Various Artists Happy Dog Gallery March 26th and 27th, 2009 One Gallery, Two Nights, Two Different Shows In the midst of the academic panels, and standard commercial gallery openings that made up the Southern Graphics Council's 2009 convention, Happy Dog Gallery's art party style openings gave attendees an opportunity to unwind, knock back a few beers and have an impromptu dance party. Manned by Greg Nanney and Joseph Velasquez, Happy Dog Gallery acts as a home base for their full time venture, Drive by Press.  Drive by Press is a mobile, touring print company that brings DIY, interactive printmaking to concerts, festivals, and other events around the country.  Their events at Happy Dog, often advertised by word of mouth, and frequently only installed for a day or two, share the same indie quality and spontaneous energy as their press on wheels.  Fresh off a tour with Spoon, Drive by Press didn't miss a beat in organizing several high-energy events to coincide with the SGC 2009 Convention.  Luckily for me, I tend to find myself reaping the benefits of being a printmaking scene tag-along. DPA vs BOPS, an excellent way to kick off the mayhem of the conference, was more grudge match than art show, which, let's face it can be refreshing sometimes.  Sick of the traditional, stuff printmaking establishment, John Hancock, of the Amazing Hancock Brothers, and Joseph Velasquez formed the Dirty Printmakers of America as a way to show a wilder side of printmaking and "shake their dicks" (to quote the ever eloquent John) at the academic party poopers.  The group put together some portfolios and started appearing at various printmaking conferences.  With any wildly popular renegade group, there are always offshoots, splinter groups, or groups formed from the castoffs.  That's where the Bastards of Printmaking Society comes in.  The two groups have had five battles to date, and in five battles, DPA has always been victorious.  Of course this is according to John Hancock, who as we all know, is a wily character, and possibly shouldn't be trusted.  The work of both groups, hung on either side of the gallery for strict grudge-match comparison, of course, was bold and full of bravado, though one could sense that the BOPS were still clinging to some shreds of formality.  While there were some individual standouts, the work was primarily unlabeled, and the evening was really much more about the energy of the crowd, and the performance aspect of the artistic skirmish.  Put to a vote by applause by the DJ, the DPA came out on top again.  Perhaps the applause of printmaking students and hipsters isn't the most certified way of determining a win, but if that doesn't sway you, apparently the BOPS had a defector who wanted to switch sides after the crushing defeat.  In all honesty, the disputes between the two groups are really all in fun, and any animosity is taken with a grain of salt.  The event was studded with the air of friendly machismo, an impromptu scenester dance party, beer on tap, and of course art. Ladies Night which featured the work of all female artists, yours truly included, had a little bit of a different feel to the work, but still had the same party vibe as the night before.  Perhaps more so than DPA vs BOPS, Ladies Night really showed the diversity in styles and methods of printmaking.  The artwork itself, though displayed in the same manner as the work in DPA vs BOPS, offered a broad range of styles and methods ranging from the stencil and watercolor works of Stina Kaczmaryn, to traditional woodcuts, to hand dyed paper.  Where the previous night's show focused more on the raucous good times of the performance battle, the pieces in Ladies Night delved a little deeper, for example the detailed prints of Carrie Lingscheit, one of the curators of the show.  Lingshchiet's pieces delve deep into the human psyche, and her dark lithographs call for a little bit more contemplation than was allowed a viewer at Happy Dog Gallery during the festivities.  It's hard to look at art when your face is in someone's armpit. One might read this "review" and ask oneself (or perhaps myself) "where the hell is the art talk in all of this?" which would be a valid question.  However, my experience with the Southern Graphics Council is that, yes, there is amazing artwork to look at, important networking to be done, and lectures by famous and potentially stuffy artists to listen to, but there's also the camaraderie, ball busting, and of course boozing that goes along with the art side.  As a nerdy art student in the painting department, where one drank jugs of wine in semi-solitude and contemplated premature depression while painting tiny details with a brush the size of a sugar glider's eyelash, I was often jealous of the brash, dare I say, fun, goings on in the printmaking department.  They always made the painters seem too serious, too studious... too something.     Southern Graphics Council does indeed offer plenty of opportunity for serious discussion, but it also offers the opportunity to get down and dirty and stop taking everything so seriously.   What's so wrong with a little art party? by Rachel Hewitt