Far Out West With Arbito
Arbito’s oeuvre always works so well in San Francisco, where psychedelia never went out of style. He made his latest solo show, Far Out West just for us, his favorite part of the world: “the west coast and all the crazies who live there.” Arbito created new versions of the usual suspects in fresh colorways and patterns: The Seeker, Patty Power and Sammy. (The Hobo had to sit this one out due to a busted mold.) Beyond the resin figures, the vintage banks had everybody talking. Best appreciated in person, Arbito has painted new life into old ceramic, and in the process, really brought to light how wacky some of those vintage characters actually were. Arbito and his wife, plush artist Snaggs, said the banks were something they’d been collecting for years, and one day just decided to paint. The results are in a word: mesmerizing. Pinocchio and the Magic Cat got snapped up mere moments after the doors opened. If any of the banks, figures, original 2D art or prints are still available, they’d be for sale here. Short on cash and shelfspace? Get 32 Seekers in two dimensions for less than one Seeker sculpture. Just saying.
Speaking of Seekers, all the new Seekers looked incredible. There was GID, embedded bits, skulls and, of course, tons of color. Arbito said he’s working on sculpting some of his characters who haven’t yet made the jump to 3D (something for the ladies this time…), and we may even get a bit of backstory via comic-style panels. Want to see even more photos of the show? For immaculate turnarounds of all the pieces, you can’t beat Arbito’s Flickr. Hit up Fiends Ain’t Family and ZincSaucier442 on Flickr for candids from Friday. As with most great shows in the toy city that is San Francisco, almost everybody in attendance was also an artist or blogger (or both), so shouts out to Kaiju Chronicle/Joe, Toybot Studios/Kirkland Jue, Josh Herbolsheimer and Leecifer (following their own recent successful show at Super7 Florida), Brian Flynn (owner of Super7 and an artist), Glenn Pogue (president of Super7 and an instigator), Bert Gatchalian and Dustin Cantrell.
Pink Cosmic Boogie
Magic Cat
1/1 Patty Power
1/1 Seeker
1/1 Seeker
1/1 Seeker and Sammies
Special Edition Super7 Seeker
Cosmic Curio
Far Out West
Snaggs and Arbito (I "snagged" this photo off Zinc's Flickr b/c it's really adorable!)
Arbito with Super7's Brian Flynn. ZincSaucier442 partially pictured.
[...] little video interview with Arbito by Toybot Studios from last Friday’s Far Out West show. Lots of interesting factoids like where the name “Arbito” comes from, and who is the [...]
The new seekers are incredible!!! Did you get a Patty Power Jeremy?
I have the Patty Power from the last Super7 edition. There was definitely another Patty here I was coveting though
Two-legged Patty Powers are on the way next. I’m saving up to commission a green Seeker now… The ones you see here were nothing short of incredible.
[...] Monsters are in a full-fledged fandom agreement. We love when he has a show in San Francisco (like last month), and when we can’t find his figures locally, we try to take them with us (like his [...]