Ricky Rat and MQ
Before starting my journey out to the Mission on Friday night, I had to acquire some cheese. Well, some weed that was named "cheese" by the now infamous provocateur and comic artist Ricky Rat. I've had the delight of meeting Ricky on a number of occasions, and he is just an all around super nice guy that wants to keep the creative juices in this city flowing.
There's only one place in the city you can nibble on this delicious bud, and that's at Berner's on Haight. I had never been here before since I live in the Tenderloin and what weed smoker wants to travel half of the city to get grass when you can cut some in your back yard? The dispensary is an open style, with large tables that you can walk around which display weed. It honestly feels more like an upscale grocery store than it does a dispensary. I scurried into the line and got myself an eight of Ricky's cheese. It came with a cute little one panel comic on the inside, with listed "cheese facts". My cheese fact? "All orange cheese is artificially colored." I seriously just thought this was a backhanded reference to Cheetos until I looked it up and sure enough, there is a long history of cheese makers coloring their cheese. The weed itself is pretty good, 26.7% THC, with its "total" listing of 29.6%. It packs a pretty punch and if I were to guess is a hybrid flower, because I get a nice head and body high when smoking or vaping it.
Next up on the list, my friend and fellow artist Jack Downs let me know about a new gallery that's opened up in the Mission, off of Valencia and 19th, called Rossi, and they were showing some of the artist MQ. The walk from the Tenderloin to the Mission takes around thirty minutes to an hour, so I rolled up some of that cheese and threw a hundred stickers into my pocket to put up while meandering towards Rossi.
The Mission is alive and well. With the new parklets in front of all of the restaurants, and the city closing Valencia on every other block, it's very inviting and there were swarms of people out enjoying the beautiful night.
First thing about Rossi is I love the way this space is set up—it feels intimate but not too crowded. MQ's work was all over the walls. Decks, signs, canvas maybe, sculpture, stickers, rings, pins. There was a LOT of MQ's around. How would I describe MQ's work? Deceptively simple, abundant, sometimes overwhelming, considered. You can tell that MQ has put thousands of hours perfecting the craft. Among my favorites were the hand painted skateboard decks and this ball completely covered in slaps.
To complete the weekend of art-ing, and to wrap up my cheesemongering, I pushed my way through the dense rolling fog to the Outer Richmond. On the corner of Balboa and 37th I found the mystical sounding Eye and Hand Society showing some of Ricky Rat's work. Acrylic on canvas, some dipped in resin. Skateboards snapped in half, painted on, and dipped in resin. Full decks even! And of course, it wouldn't be complete without some rolling papers. Well, me being me, and Ricky being such a great person, and I mean look at that freaking cute rat! I bought a broken half deck with a moon and a little sleeping rat. Be adorable and support your local art community.
