Those of you living in Minneapolis surely must have come across the larger-than-larger-than-life stencil paintings of giraffes, lions, babies, porcupines, and sharks from the Broken Crow. Those of you living in Austin TX are currently being treated to a brand new slew of paintings put up by the duo just last week and might be wondering what? who? how? huh?

Rest easy, we’re here to answer your questions and help get everybody familiar with Broken Crow in preparation for brand new art print diptych we’ll be screenprinting and publishing! We will be debuting the print set at our booth at Flatstock 24. Drive around Austin and see if you can find all of their new murals, then take the prints home with you.

 
So just who is Broken Crow? Introduce yourselves!
Broken Crow is John and Mike. We cut holes in things and paint through the holes. We like to do this as large as time will allow.

 
Why stencils?
There’s really nothing more bad-ass than playing with knives for a living. Cutting stencils is the exact opposite of making artwork in public, and we need balance in our lives.

  
Can you briefly explain your process? How do you go from the initial idea in your head all the way up to a gigantic painting on the side of a building?
We have lots of conversations. Then, we make lots of drawings. Throw in some coffee, some whiskey, some sleep deprivation. We pick the drawings we like the best, spend 20 hours turning them into large-scale stencils, and find a wall to paint it on. 

How did the mural project in Austin come out? What is the connection with the art print?
Austin came out better than we could have anticipated. We ended up doing 10 walls in 6 days, it’s been a total whirlwind. Billy Bishop of Obsolete Industries has been our cultural ambassador down here, and went above and beyond anything we could have expected. 

When we were coming up with concepts for what we were going to paint in Austin, we got really excited about the new drawings we were working on. At that point we got ahold of Ben, he was into it, and the rest was history.

Broken Crow Stencil Mural – 1 Day Time lapse – Lion Man from The BFC on Vimeo.

 
What other artists’ work have you been enjoying lately?
Carrie Thompson, C-215, MF Doom, M-City, Eelus, Logan Hicks, Erik Burke, Doomtree, Blu, Maria Juranic, Elbow Toe, Sten & Lex, The Chicharones, Four Tet, MOP, The Weakerthans, El Mac and Retna, Meggs, Drew Peterson. We could go on and on…

Tune in to the BRLSQ online store this Thursday at 2pm (Central time) for the release of two braaaaaaaand new items!

1) COLD HEART HOODIE
designed by Todd Bratrud. 4 color print on super extra ultra comfortable American Apparel hoodies.
$40 + shipping

2) YEAR OF THE DRAGON PRINT
celebrate the Year of the Tiger with Mike Davis’ new art print celebrating the Year of the Dragon!
$20 + shipping

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This Thursday, we will be releasing a new print set from John Baizley, based on the album artwork from his group Baroness’ Blue Record. They will be sold as a diptych and not as individual prints. In today’s newsletter, we wrote the print was 3 colors, but it is, in fact, 4 colors. We apologize for the error.

Until Thursday,
BRLSQ crew

We couldn’t be more excited to finally be releasing these two gorgeous color versions of John Baizley’s “Phantom Limb” art print. They will both be available on our online store today, December 3, at 2:00pm Central time. John has quickly become one of our favorite illustrators in the world of heavy rock music, as he has created all of the artwork for his group Baroness as well as album packaging and other designs for groups like Darkest Hour, Kylesa, Pig Destroyer, and more. Stay tuned to our newsletter for updates on more prints from John Baizley coming very soon!

Last Friday brought the Baroness boys to town. They played a stellar show at the Triple Rock and managed to drop by BRLSQ HQ before hand as well. We put John to work signing his prints, including our version of Phanton Limb which will be going on sale super soon! We’ll post images for that momentarily as well. Until then, check out Ben’s photoset from the night on his flickr page.

Thanks to everyone who came out to night #1 of NCPDCCW at Soo-Vac!!! There are still three more nights to come experience our enormous pyramid of test print cubes, a huge installation of prints from Aesthetic Apparatus, and an exhibition of 100 hand-assembled CD packages by Haze-XXL!

Live music schedule:
Friday night: Gay Witch Abortion
Saturday night: Halo of Flies
Sunday night: The Melvins

Here are a few photos of our installation…

Tonight is the kick-off of four consecutive nights of art, music, film, and mayhem at the old Hi-Pointe Printmaking Center (just next to SOO-Visual Art Center on S. Lyndale). We’ve got some craaaayzaaaaay things going on, so come check it out for yourself! See soovac.org for more info.

Todd Bratrud’s new Nike SB shoe, BRAIN WRECK, has been officially released and is set to wreck your brain. That is indeed BRAIN STITCHING inside!

Yes we printed a poster for this momentous occassion!

Onsale information found in today’s newsletter. Have you subscribed to our mailing list?

We’re super excited to finally be releasing the first of a few art prints designed by our talented friend John Baizley. Some of you might know him as the frontman of the great rock group Baroness while others might know him from his incredible artwork.

This Thursday, we are releasing the green art print version of Baroness’ “Red Album” artwork.

The prints measure 18 x 20″ and are seven colors printed on French Poptone Black Licorice paper. They are a signed and numbered edition of 200.

As stated in yesterday’s newsletter, the top left corners of most of the prints have a small ding in them, caused during shipping. It’s a small bend measuring less than 1/2″ and does not affect the image area. If the print is framed, the crease will be unnoticed.

In our newsletter, we made a typographic error and stated that the bend “does” affect the image area, neglecting to include the most important word of the sentence – the word “not.” We apologize for this error and assure you these prints are gorgeous.

We will be releasing more prints from John Baizley very soon. Stay tuned to our newsletter for the onsale information of two different color versions of his “Phantom Limb” art print. In the meantime, go listen to BARONESS!!!

A new book has been released which chronicles the multitude of Obama posters created by artists ready for something different. We were heavily involved in the creation of a number of posters featured in the book and it’s an honor to have been a part of helping our 44th president get elected. You can order the book directly from its publisher, Zenith Press.