As little n8, I spent way too many days (and nights) heavily tapped into the video game realm. As an entire generation transitioned from playing outside the house to inside a screen, my friends and I would rush home after school to cram the latest and greatest game cartridge into its sleek futuristic console. ...And then feverishly wait for the system-specific audible chime and start up screen. Say what you will about society and technology, but crowding around the tv to play video games together instilled in me a certain sense of community, camaraderie and healthy competition while growing up.
Fast forward twenty-five’ish years, and we’re now fully immersed in this digital culture…and I’m still loving every bit of it! And so it’s the sentimental things that hold my attention now. Nostalgic characters and titles that remind me of the yesteryears; Space Invaders, Galaga, Mario, Final Fantasy…Zelda!!! Those clunky blocks and bits built the pathway to todays faster-paced higher-resolution gaming culture. It was only a matter of time before I would find a way to integrate some of those classic characters into my body of work.
Early on I had been using murine in my space scenes, but I was using images from other artists such as Jesse Taj, Nathan MIddleton, and Mr Gray to name a few. When I decided to make my own, I took a class from Paul Stephen, AKA Micro's Workshop at Glasscraft in Denver Colorado in 2012 I believe. I brought with me a sketch of the Galaga ship, but as it turned out, the method to build a pixelated image would be different than what we would be covering in class…so I made some banana’s instead.
After the recent Murakami murine project with Elbo Glass, I wanted to continue onto another project with a similar build technique of making the components ahead of time to spec, and and them bridging them together during the final construction for a more precise build than the traditional striping methods. On a long drive back from a psychedelic getaway with close friends at Lake Powell, I connected the dots between those childhood icons and what would be my next project. The perfect name fell right into place shortly afterwards. N8-Bit. The release party was held on January 12th, at Purple Haze in Denver Colorado, and included a small in-house Galaga tournament.
I just want to take a moment to extend a huge thank you to everyone who made this project possible, from the entire Purple Haze family (esp Eman, Andrew, and Jake), to my friends and helpers who took care of the photos/videos (@thc_samuel and @theterpdon), the dedicated coldworkers who gave up their fingertips and days off (@willcookforyou and @pat_taylorglass) the artists who collaborated with me on this project (@sweaterkingpin, @Eusheen, @Calmbo, @AlexUbatuba, @KuhnsGlass, and @MurdocGlass) and of course all of the collectors and the show attendees who came out to celebrate with us; it’s all of you who make these events possible, and I hope to continue to with more of these fun concept shows in the future. Much love!! -N8-
Recap Video shot by @theterpdon.
Photos by @Thc_Samuel