Category Archives: Collecting

finding wonderland in the middlelands

Awhile back, I took photos of the queerest little shop here in KCMO, own and operated by the queerest couple I know born and bred in the area. They are delightful, and so is their shop.

welcome to wonderland, new and improved.

Enjoy! From your KC ‘mo, Gryphon

Do You Give a Flying Flock?

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Series by JoJo Mendoco
Opening Reception July 5th, 2013. 7 – 10pm
Closing Reception: August 30, 2013. 7 – 10pm
At The Center for Sex and Culture, 1349 Mission Street, San Francisco, California.
In the exhibit “Doing Your Dirty Work: A Sampler of Contemporary Art about Sex”

Do You Give a Flying Fuck?
Well, do you? And should you?
What matters to any of us and why?

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Images of flying penises decorate High School boys’ rooms across the globe. Anthropomorphic phalluses also appear in the sacred and secular imagery of many cultures and have been among the most historically wide-spread cross-cultural icons. Even cave-men drew hard dicks.

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Obviously sexually provocative in its intent, D.Y.G.A.F.F.? also jabs at contemporary society, culture and politics. Drawing literally and figuratively on the detritus of post-industrial consumerism, the images of the “flying fucks” are placed on U.S.P.S. stickers, paint chips, postcards, bar coasters, linoleum samples and other throw-away surfaces. Images from the series also show up once in a while in certain public mens’ rooms, when the artist makes a rare foray from his Mendocino County mountain sanctuary.

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Stylistically, JoJo Mendoco draws on the history of homoerotic artists such as Etienne, Tom of Finland, the Hun, Mike Caffee, Chuck Arnett, etc as well as being influenced by Cartoons, Yaoi Bara Manga and Pop, Dada, Surrealist and Street Art traditions. His work always includes words as well as drawings, and often incorporates collage and photography on a variety of found surfaces.

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JoJo Mendoco was born September 11, 1991, one of a pair of identical twin boys, to expatriate drop-out hippie academics. Their mother was a botanist and their father a computer scientist. He and his brother Leo grew up on a marijuana farming compund on Spyrock, in the mountains of Mendocino County. The pivotal event of his childhood happened on his 10th birthday, when his family was visiting NYC. His parents and his brother perished at Ground Zero, and he was left scarred and with ongoing physical and psychological issues. Twelve years later, he seldom leaves the sanctuary of the family’s mountain enclave, only emerging for night-time forays to the City to draw things on walls and fuck things under the bridges and freeway ramps.

Group Exhibits:
2013​ Doing Your Dirty Work: A Sampler of Contemporary Art about Sex
​At The Center for Sex and Culture, San Francisco, CA
2012​ Tough Love: A Half-Century of Masculine Homoerotic ​Imagery from the San Francisco Bay Area.
​At The Center for Sex and Culture, San Francisco, CA

Selected Private Collections:
Mike Caffee, Peter Fiske, C. Jacob Hale, Dave Grappone, Terri Gillentine, Jeremy Novy, Gene Rigler and Chris Murray and J.a.M. Tackitt-Jones.

Rub My Duckie…

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Sight seen in pal of this site Mario T’s bathroom. Quacky! Thanks, Mario…

Strange Leftovers: Dead Straight Bro’s Throw-Away Cum Rag…

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“Get it off after getting it off” – so reads the slogan. Market that thing! Among the oddities of my heterosexual brother’s recent worldly remains: a throw-away cum rag, intended (as the publicity stresses) to clean up love’s messy moments…huh…heir to a personal wipe. Ok. His license plate read G.M.S.H. That didn’t stand for “Green Miata So Hot” – which is what he told the DMV. No, it meant “Give Me Some Head.”

He was Fred and now he’s dead. From a character to a case number just like that…cremation number 39342. Conveniently packaged for easy transportation. Resting in pieces. Goodbye, my brother.

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Saint Sebastian of the Sunroom…

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Novy makes Art…and he don’t stop!

Sight seen at Tough Love: Rik and Alan and Hot Gay Art!

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Rik Lee and Alan Guttirez at the opening of Tough Love. Show-n-Tell with artists and collectors on Sunday, September 16th. Bring something to share! Art in the background by Michael Palmer, Dennis Kennedy and Jim Leff.

It Came from Outside…sneak preview!

Preview shot of It Came from Outside! At Big Umbrella Studios in San Francisco. Good art, good cause, good grief! Curated by resident coy bad boy koi artist and queer street art historian Jeremy Novy.

It came from Outside! And now it’s under the Big Umbrella…

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It came from Outside!
– is an art show and sale benefitting an after school program dedicated to teaching urban renewal through mural and graffiti projects. Curated by Jeremy Novy, this exhibit of street art and more opens Friday, September 14th at Big Umbrella Studios on Divisadero Street in San Francisco. Gay Highwaymen has donated a two-sided, mixed media Tough Love stencil (It’s No/All a Game) with hand-lettering on a game board. For the origins of the Leather David icon, click here.

Want to see Jeremy Novy’s Beef Noodle?!

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Novy’s cool take-off of a Warhol soup can is on display with a lot of his other stencil work at Tough Love. They are scattered throughout the show here and there: a nod to the furtive nature of street art. And these three are installed over the Exit sign…another Art World in-joke for those who know why museums always make visitors…exit through the gift shop!

Hot Hard Sailor Boy! Biron of SF in “Tough Love” – 50 Years of Masculine Homoerotic Art of SF Bay Area

Multicultural Male Images for the New Millennium. Cum see this and two other great photos from Biron of SF at Tough Love