The Harvest Cup was an amazing weekend of painting, vending, sharing new art and meeting rad people. Along with fellow artists Canman (canmancreations.com) and Heilig (heiligart.com) we held down a big section at the DCU Center to showcase our live painting and display original works. We had a great response from patrons, guests, organizers, and vendors alike, helping to strengthen our connection as the visual art wizards amongst the New England cannabis community. 

As our first official booth under Artifakt Studios, we released a bunch of new merchandise, including hat pins, t-shirts, mood mats, laser cuts, our 3D sign, as well as a few new prints and originals. To see these products out in the wild, interacted with and collected by people, was very enjoyable. It allows for feedback, to see what resonates with people the most, so we can continue to improve our creative offerings in 2018.

I chose to create a piece from scratch this weekend, something I rarely do, but felt like I needed a new challenge. A sketch was drawn Thursday, the background was made on Friday, and the character was painted Saturday & Sunday during the Cup, and also Saturday night during the Palladium afterparty, joined by Canman, Heilig and Kai Grizzwald. Sets by William Thompson Funk Experiment, DJ Logic and Kong! really blew the doors off the building and had our brushes moving non-stop. What a surreal night it was, to be live painting again at the first gig I ever painted at in 2013 and first met Canman, several epic Disc Jam New Years Eve parties, where I saw my first concert at age 12, to once again be standing here enjoying art & entertainment in a legalized cannabis celebration spent with a few of my favorite artists.

Photos by Angela Cannistraro

Before the end of Saturday night, the "Stoned Gnome" had already found a home. 

Great end to a really productive, busy year of projects & exhibitions. I am stoked and ready to continue building Artifakt Studios into its fullest potential during 2018. Aligning with cannabis community has been a blessing to my work and given me an enormous outlet which to inspire new creations. The economic green rush will slowly begin to ripple outward from cultivation and medicine, to arts and culture, and influence the next wave of heady artists to grow and flourish, just the way it has in states like Colorado and California. As a cannabis user for the past 13 years, I have found many benefits to my personal well-being, my health, creativity and overall happiness. I have overcome many cases of depression, anxiety, and physical illness with the help of Mary Jane in all her various forms, and millions of people feel the same way. I feel its important to spread this message, to shed away the trauma of prohibition, of feeling ashamed or guilty for using what nature provides us. The stigma of potheads being lazy, unintelligent, passive hippie losers who contribute nothing to society, is simply false. It is our responsibility, as productive working-class cannabis consuming adults, to express our beliefs and spread the message of the positive healing benefits that cannabis can offer. The world needs as much healing as it can get right now.     All Love - Ryan