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!!

Feel free to contact me, as always.

A few new paintings

Here's a few new paintings, just for kicks - hit the 'see the photos' link below. I will be down a rabbit hole on a book project for 2009, so don't expect a great big art show for a bit. But of course I'm still painting and things will pop up here and there. The best bet for any of you that want an artwork of mine is to contact me directly.

The above piece is for the new Kent Street house at Children's Hospital in Boston. Kent Street is a place for families to stay while their kids are in the hospital.

Book of Awesome is available on Amazon and elsewhere....

Now available on Amazon is Caleb Neelon's Book of Awesome a book of my artwork done around the world from the past twelve years or so, with a few stories as well.

Click on 'see the photos' below for a sneak peak inside the book courtesy of Alex Lukas at Space 1026, who has a product shot for all occasions.

Do a good thing for the new year.

My man Justin Van Hoy, designer of Caleb Neelon's Book of Awesome, needs some help. Please read:

His leukemia has relapsed, and he needs a bone marrow transplant. So do many other people, but as it so often is with these things, it hit home with someone I know.

Here's what you can do: get yourself tested and put on the National Bone Marrow Registry. It's as simple as going to one of many hospitals and marrow registry drives in your area, filling out a short form, and doing a quick test which basically involves wiping a couple of q-tips on the inside of your cheek.

Ellen and I did this in Boston at Dana Farber this morning, simple as calling and heading over. Took like fifteen minutes and didn't cost a thing. If one of us happens to be a match for a patient who needs a donation - like an 8% chance, so I am told - the marrow donation is a matter of a short visit to a hospital.

Info about marrow donation is all over the web, but start here at the National Bone Marrow Registry to learn what you need to do wherever you are.

Do this the next chance you get, and bring your friends when you go. Thanks.

Calendar Caleb, Cheap

Tis the season now for dirt cheap 2009 calendars, right? Abrams has a nice graffiti one featuring some of my favorite writers, notably Wane COD. Because really, if you don't think that Wane is one of the best ever, you just don't get graff yet.

Oh and I'm Mr. May, too.

Ferdinand's Metal Mini-Me

My dad and stepmom gave us this little metal dude.

We put him on the floor. Ferdinand stared him down for a couple seconds, cocked his head to the side, went around back, sniffed the little metal dude's butt, and gave us a look like we were gonna have to try harder to fool him next time.

Life lesson from zen master Ferdinand: sniffing butt of potential foe reveals true level of threat.

AWESOME CHRISTMAS PRESENT

UPS brought me Christmas Eve joy joy: my big stack of author advance copies of CALEB NEELON'S BOOK OF AWESOME.... hot from Gingko Press!

Jim Cramer gives my book a BUYBUYBUY and you know that dood is just never wrong. Never.

Happy Holidays

Don't get depressed.

Mural Art: Murals on Huge Public Surfaces around the World

This book just showed up yesterday while I was on a nine hour drive up to Vermont and back. The book - called 'Mural Art,' by Kiriakos Iosifides, and published by Publikat - is a great big collection of the work of muralists from all over the world.

The work ranges from us contemporary streety-graffiti-Peteys of the world to the guys that do the completely ill Belfast political murals to the more straightforward guys who do less edgy civic and commercial gigs, to the odd famous dead guy, like Diego Rivera.

It's an honor to be down!

First Advance Copy.... Caleb Neelon's Book of Awesome

Ferdinand gets his copy, but everyone else needs to wait a few months.... crazy to see this thing in hand finally!

Swindle Magazine Icons Issue 3

Swindle Magazine for three years now has come out with an annual 'Icons' issue profiling a number of the world's influential, notorious, and renowned individuals.

This time around, I got to profile former NYC Mayor Ed Koch; Washington D.C. graffiti legend Cool "Disco" Dan; and in one of my new favorite stories ever, the author of the best drawing books for kids ever, Ed Emberley, of Ed Emberley's Big Green Drawing Book, Big Purple Drawing Book, and so on.

Also in the issue: Gary Panter interviewing Paul Reubens (Pee-Wee Herman, whose set Panter designed,) Paul Smith, Merle Haggard, Jenna Jameson, Charles Burns, Pam Grier, Naomi Klein, and Philippe Petit, the guy who walked between the World Trade Center towers on a tightrope - subject of the best movie I've seen in a long while, Man On Wire.

Bant Magazine 50th Issue

Bant Magazine out of Istanbul just dropped their 50th issue, and I had the privilege of writing the cover story, on the ubiquitous Shepard Fairey and the special commissioned portrait of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, founder of modern Turkey, that the artist did for Bant's publisher and art collector par excellence, Selim Varol.

Shepard is just about every which where these days, what with his Obama portrait having hitched the Obey Giant wagon to the stars. Whether he turns out to be our generation's Andy Warhol or our generation's Peter Max is his test from here out, but it's images like this one of Ataturk that I feel show Shepard at his best.

11/4-5/2008 ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE!!!!!!!!

I am so happy right now. Anything is possible, just ask Kevin Garnett

Caleb Neelon's Book of Awesome (different proofs)

I got some different proofs in for my book, and this time I remembered to take a teaser pic. Real book coming soon.

Bant issue 49

Cover story I did for Istanbul's Bant Magazine on Danish artist Husk Mit Navn is out... issue 50 is coming next of course and will be a special one. Stay tuned.

Caleb Neelon's Book of Awesome

I just got the proofs back for Caleb Neelon's book of Awesome, and I was going to post a teaser photo of the wet proof uncut sheet, but in my excitement I forgot to take a picture of it before approving the proofs and sending them back to the printer. So here's a picture of my dog Ferdinand instead.

Transformazium benefit

Check out Transformazium, which is a new project in Braddock, Pennsylvania, 15 minutes outside of Pittsburgh. Brooklyn artist Swoon and a group of artists have taken this church where they want to make an arts based community center and urban farm. So, they need money to do this and I donated a piece for one of you to buy and get the bucks to this project. Flyer is above, where I am going by my alter ego 'and many more.'

New Swindle, Juxtapoz, and Bant

Swindle Magazine number 18 just came out - politics issue, featuring a longish profile I did of 'Subway Vigilante' Bernhard Goetz among a lot of interesting stories. Also out is a little blurb I did on artist Bill Dunlap in Juxtapoz Magazine. If you read Turkish, a new issue of Bant Magazine with a feature I did on artist Alex Lukas.

Caleb Neelon's Book of Awesome

This thing just went out the door, a book of my indoor and outdoor work from the past dozen years. 128 pages, hardcover, Gingko Press. More on this in a bit.

Juxtapoz NYC Graffiti issue

Jux's all NYC graffiti issue just dropped, and it's got some great stories in it. Hopefully, some of them are the ones I did... profiles of Chino, Revolt, Cycle, Tuff City Tattoo, and one of my longtime favorite artists, Freedom.

Article on Greg Lamarche in Print Magazine

There's something special about the things that get you gassed up at age 16... they can really have a staying power and a special place in the heart regardless of how old we get. For me, no band's ever going to top the Pixies, and no graffiti writer's pieces are ever going to get me as open as SP.One's. He was the guy painting in Boston who had that NYC flavor, and to boot, his letters were kinda sorta close to mine, so I could try to smoosh them together. Now obviously I've taken a hard right stylistically from SP, but as I said, get me at age 16 and I'm down for life. All of this is to say that it's a total pleasure to get to write an article about SP - Greg Lamarche - in Print Magazine, which is out this month.

It's also just occurred to me that graffiti has now consumed my attention for more than half my life.

White Noise Drawn Together at V1 Gallery, Copenhagen, Denmark

I've got some artwork in the White Noise Drawn Together show at V1 Galley in Copenhagen, Denmark. Have a looky at the flyer for more info like when it opens, and the wonder that is my name in bold face along with many others.

Sinking shirt....

Available at dirtypilot.com with one of my boat graphics....

Laguna Art Museum show

There's a painting of mine in this summer's Laguna Art Museum show called " In the Land of Retinal Delights." It's a huge show, and it's a trip to have something of mine in it. A small number of the other artists in the show include R. Crumb, Henry Darger, Shepard Fairey, Phil Frost, Os Gemeos, Doze Green, Don Ed Hardy, Jim Houser, Barry McGee, Stanley Mouse, Takashi Murakami, Manuel Ocampo, Gary Panter, Raymond Pettibon, Big Daddy Roth, Mark Ryden, Saber, Kenny Scharf, Andrew Schoultz, Andres Serrano, Swoon, Kara Walker, Robert Williams, Basil Wolverton, and Matt Leines. To have my stuff anywhere near their stuff is unbelievable to me.

May Solo Show in Los Angeles at Carmichael Gallery

LOS ANGELES: CALEB NEELON IS WORKING ON IT, a solo show at Carmichael Gallery which is at 1257 La Brea in West Hollywood. This show is now down and not on view any more.

Gingko Press will be releasing a book of my artwork later this year - called Caleb Neelon's Book of Awesome. I am excited and terrified about both the show and the book. Hope to see you there at Carmichael Gallery on Saturday, May 10.

Did you miss the show? HERE ARE THE PHOTOS!!

Spring

Spring makes me happy. Ferdinand too. I've been teaching Ferdinand how to play baseball. That's part of his baseball next to him.

It's happening....

Been in the works for a while all quiet like.

Here it is.

!!!!!

Baseball Brickbats and Bouquets

Up above is a cover story I did on artist Phil Frost for Istanbul-based Bant Magazine. They also feature some of my art in this issue. Phil painted me a bat....

COOL "DISCO" DAN

For the past three years, I've been working quietly away with Roger Gastman, Joseph Pattisal, and Washington, D.C. legend Cool "Disco" Dan. The result is a documentary project telling the story of Cool "Disco" Dan's coming of age in D.C.'s most difficult years. There's a lot more to tell about this when the time comes, but in the meantime, have a look around the the Cool "Disco" Dan website and learn more about the documentary project.

Swindle 14

In this issue of Swindle I got to profile Italian artist BLU and the Vermont-based theater and activism collective Bread and Puppet.

Swindle Magazine's second Icons Annual

The second Icons issue of Swindle is on shelves now. This time around, I got to profile This American Life founder and host Ira Glass, graffiti legend Iz the Wiz, and The Very Hungry Caterpillar author and illustrator Eric Carle. Also featured are people like Buzz Aldrin, Perry Farrell, Naomi Wolf, John Waters, HR, Joan Jett, and a lot more. Visit Swindle Magazine's site for more.

Street World

For the past year and change, Roger Gastman, Tony Smyrski and I have been working on this enormous book, Street World. Clocking in at 384 pages, it's a big visual mix tape of street culture stuff from around the world - everything from graffiti to monster bikes to signage to street art to fashion to skateboarding to pigeon flying to baile funk to gang placas to customized rickshaws to urban exploration and on and on. Big.

We've had some very accomplished contributors to this project, among them people like Estevan Oriol, Adam Wallacavage, Revok, We Are Supervision, Kurnal Rawat, Boogie, Angela Boatwright, Allen Benedikt, Invader, Friends With You, Giant, Shepard Fairey, Dalek, Per Englund, Dan Monick, Yuri Shibuya, Tod Seelie, and dozens more. We're honored to include them all. And to those of you who are in this thing, we're working on getting books to you. Bear with us.

Street World is out on Thames and Hudson in the UK, on Abrams in the US, Pyramyd in France, Oceano in Spain, and National M-Fing Geographic in Germany, yeah that National Geographic. Ha. Check out the Street World website or go straight to Amazon and grab a copy via the following link: Street World: Urban Culture and Art from Five Continents Click the link below to see some interior images and so forth.

NEW SPOKESMAN: FERDINAND!

This is really the most important news of the summer for Ellen and I, and we're pleased to announce our new spokesman, Ferdinand! There are more photos of him here.

Saber's Mad Society book

Saber's monograph Mad Society is out soon on Ginkgo Press. I was the "as told to," I guess you would say. You can get a copy from Amazon via the following link: SABER - Mad Society