T-Squat is hugely excited to announce we are partnering up with Surface Pop to create our very own gallery space. Before Surface Pop move out of their current location at 11-13 Carlisle Street, St Kilda and into T-Squat, they plan on going out with a bang by holding a three-day pop-up exhibition from 25-28th March.

In the spirit of finishing up where they’re about to take off, Surface Pop’s short but sweet exhibition will feature works by Jak Rapmund, Conrad Bizjak, Aaron McKenzie, Heesco, The Void (Kane Marevich), Sarah Mcfarlane, James Watkins, Robbie Warden, Beanz, Nathan Trapnell, Braddock, Phoenix the Street Artist, Regan Tamanui – HAHA, Fletcher Andersen and Ryan McGennisken.

The T-Squat Surface Pop exhibition represents both ‘firsts’ and ‘lasts’. It will be the first exhibition hosted by T-Squat, drawing in the website’s growing readership across Melbourne as a new hub for underground artwork and events. For Surface Pop, it will be the last opening held at their St Kilda gallery space and they expect their following in St Kilda and the broader arts community to be out in force.

For T-Squat readers in Melbourne, be sure to get yourself down to Surface Pop at 11-13 Carlisle Street, St Kilda from 6pm on Friday 25th March 2011 for a drink, a catch-up and an eyeful of awesome artwork. If you can’t make it, be sure to keep an eye out for T-Squat and Surface Pop’s new gallery space very soon. Seriously, it’ll be here before you know it.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Words: The Void
 
There’s not that many moments in your life you can describe as truly defining - shitting your pants on the first day of school, that cool creepy uncle who fed you his record collection, that caring teacher who took you under his wing, that bitch ex-girlfriend who helped you discover what hate really means or that very first orgasm.

One of my defining moments was when I was about six years old and I walked into Cheapskates Skateboard shop in Auckland and saw, under an awesome display of Santa Cruz decks, a poster of the ‘Screaming Hand’ by Jim Phillips. It hit me like a warm lemon pie to the face, planting a seed deep in my sick little mind that, to this day, defines the way I creatively express myself and generally see the world. To many skateboarders and skate art appreciators, the 'Screaming Hand’ represents not only a golden era in skateboard art development but a defining icon of popular culture as we now know it.
 
 
 
 
For those of you who don’t know who Jim Phillips is, he was, in my opinion the mastermind behind Santa Cruz skateboard's epic evolution from the mid-seventies until 1989. As art director over that period, he single-handedly revolutionised skate board art, bringing his bold flamboyant comic style into a mainstream dominated by minimalist deck canvases. He not only did all the deck art work, but was also a prominent graphic designer constructing all the companies' print ad campaigns I drooled over in magazines like transworld skateboarding and Thrasher.

Jim Phillips was also responsible for founding Phillips studios in the house next door from his own in California. A place where he could develop a team of skateboarding, misfit artists into creative machines, pumping out some of Santa Cruz’s most famous artwork in the late 1980s. An exclusive Santa Cruz house studio developing skateboard and sticker graphics for the likes of boarding legends Jeff Kendell, Jason Jesse, Christian Hosoi and Rob Roskopp to name a few. The thought of it brings tears to my eyes.
 
 
The Screaming Hand was born around 1985 for a new sub brand in the Santa Cruz wheel line, ‘Speed Wheels Santa Cruz’ . The hand came out of sketching his own hands for inspiration and was the first and only concept he needed. This icon was the seal of coolness approval for the must-have wheels, shirts and stickers that helped turned Santa Cruz into the most recognisable skateboarding brand of the 80s.

As an avid skater I was so obsessed with ‘The Screaming Hand’ that I just had to have it on a T-shirt no matter what. Only problem was that we couldn’t afford it at the time, so my Mum was cool enough to draw it on a T-Shirt for me with a black permanent marker, copying the original design as best she could from a sticker I had bought with my pocket money. I wore it a few times but was getting label conscious - too much of a skin dick at the time to fully appreciate what that act of love represented in the most honest and purist of ways, encapsulating a mother's love for her son but also a true homage to Jim Phillips and Santa Cruz.
 
 
Of late, Santa Cruz has re-released all the vintage Phillips designs, reigniting the public's passion for quality skateboard art juxtaposed once again, across decks and apparel. Check out Street Machine on Chapel Street, Melbourne for that beloved 'Screaming Hand' Tee and other rad Santa Cruz gear.

Big love Jim Phillips. You define me. Hell, you complete me. The Void

www.lushproductions.com

www.santacruzskateboards.com
 
 
 
 
 
 
Words: Kelly Sabba & Annie Davis
 

With creativity so imaginative she invented her own craft, Lucy McRae is a body architect. Playing with technology and human anatomy, she constructs skin structures to reshape a silhouette, fusing her passion for ballet and architecture into recreations of the human form. Besides the omnipotent Lady Gaga, Lucy has collaborated with Swedish pop rocket Robyn on the video for Indestructible. Engineering a dress out of 1.2 kilometres of transparent plumbing tubing, drill pumps and tiny valves pulse liquid, air and vapour through ‘a living, breathing dynamic skin’ which changes colour at different speeds.

For a video on the making of the video, head to Lucy’s website at www.lucymcrae.net
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Words: Matt Cohen
 
We’ve just discovered one of Melbourne’s newest fashion retailers, Fox and Found, down a little alleyway off a littler alleyway, just behind Melbourne Central. Creator of the store, Ebby, graduate of fashion business at the Melbourne School of Fashion, has been planning her assault on Melbourne's fashion for years.

In true entrepreneurial fashion (pardon the pun) Ebby started from nothing, working as a buyer in the store next door for plus-sized women. Ebby’s creative drive and natural connection to the Melbourne-fashion-pulse has made the decision to open up her own store quite easy. The result is a space stylish and full of warmth – housing a range of local and independent designers amongst the crazed taxidermist creations of stuffed bats and crows. A little fucked up, but pretty wicked.
 

This issue, Ebby at Fox and Found have given us a pair of Feiyue sneakers from their new ‘wings’ collection. To get your bad self in the draw, email [email protected] with the subject title: ‘I’m so glad I Fox and Found T-Squat’ in the subject line or if you can think of a better pun with T-Squat and Fox & Found in it, let’s see you bring it.

Fox and Found
www.foxandfound.com
Shop 2, Driver Lane
318 Little Bourke St
Melbourne, Victoria
 

 
 
 
 
Words: Sheridan Wright / Images: James Watkins
 

The concept of jewellery as heirloom, something to be handed down from generation to generation, is overtly challenged in Ellie Collins’ recent collection. The collection focuses on three primary feature elements: carved coal, pressed paper and constructed bark. The textured teardrop shape crosses all three styles, with long chains of textured links created both in a traditional necklace shape and a chain wrap. The materials themselves are reminiscent of flotsam and jetsam, washed up on a beach somewhere and worn by children who, unlike adults, still appreciate the exceeding beauty of things like shells, fish bones and leaves. Watching the natural materials break down and evolve is part of its charm. This is the stuff you won’t be leaving your grandkids, not only because you won’t want to part with it. Special doesn’t always mean forever.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
High end designers went hobo at this year’s Paris Fashion week with collections by Jean Paul Gautier, Versace and John Galliano getting trashy. Maybe it was the credit crunch but we’ll just tell ourselves T-Squat must have given them the inspiration. Derelicte, no?
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
Words: Kelly Sabba & Annie Davis
 
Fixies meet fashion with this collection of pimped out fixies for the ACT Responsible organisation’s Be Cycle & Fashion project. Twelve designers pimped out twelve Peugeot bikes in support of environmental responsibility, warming hearts not globes with emissions of inspired, crazy coolness. Designers included Agatha Ruiz de La Prada, Kenzo Takada, Marithe & Francois Girbaud, Jean-Claude Jitrois, Karim Bonnet, Ylan Anoufa, Jerome L’Huillier, Antik Batik, Francois Duris and Kaoriito. Here’s T-Squat’s pick of the bunch.
 

Agatha Ruiz de La Prada
 
 
Kenzo Takada
 
Marithe & Francois Girbaud
 
Antik Batik
 
Karim Bonnet
 

Ylan Anoufa
 
 
 
 
Words: Annie Davis
 

Pavel Sidorenko has found a new way of having vinyls around the house - a clock. Carved into New York cityscapes, dripping blobs of paint, eerie churchyards and top-hatted monkeys, each clock doesn’t so much break records as recreate them. We imagine taking a scalpel to your I-Pod wouldn’t produce such eye-catching results. Go vinyl.