http://jacksonville.stateofthereunion.com

Al Letson’s State of the RE:Union blog for Jacksonville launched earlier this month. It kicked off with interviews of Tony Allegretti, Burro Bags and The Urban Facelift Project from Content Design Group. Not a bad start if you ask me.

Notable Features: Tweets from State of the RE:Union, music tracks from local artists, “docu-shorts” and the awesome promo trailer produced by Jacksonville’s own Dripsblack.

State of the Re:Union Promo from stateofthereunion on Vimeo.

(2) AIGA Jacksonville Blog

http://blog.aigajacksonville.org

AIGA Jacksonville just launched it blog and I anticipate good things form them. AIGA is the professional association for design in Jacksonville and they say the blog is “a cool little place to capture little design nuggets”.

I had a meeting today with incoming president Varick Rosete to talk about future Urban Jacksonville / AIGA collabos. You can catch the most recent tonight. It’s called Lighboxing and two designers go head-to-head while the design battle is projected on the wall, live for all to see.

Notable Features: None at this point besides great design and information about where to find it in the city.

And this just in! Thursday’s event will have color commentary from @thecrobar / @theurbansouth duo-U dont want 2 miss this!

Here are videos of the two opponents

(3) Jaxlore

http://jaxlore.blogspot.com

Cutting edge techno music news, interviews, reviews and other assorted tidbits to make the heart and the mind grow stronger.

(4) Jaxunderbelly

http://jaxunderbelly.com

Jacksonville Happenings, Artst Interviews, Call for Artists, Culture, Events, Gallery Happenings and Openings

(5) CWKi?

http://justfortheculture.com/cwk

Definitely keep an eye on this one. Sneakers, hip hop, fashion and locally produced videos. This one is from Summertime in the City 2009.

(6) Jax Stylefile

http://jaxstylefile.wordpress.com

This is one of the more intriguing new blogs. I can’t wait to see their second post. C’mon ya’ll. Get on it! Here’s how they describe Jax Stylefile:

You may not own a lot in life but you will always have your style. It’s yours. Don’t listen to others. Do what you like. Do what excites you. Embrace that it’s fun to dress up. Be your own stylist. Be inspired but never imitate. Stay true to your soul and let art hang on your limbs. Show the world what’s going on in our culture. It’s all up to you.

Jacksonville is full of interesting and stylish people and we want to capture that for the all the interwebs to see! Now go put on a cute outfit and we will see you on the streets…

UPDATE: Here is a fun, informal podcast with interviews and comments at the 3rd annual Jacksonville Tangerine Festival.

JaxScene posted some great photos from last weekend’s Tangerine Festival. It looks like there was a pretty good turnout despite the weather. Tangerine Festival Photoset

While you’re at it add JaxScene to your list of blogs to read daily. They’ve been pretty consistent about posting things to do in Jacksonville after work hours. The links in their sidebar tell the tale of what JaxScene is all about: Flickr, Nightlife, Bands.

Check out Owen and Reggie from Black Kids a few years ago when they played in the band Mata Hari. This was when TSI was still in Springfield. Ahh it seems so long ago… My how they’ve grown. Also Black Kids are playing at Coachella. Awesome.

CREATEjacksonville is a new online magazine that features local artists. They are mostly interested in illustration, contemporary painting and drawing, printmaking, street art, design, fashion, and photography. Anyone who lives in around Jacksonville, that creates anything…we want to hear about it. CREATEjacksonville wants only to add to the arts community in anyway possible. I spoke with the founder of CREATEjacksonville, Brittni Wood, who is a personal friend of mine:

1. Introduce yourself who are you and what do you do?
My name is Brittni Wood. I graduated from UNF with a BFA in painting and drawing. I am an artist and an art teacher.

2. What inspired you to start CREATEjacksonville (CJ)?
This magazine is something I have wanted to do for a while. Being a young painter, trying to get my foot in the door somewhere, anywhere, has been a struggle. To get your name out there, you have to do it yourself, no one is going to do it for you. Living in a city that isn’t exactly known for its arts community can be tough. Although it is improving, there are not many outlets for contemporary art around here. Sure the beach scenes and seascapes are plentiful, but what about those artists who are pushing beyond that?

I guess CREATEjacksonville is my response to that question; a chance to stop bitching and start doing something about it. I want to add to the growing arts community in and around Jacksonville (this includes the beaches and St. Augustine as well) any way that I can. I hope others will do the same.

3. Obviously from looking at the name there is an emphasis on creation. If I am a clothing designer creating my own clothes or a crafter knitting a way in my basement can I submit my work for consideration to be in your magazine?
Absolutely! Anyone and everyone can submit work. You don’t have to be a Jacksonville super star to be in the magazine. We want to be able to give artists and designers, from a variety of backgrounds, the opportunity to promote themselves, as well as their work.

4. How is CREATEjacksonville different from other art magazines in the city? Like Arbus for example.
First, let me say, I think Arbus is a good publication. I read every issue, and although I may not be drawn into every article, they are doing something good for the arts community.

The most obvious difference between CREATEjacksonville and a magazine like Arbus is that CJ is an online magazine and is not in print at this time. We do not have advertisements, just content. We try to feature artists who may not get a chance to be in a bigger publication for one reason or another: they are just starting out or their work doesn’t fit the mold.

In addition, CJ is written from an artist’s point of view, not a writer’s.

5. How often do you plan on publishing? Anytime you have new content or on a more regular basis like monthly.
Issues will be released on a monthly basis, but there will be new content on the website at least once a week. Any time I cover an event, like Art Walk or the Vestal Art Showcase, for example, I will post the information, usually, the next day. I update the artist section often as well. Whenever I get the information in, I immediately put it on the site.

6. How do I submit my work?
Send 3-5 jpegs of your work, along with any additional information about yourself and your work (bio, resume, anything) to createjacksonville@gmail.com. We except submissions from illustrators, painters, printmakers, photographers, and designers (clothing, jewelry, graphic design, etc). You must live in Jacksonville or the surrounding area to submit. This includes St. Augustine and the beaches. You can also check out the website for additional submission information.

Check out some recent articles from CREATEjacksonville
Vestal Art Showcase
Brian Gray – Art Walk

tags: jacksonville, art, createjacksonville

If you haven’t already, head over to JaxDaily.com a new blog about Jacksonville. JaxDaily normally posts links to select news stories with a short description in their Suggested Reading posts. Check out today’s Selected Reading for Thursday.

In addition to select news stories they publish original content about twice a week. Like this review of Tavis Smiley’s appearance in Jacksonville or this article about local names running for State Office.

One of the more recent articles that caught my eye was Popular Local Websites. Jax Daily published traffic numbers for local websites with data gleaned from Alexa.com. Here are numbers from the local blogs section. Yes, screw you JaxBars.com! Ha ha ha.

LOCAL BLOGS & OTHER SITES
OrangePark.com – 1,891 visitors
MetJax.com Forums – 1,741 visitors
Jax Night Life – 1,444 visitors
UrbanJacksonville.info – 1,319 visitors
JaxBars.com – 846 visitors

I talked with Austin Cassidy, one of the main contributors to the blog, and asked hime about his inspiration for starting JaxDaily.com. He had this to say about Jax Daily:

Last Fall I ran for the Soil & Water Board and won a seat on it, and during that time I got to basically see every corner of Jacksonville – both during the day and at 3am… and that’s kind of what inspired us (Stephen, his business partner) to revisit the idea. So we decided that once the campaign was over we’d invest in some digital cameras and give it a shot.

I think the site is pretty good. They focus on Jacksonville as a whole instead of the hyperlocal approach like Urban Jacksonville or Metro Jacksonville. One thing I would definately recommend is to link the masthead back to the homepage. I tried to click on the masthead about 5 times to get back to to the homepage. I also think adding a relevant, or irrelevant, picture to each post would make the blog more appealing. Maybe just grab photos from the Jacksonville Flickr pool and add them to your Suggested Reading posts if you don’t have a photo.

tags: jacksonville, blog

Urban Art Warfare recently launched their blog. The tagline of the blog proclaims Bringing the forefront of all urban media and street art to the masses. Indeed they do. The blog has been up for less than a month and they’ve already written 6 posts on upcoming art shows which you can see in the category Art Shows and Openings. Not only are there posts about the local art scene there are posts about the street art from all over the country like The Swap Box Project.

I’m very excited about this new blog from Urban Art Warfare. Why? Levi, the author of author and creator or Urban Art Warfare, is very connected in the local art scene. And we’re not talking about paintings-of-pastoral-scenes-at-a-gallery-in-san-marco art. We’re talking new, hip, cutting-edge art from the hottest artists in the city. Don’t get me wrong, I can appreciate this as much as the next person, but I would much rather view and purchase art like this.

Hopefully I will be more aware of cool art events happening in the city. For example, take the post ELEMENTS Artshow Opening Reception. I would have loved to be at this show, but I had no idea it was going on until I heard about it from a friend. I didn’t even know Jane Gray Gallery in Riverside had opened. But thats partly because I am a home-body geek.

Lucky for me I found the UAW blog so I won’t miss the upcoming TSI Skate Deck show or the Burrito Gallery Group Show. So if you are down with art you should be down with the new Urban Art Warfare blog.

tags: jacksonville, art, street art