Blue October

So this past Wednesday, we went and saw one of my all-time favorite bands in a small venue in Rochester called the Water Street Music Hall. It was an amazing show. Nice and intimate.

Here's some pictures:

It really was an amazing set, and they played songs that I did not expect. They opened with Ugly Side, which is an awesome song. But they also played Come In Closer, X Amount of Words, and The End, which are songs that I did not expect to hear but was super happy to hear them. Especially X Amount of Words.

Definately check this band out if you get a chance. Look them up online, go to a show, whatever it takes. Their newest album, Approaching Normal, is an amazing album but I first heard them with their album Foiled, so I really highly-recommend that one.

See you space cowboy...

Charity Time!

Wow. Well the world has needed some help lately! Yesterday was the Bijutsu sale at Buffalo State College. I'll tell you, I went to help set up the sale and was astonished and awed by the amount of artwork that was donated. The sale lasted several hours, and resulted in a total of about $7000 for the Japan Relief Fund. 100% of that is going straight to the fund, so Buffalo made a difference this week! I'd like to thank Sumiyo Roland and Megan Cosgrove for their tireless work on the event, and I'd like to thank all of the artists and patrons that made the sale a huge success.

The next charity that I am involved with is the Slime City Double Feature benefit this coming Monday (May 9) at the Dipson Theatres Market Arcade Film & Art Center (639 Main St. Buffalo Corners, NY). I really encourage everyone to come and support this cause which will help Benjamin Heppel, a local 8 year old boy with lukemia. There will be give-aways, raffles, and a back-to-back viewing of Slime City and Slime City Massacre. These are two amazing horror movies, both filmed right here in Buffalo.



One of the prizes that you can win at this event is a custom, one-of-a-kind Slime City pendant from my A Cymbal as a Symbol series. I enjoyed making this piece, and I can't wait to see who gets it! Here's two pictures of it.



It will be on a genuine leather cord.

So come support some great causes and get some great artwork!



See you space cowboy...

100th Blog Post!

Well, this is the 100th blog post that I've done on this blog. So for this one, I will cover some up coming information!


On May 4, (Yesterday), a large collection of my work (which includes the Myconocle: The Eye of Psilocyborg, The Amazing Extending Body Poker, The Lost Archaeologist's Amazing Digging Device, the Mechanical Eye of Aman-Ra, and the Frightworld Pharaoh's Ankh) are being photographed in LA and in Death Valley, CA for a spread in Lip Service Magazine. The article is on the top Steampunk designers in the world. I feel privelaged to be among that category.



On May 6, a charity event called Bijutsu is going on. It is being organized by Megan Cosgrove, Sumiyo Roland, Sunhwa Kim, and Bob Wood and will feature a large amount of artists and designers that have donated work to sell in an attempt to raise money for the Japan Relief Fund through the Red Cross. At this event I will be revealing and selling a new line of jewelry that is only for charity. It's called A Cymbal as a Symbol and is based on my previous cymbal pendants.



On May 9, I am involved with yet another charity for a young boy with lukemia. This event is taking place at the Dipson Theatres Market Arcade Film and Art Center on Main Street in Buffalo. This event is going to be fun because it is a double-feature of two locally-made horror films called Slime City and Slime City Massacre. I am good friends with one of the special effects designers for these movies, so I was excited to get involved. For this event, I am donating a custom Slime City A Cymbal as a Symbol pendant to be auctioned off.



On May 13-15 I have a weekend full of photo shoots for Rio Grande in order to show the new Steampunk Components line that they recently released and had me test and review. Modeling my work (which is essentially the collection that Lip Service is shooting plus a few extras) will be two fellow designers. Furniture Designer Eric Rose and Jewelry Designer Natasha Horeth will be modeling for this shoot.


Tonight I also updated JPHii.com to include a feed to my new Etsy shop! The site also now has a link to the Etsy at the bottom, as well as an updated contact page and some new pictures. So things have been crazy!


See you space cowboy....

Website Update

I recently updated JPHii.com. There's is now a page where I will be adding images of exhibitions and special events. So keep an eye on it. There's also images of new work, as well as new accomplishments added.

See you space cowboy...

New Piece

I've been very busy lately, but I decided to make a new piece with some very heavy cultural reference. One of my recent pieces (the most recent) is called The Lamellain Barb and Thread of Autosacrifice. This piece is modelled after the needle and barbed thread used by the Maya in autosacrifices of bloodletting where the spine and thread were pierced through the tongue, forskin, or labia of a person. The thread or paper on the ground would collect blood. In some cases, the thread or paper was burned. In some cases, the blood would fall or or be applied to corn which was then used to bake sacred breads. This piece is made of copper, brass, leather. and hemp.



Dark? Yes. Creepy? Yes. Just my style? You bet ya!

See you space cowboy...

Another Happy Customer!

I recieved an email the other day from a happy client. At the time, I was pretty tired from working overtime on production pieces for the upcoming sales. My morale and motivation was low, and this message really picked me up and allowed me to get that extra umph into my step and finish what I had set out to accomplish. So here is the message:

"Cheers on the tattoo. just for the record, since you went ahead and got the tattoo,I figure I should let you know that the necklace you gave me is one of maybe half a dozen pieces in my life I have totally fallen in love with and almost never take off. not because of some weird obsession with you, the artist, cause really I don't do that. just because the piece really strikes a chord with me on a number of levels. it's perfectly appropriate for the here and now and i totally ♥ it."

She also sent me a picture of the pieces that she is talking about, which is The Steampunk Pharaoh's Ankh. This is an image of her wearing it.

The tattoo that she is referring to in the message is the tattoo that I recently had done of the Steampunk Pharaoh's Ankh. This is a picture of that:

So anyway, we get little victories where we can. Take those victories and use them as fuel, because if you're doing it right, you'll need all the fuel you can get!

See you space cowboy...

Site Updates

So there's a lot of new content and features on the site.

To start off, the image gallery has now been split into two separate galleries. A Conceptual Metalwork gallery and a Production Metalwork gallery. Both can be found through the Home page, and every other page, of JPHii.com. With the splitting of the galleries, there is also now a third gallery of Videos that can be accessed through the image galleries. You can also choose your media player on the Video gallery.

See you space cowboy...