into the pool, and I almost drowned.' I'm glad I could evoke that kind of emotion from people."

As a former member of the Coast Guard heavy water search and rescue unit in Oregon, Todoran's attraction to water and drowning understandably go hand-in-hand.

"I've almost drowned many times, trying to save other people during missions," he says.

But since relocating to Vegas seven years ago, Todoran has, in-lieu of his native beach and ocean setting, become fascinated with the many swimming pools around the valley.

"In a desert environment, the only way for people to relate to the ocean is through the pool," Todoran says. "Lying in a pool is kind of like being placed into a maternal situation, like you're back in the womb."

After he became settled in Las Vegas, Todoran enrolled in studies at UNLV, finishing his BFA in 2004. Yet, instead of abandoning his Alta-Mater for greener pastures, Todoran has stayed active in the UNLV art department. He has curated a number of shows, including a popular one-night gala last spring at Grant Hall Gallery in which over 60 UNLV students, as well as local artists, displayed pieces of work painted onto the wood of skateboard decks.

"That show really opened doors for me. It got me the Archinofsky show; it was a great networking experience … and the biggest thing I've done so far," Todoran says. "It showed people in the department that I wanted to give back to my university."

Since then, Todoran plans to host other things at UNLV, including another skateboard art show that will be held at the prestigious Donna Beam Gallery next summer, around the same time he plans to get into UNLV's acclaimed architecture graduate school.

"I'm really proud of being from UNLV. I'm not done with the school yet," Todoran says.

Aside from his local accomplishments, Todoran admits that now is the easier time to be an artist and get work known.

"Branding is key if you want to be known. The internet gives you the ability to stand out from others and get your work out there. Then, it's all about how you label your stuff to get noticed."

Todoran says that a great example of self branding and marketing is painted by the Houston rapper, Mike Jones.

Jones, a popular rapper, is known for his simplistic rap style in which he repeats his name numerous times in his songs.

"Jones's repetition, it just goes on-and-on and sticks in your head. I like his music and all, but the marketing is great."

"Jones, has inspired me more than any critic or peer because he's a part of an age where it's essential to self-brand. When I do my own promotion, I make sure to self-brand, but do it subtlety and with taste."

"It may sound funny, but I really am inspired by Mike Jones."