Welcome. My name's Caleb Neelon. I do artwork and writing. Click around on the links on the left side to see various stuff I've done over the years.

All content on this site is copyright Caleb Neelon / SONIK or somebody that I'm cool with, not you. Viva!!

Those of you interested in buying some art of mine can either look at my Etsy store for smaller stuff or email me for bigger stuff.

Feel free to contact me, as always. Calebneelon at gmail dot com. I'm on Facebook, too, if you're into that.

I'm doing a talk May 7 at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts

Here is the info if you are interested. It's free.

Boston Museum of Fine Arts show....

I've been working this academic year with kids from all over Boston to make a big collaborative installation to be displayed at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. I'll tell you more about it later. It ain't small. More here on the MFA's site

Fresh StART show Feb 20, Santa Monica

I have a piece in Fresh StART's 2010 benefit show for Para los Ninos in Santa Monica, California. It's a one-night thing on February 20 and has art from a bunch of my favorite fellow artists, among them Mel Kadel, Andy Schoultz, Dave Ellis, and James Marshall.

Some sorta teenage pregnancy metaphor - Space 1026 Auction Friday Dec 11

This piece of mine, plus stuff by Matt Leines, Jim Houser, Brian Chippendale, Jung-il Hong, and many others..... go bid like crazy there. Space 1026 in Philly is a special place. Keep it going.

My Etsy store is up.... and has some recent new ones.

After realizing that I have a dozen little paintings sitting around, I decided to put up an etsy.com store. My Etsy store is live and up now. I'm going to put up a few of my small paintings up there for the holidays. Everything will be on the affordable end of things, which in my case means anything up to $500. More to come.

Got some color...

Finished version of the site below... Tobin School, Mission Hill, Boston. Mural faces the Mission Church park.

Needs some color....

Almost finished with this one....

Juxtapoz 15th Anniversary Art Auction... now live

Visit here to view my piece and many many others. Go buy some art and support a good cause!

My fine self @ HONK! this weekend (Oct 9-11) and Mass Poetry Festival (Oct 16)

Oct 9-11 is theHONK! festival here in Cambridge/Somerville. A zillion marching bands from all over the world come and rock out. If you are in the Boston area and you haven't been to this, you are SLIPPING. GO. I made some goofy banners for the parade. You are encouraged to be a part of this crazy thing. See the site. You can march your fool head off!

Want to hear me run my mouth? Of course you do. Then show up in Lowell, MA on Friday October 16, at 7:30 for the Urban Village Arts Series event.

Imagination Wall writeup

The Imagination Wall project at Children's Hospital Boston involved my painting a two-section mural in the Hospital's main lobby, doing so without a sketch, during the busy working day, and making myself accessible - no headphones, etc.

If you walk around public or private areas in Children's Hospital, you'll notice that there is art - big, bold, original art - all over the place. It is everywhere you look. As Boston Phoenix art critic Greg Cook noted in his article on the Imagination Wall project, most hospitals feature soporific artwork - prints of beaches, trees, etc - seemingly designed to lull you to sleep. Well, Children's is the exact opposite: the art there is designed to entertain, to engage, to be, in the Hospital's parlance, 'a positive distraction.' It makes for a very different hospital environment, for sure.

Everything in hospitals has to be backed up by research and replicable studies; it's the way of science. That goes for art as well - the positive effect of art surrounding us that us art types take for granted has to be quantified. Since I didn't opt to go for the Doctorate, my social science research skills aren't where they need to be to do that, but I can paint and tell stories.

Ben:

Ben rolled up to me in a big, elaborate wheelchair, which he controlled with a joystick. He looked about nine or ten, and didn't appear to have much use of his limbs beyond manipulating the wheelchair joystick, but had a huge smile, a Red Sox shirt, and peppered me with great questions, one after another. He was definitely digging what I was doing, and when his dad said 'hey Ben, tell Caleb how you paint' he excitedly began: "Yeah! I get to paint! We put paint around the wheels of my wheelchair, we put big big paper down, and I roll over it and turn and the paint goes onto the paper and I get to paint!" Here's where the Hospital art comes in. "That's awesome! See that painting right over there?" I pointed thirty feet away, to a framed canvas of concentric circles of various colors. "See that painting? It was done by an artist with his wheelchair, just like you were talking about!" With a push of the wheelchair joystick, Ben zoomed towards it, stopped, gave an intent stare for a moment, spun on a dime, zoomed right back to me, and asked me, intently: "How'd he get those tight spirals?"

And with that, disability was just a part of the technique.

Tati (see a couple posts below):

I was honored on the second-to-last-day of the Imagination Wall project to get to share a little mostly-opening party with Tati, who was showing prints of her work in an adjacent Au Bon Pain. She picked up painting with acrylics while sick in the hospital - she was in for several months. She got real good real fast. She had this one painting of a breaking ocean wave that was just amazing, such a sense of depth and all.

I asked her if she was still painting, and she said she hadn't been, that she was in school and just doing school stuff. Will she pick it up again? Who knows. She clearly has an aptitude for formal art technique, and certainly could push it if she cared to. But it may well be that painting will remind her in the future of a time she'd rather put behind her, a time when she was stuck in a hospital fighting one of the toughest battles that life can throw at a kid. Either way, art did its job: not simply content to keep up her school studies from a hospital bed, she got real good at something tangible in a time when beating expectations was the only thing that mattered.

Jack:

I never met sixteen-year-old Jack; he was upstairs in a cancer ward and wasn't mobile. I met his family, who stopped by on their way upstairs. In one section of the mural, I had a bull staring upwards at a pile of signs - see the above photo. As I worked, I was asking kids for messages that they'd like to pass on to other kids at the hospital, through the mural - "don't be scared," things like that. I'd then arrange messages onto the pile of signs and paint them in, going for a half poetic, half back-of-a-Cambridge-Volvo-bumper-sticker-collage effect. Jack's parents took some pictures of the mural and brought them up to him, telling me they'd bring back his message, which some hours later they relayed: "I am a warrior."

Spending time in Children's Hospital means being around some truly exceptional parents, people whose sacrifice and dedication is awe-inspiring. It was an honor to meet so many of you.

Imagination Wall, day Ten (last one)

Second week, second wall....

Imagination Wall, Day Nine

Tati and co. Tati, age eleven, is holding the flowers. I was honored tonight to get to share a little mostly-opening party with her. I have been doing my mural, and Tati was showing prints of her work in an adjacent Au Bon Pain. She started painting while sick in the hospital - she was in for several months. She got real good real fast. She had this one painting of a breaking ocean wave that was just amazing, such a sense of depth and all. Props to Tati!

Tomorrow I will wrap my mural up, then return later to do some smaller projects up on the floors with the future exhibitors!

One other thing: notice that I am painting in visual competition with the mylar balloons for sale to the right. It has been an often humbling experience to compete for the attention of passing children against Elmo and Hannah Montana.

Imagination Wall, Day Eight

Imagination Wall, Day Seven

Imagination Wall, Day Six

Imagination Wall, Day Five (left side)

Danged if I'll be able to P-shop these any better. I gotta get my dude Peter over to Children's to flick this better than this. Hold tight with these for a bit until I do.

Imagination Wall, Day Four

Imagination Wall, Day Three

Imagination Wall, Day Two

Imagination Wall, Day One

Imagination Wall starts Monday!

I start work on the Imagination Wall mural on Monday! I went to check out the site today - the pair of walls that make up the mural together are 7 feet tall and 52 feet long - got my work cut out for me!

Announcing IMAGINATION WALL at Children's Hospital Boston

For two weeks starting on Monday, September 21, I will be painting a set of murals on-site at Children's Hospital Boston in the main lobby. I have no sketch for the murals, and I'll be working right in the middle of the very busy hospital's main entrance hall, with with visitors encouraged to say hello and leave notes detailing their hospital wishes and hopes, as I will be doing my best to incorporate them into the murals.

This is a special project for me (I was born almost directly across the street), and I hope some of you can come out and say hello. I will be there roughly 9-5 on weekdays from Monday September 21 to Friday October 2, when I hope to have the murals completed. They will remain on display until the spring of 2010, and I will be doing some arts programming through the fall on the Hospital floors, when I hope to meet and work with kids who may not have been able to come by while I work on the main lobby murals.

I very much encourage you all to come and visit Children's Hospital Boston at some point, and to see the remarkable arts program they have there. Art is a real part of the healing process at Children's, and you really have to see it and walk around the place to understand. I know full well that nobody wants to go to a hospital for fun in their free time, let alone one for children. But among the most valuable lessons I've ever learned in art (thank you once again, graffiti) is that if your stomach's in a knot, you're in a good spot. That rhymed. Hoping to see some of you soon. I'll be very easy to spot in the main lobby, and you shouldn't feel awkward about coming by. Updates to follow.

Art in the Age

Philly's Art in the Age has some work of mine in a group show opening Spetember 4. More info here. Couple of photos on link below also..

Juxtapoz 15th Anniversary Art Auction

A piece of mine is in the Juxtapoz Fifteenth Anniversary Art Auction, benefitting Power House of Detroit. There's a little interview with me about some of my work here.

...and Party and Bull Shirt and Party and Bull Shirt...

A design of mine for Art in the Age: Bull in Boat women's shirt available in September at Art in the Age.

Because you need something to look at

Been in the studio... here is one of the little ones.

End of Summer quick update

Hi everyone... a quick rundown of some early fall news: I will have some art in the September show at Art in the Age in Philadelphia. I'll have a piece in the Juxtapoz 15th Anniversary Art Auction to benefit the Power House Project of Detroit. For those who like to plan ahead, on the evening of October 16, I'll be giving a talk at the Urban Village Arts Series in Lowell, Massachusetts - more on that later.

And starting in the middle of September, I'll be working on a big project at Children's Hospital Boston. More on that very soon - it will be special.

Still fixing the news, but the rest is back

Folks - this news section is still bare, but the sections to the left are back and updated. Thanks for bearing with me....

Sorry folks - Recent website snafu

Hi folks. Recently we moved this site to a new server, and of course everything got all screwed up and I lost the last 2 years worth of content. Bear with me while I deal with this.