Artful International is currently working on bringing the Topless Project to San Diego. We are currently seeking submissions from San Diego artist and sponsors. If you are interested in joining the Topless Project on its quest to raise 1 Million in breast cancer funding please send information to Artful International.

For all artist inquiries please email Aubrey Bowman at aubrey.b@artfulinternaitonal.org

For sponsorship and marketing information please email alex.m@artfulinternational.org

We look forward to bringing you another great event in San Diego.

We wanted to say thank you to all the artists, volunteers and supporters who made Topless Project Los Angeles a success! We could not have done this without you. If you missed the amazing event, here are some images from our wonderful evening. You can still purchase remaining artwork in our store by clicking on this link. Thank you for supporting us and we will see you at the next show.

The Topless Project Los Angeles is today. Do not miss out on over 120 pieces  of artwork from over 60 artists from around the nation. Please join us for an amazing evening with live artwork, live music and some of the best artists showcasing artwork to benefit breast cancer organizations and toplessproject.org.  For more information please visit http://toplessproject.org/main/topless-project-los-angeles/

The Topless Project is setting sights high this year- $1 million dollars high. With a touring schedule of over 20 cities and a full content book in the works, the Topless Project will succeed in our 2010 goal to raise $1 million dollars for breast cancer research, treatment, and rehabilitation. Collaborating with inspiring veterans and creating a venue to showcase up-and-coming artist, we hope to use artistic form to fight against breast cancer. Through donations from fans like you, the sell of donated artwork, and the sell of a full content book included images and stories from the road, the Topless Project and Artful International plan on raising $1 million dollars for breast cancer research, treatment, and rehabilitation. We cannot do this without the support and assistance of art admirers like you. Help us pave a new path with the fight against breast cancer in your local community. 

Donations are accepted on our website, toplessproject.org, and by mail to Artful International: 3610 Motor Ave Suite 5 Los Angeles, CA 90034. Any donated amount is greatly needed and appreciated, and is tax deductible.

 Together we can raise much needed funds for breast cancer in your community. We are excited and ready for another great year in 2010. We hope you will join us!

Christine Mason Miller is a Santa Monica based writer and artist who has been drawing, painting, creating, writing and exploring ever since she was a little girl. She began her journey as a professional artist in 1995 with the creation of Swirly, which began as a line of handmade greeting cards and evolved into an internationally recognized brand with licensees, clients and retail partners that included Target, Recycled Paper Greetings, Andrews McMeel Universal, Borders, Barnes & Noble, and Girl Scouts of America.

Christine has maintained a strong audience over the years with gallery exhibits of her mixed media work, her website and blog. In 2008 she released Ordinary Sparkling Moments: Reflections on Success and Contentment, a full color self-published book that combines her mixed media work and writing, all aimed at exploring the joys of finding wisdom in everyday life.  Her writing has been featured in Skirt! Magazine, The Wish Studio Blog, and This Ordinary Day, and she is is a member of the Squam Art Workshops teaching roster.  She was the keynote speaker at Virginia Tech’s Women in Leadership and Philanthropy Conference in June 2009 and her newly released line of inspirational wall art – licensed to Demdaco, Inc. – is off to a strong start, with new designs for a 2010 release already underway.

Christine’s art and writing gives viewers a peek into a variety of details from her life, including travels around the globe and memories shared with her grandma. Using materials as varied as acrylic paints, ink, coffee, mannequins, vintage photographs and other ephemera, Christine’s creations are full of color, texture and hidden stories.

The Topless Project is extremely fortunate to have Christine’s level of talent as part of the team. To view more of her artwork please visit her website and blog at http://www.christinemasonmiller.com/

Artist, sculptor, and art extraordinaire Ellwood T. Risk is joining up with the Topless Project event in Los Angeles, CA on Jan 30th. His recent art working with gun targets has gained wide attention and notoriety. Here what L.A.’s very own art critic had to say about his work in “Collateral Damage.”

There are few more potent, less obscure images than the target. The concentric circles signal the drawing of attention to the center – unwelcome attention, predatory and destructive. In a backhanded homage to contemporary America, Ellwood Risk conflates sex and violence by superimposing the target on silhouettes of (usually female) objects of lust. Oh yes, and then he fires away.

Graphically lucid and balanced as they are, the works in Risk’s “Collateral Damage” series depend on the ferocity of their process and banality of their imagery for their impact. Other artists have interpreted the commodification of the sexual body by fetishizing it, multiplying it, iconicizing it, but Risk literally targets it, and is willing to shoot it. It’s not the first time the gun has been used as a paintbrush – Risk credits the influence of Sigmar Polke, William S. Burroughs, and Hunter S. Thompson, and to them can be added the efforts of, among others, Niki de St. Phalle and Dick Higgins – but those predecessors by and large exploit chance in the pattern provided by the bullets; in the context of “Collateral Damage,” every shot means something depending on where it hits. 

These are political and social comments, but their message, while none too subtle, is hardly pinned to contemporary events. The current state of American polity provokes Risk to this exploration, but does not tie him to the vocabulary of, say, a political cartoon. One might infer narrative from the position of the silhouette and its target in the ambiguous abstract space containing them, as well as the presence of neatly rendered, and dynamically suggestive, words; and certainly, the pattern of bullet holes fairly cries out for interpretation, no matter how much we take into consideration the vagaries of Risk’s marksmanship. But one is well advised to stop short of “reading” these forceful graphic apparitions; while they do not profess the indifference of, say, Jasper Johns’ targets and flags – bullet holes have a way of dissolving neutrality – neither do they move us from a beginning to an end. They are animated in their own way, but are hardly cartoons; rather, they are emblems of our condition – or better yet, of our attitudes. In this respect, Risk’s relationship to Johns is more significant than his relationship to Burroughs or St. Phalle; the painting-collages of “Collateral Damage” are as much flags as targets.

Ellwood T. Risk is making a statement, but it’s a statement he wants us to feel even sooner than he wants us to know. The impact of the bullet must be sensed. Our skin must become the surface of the works. Those figures must not simply lure us, but must be us. Finally, Risk insists we get beyond the callous distance that has abetted the moral and cultural, not to mention political, decline of our country. Every image in “Collateral Damage” makes us feel the gun’s recoil – and the bullet’s impact.

Peter Frank
Los Angeles
November 2007

 The Topless Project is extremely fortunate to have his talent for the Topless Project. For more of his work please visit http://www.ellwoodtrisk.com/