I’ve always wanted to be a hat salesman.
Available exclusively at
http://www.tuckernichols.com/hats
Limited edition.
Designs to change without warning.
Hats
Two sided mural at Story Mill, Bozeman
Double sided mural installed in the majestic Story Mill in Bozeman, Montana as part of this summer’s Tinworks exhibition, on view through Sept 5. Also shown, special performance by Grammy winning chorale group The Crossing, who sang in front of each side.
Photos by @yonkeangela (1) @eliridgwaygallery (2) @blairspeed (3,4)
Tell Them We Were Here
I'm happy to have been included as one of eight artists in this new documentary by Griff and Keelan Williams. Tell Them We Were Here looks at what makes San Francisco a special environment for artists. It's about the creative legacy of this city, but more than that, it's about the permission artists here feel to forge their own paths. The other seven artists are among my favorite anywhere. I hope you'll watch it.
You can stream it for $12 via the Berkeley Art Museum here:
https://watch.eventive.org/bampfa/play
More info about the movie, including early press and profiles of the artists:
https://tellthemwewerehere.com/#Artists
New Yorker spot drawings
As someone who makes little drawings all day, I've always loved the spot drawings in the New Yorker. I see them as an exhibition of artwork you aren't supposed to notice on display in the most prestigious gallery. It is a total thrill to have these nine drawings in the magazine this week. Thanks to the talented people at the NYer who somehow make a near perfect issue every week.
FrizziFrizzi
Flowers for Sick People at SFMOMA
I'm happy to have a selection of sixteen original paintings from the Flowers for Sick People project on view at SFMOMA in the exhibition Close to Home: Creativity in Crisis.
Tucker Nichols
Flowers for Sick People, 2020-2021
Framed paintings with handwritten text
Free print project from SFMOMA and SFPL
Tucker Nichols
Flowers for you, 2021
Four screenprints on heavy card
Commissioned by SFMOMA and the San Francisco Public Library
Reserve yours HERE
I'm excited to announce the release of an experimental print project called Flowers for you. This edition of four screenprints is being distributed for free via the San Francisco Public Library system. Anyone with a library card can reserve a print here and pick it up from your local branch. Like library books, no one owns these prints. You can keep yours as long as you want, with the understanding that at some point, you'll pass it along to someone else who could use some flowers.
Wall drawing at Gallery 16, San Francisco
Boomtown
Video related to a large scale installation at the Sun Valley Art Museum, Spring 2020
Tucker Nichols
Boomtown, 2020
Wood, paint, mixed media
The Post Office
From Noah at Electric Works in SF:
Tucker Nichols and Electric Works love the USPS. With a 91% approval rating by the US public, seems like lots of other folks do too.
To hear about the USPS being torn asunder by those in charge was certainly a lowlight of the year that brought us many lowlights. Rather than sit around our houses under lockdown and let the bad feelings eat us up alive, we decided to do something about it.
Here is that something: a t-shirt celebrating the great service the United States has fostered for hundreds of years.
Here are some people who worked at the post office over the years: Abraham Lincoln, William Faulkner, Charles Bukowski, Harry S. Truman, Sherman Hemsley, Steve Carrell, John Prine, Conrad Hilton, Brittany Howard, John Brown, N. C. Wyeth and even Noah Webster.
The postal service is a major character in US history. It’s more than just an employer and service provider. It has personality, magic and mythology. Need a short read, please spend some time with Eudora Welty’s “Why I Live at the P. O."
Proceeds from these t-shirts go to Ameelio, a non-profit whose mission is to "decouple incarceration and profit, and combat mass incarceration.” Meaning, they keep incarcerated family members in touch with their loved ones for free. To date, they have sent over 42,000 letters to inmates for free.
Read on: Nearly one in two Americans has a family member who has experienced incarceration. When a loved one is imprisoned, staying in touch is vital. Yet prison communications options remain prohibitively expensive.
The $1.2 billion prison telecommunications industry is one of the most under-reported bad actors in the criminal justice space.
Private telecommunications companies exploit vulnerable families’ desire to remain connected while separated by incarceration. These providers are profiting primarily from low-income families: one in three families with incarcerated loved ones are forced into debt due to the costs of maintaining contact.
We want to reconnect incarcerated people and their loved ones, for free. Our vision is to disrupt the prison telecommunications industry by outcompeting incumbents with services that prioritize users over profits.
There is strong evidence that sustaining contact during incarceration improves post-release outcomes and reduces recidivism. We hope that in the long term, our services will significantly shrink prison populations.
Read more about them here.
So please let “neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night” stay you from swift completion of your ordering these shirts.
You're Fired postcard set
Double sided postcard set, pre addressed and waiting for your stamp
Brought to you by the good people of Park Life in San Francisco
Screen printed by the wizard Nat Swope at Bloom Press in Oakland
Let the postal workers know where you stand
Catalog text from "American Genre" at the ICA, Maine
From the exhibition:
American Genre: Contemporary Painting
Institute of Contemporary Art, Maine
July 20 - September 15, 2017
Curated by Michelle Grabner
Tucker Nichols, Untitled (BR16114), 2016
Enamel on panel
18 x 24”
Flowers For Sick People
Know someone struggling with illness?
I will mail a small flower painting on your behalf to a loved one in need.
Digestion Placemats
Tucker Nichols, , 2019
6 printed placemats on cork, 12 x 16” each
$150
Published by Workshop Residence, San Francisco
Available here
Digestion Placemats
We generally don’t like to think about digestion, especially while we’re in the process of doing it. But ultimately it’s what makes eating so appealing—the magic of taking food into our bodies and blindly extracting each essential part to give us raw energy. I designed these placemats as a way of introducing the most basic elements of digestion into the dining experience: tubes and bits. If it didn’t seem so disgusting, we would no doubt find it delightful. I hope your next meal with loved ones can celebrate the pleasure of a delicious meal and the miracle of turning food into life. — TN
Feeling despair about the state of things? This listicle from McSweeney’s can help:
Recent commission
Untitled (GP1903), 2019
Recent commission for a private residence in Hillsborough, CA
Tucker Nichols
400 Posters, 2019
Sumi ink on printed posters, ed. of 400
In collaboration with MacFadden & Thorpe
I’ve never understood editions. They feel like the demoted cousins of “originals” somehow: less valuable, more watered down. Of course, the distinction is all in our minds–either the artwork gives off a charge or it doesn’t—so I decided to see an edition as nothing more than a group. Making 400 sumi ink drawings on the exhibition posters doesn’t fit with my sense of what makes an edition, which made me want to make at least 400 more. So is this one work or 400? I don’t really care.
—Tucker Nichols
What Is An Edition, Anyway?
McEvoy Foundation for the Arts, San Francisco
May 24–Sep 7, 2019
For information on poster distribution, contact the museum at info@mcevoyarts.org or 415-580-7605
The New York Times has made prints of three of my Op-Ed drawings from over the years. Thanks to the various art directors I've worked with there who have repeatedly made the case for my work to appear alongside the day's most serious writing. Getting these assignments is a perfect blend of fun and terror, as time is crazy tight and the world is watching. Having a drawing appear on these pages has been a dream of mine since well before I considered myself an artist. I know it's a cliche, but this work has shown me firsthand that you can do anything if you point yourself straight at the task and don't stop until they give in.
How We Got Here available HERE
30% Chance available HERE
Chart of Knowledge available HERE
The German translation of This Bridge Will Not Be Gray has been nominated for the German Children's Literature Award. I was surprised that there would be a market in Germany for a book about a bridge in SF, but I'm pleased to know a story about unconventional thinking and the power of people to stand up to boring resonates in other parts of the world. Now let's paint more bridges ridiculous colors. Thanks to Dave Eggers for bringing me along, and Dan McKinley for putting it all together.
Sculptures from the Pacific coast of Costa Rica
