Hydra Artist Studios - stage mural

You may remember us mentioning to you folks our brother, a few of our friends and we, started an artist community in our hometown of Reading PA called Hydra Artist Studios. Proud to say that our numbers have more than quadrupled since then, and still growing.

Back in March 2018, T-Bone and Aljax, as well as a little help from Anthony Mark and Nikola Eyck, spent 10 long nights painting this massive 12.5' x 20' mural on the back stage wall (the gold pocket doors lead to the band green room, and are the same doors given to us by our friends at Saturday Night Live, used for the Paul Rudd hosted skit, 'What's that Name?')

In our typical screen print fashion (I mean... c'mon) we only used 4 colors for the entire thing. All Hail Hydra!!

The SNL skit, leave the searching to us..

Hail Hydra - Shirt design

We at Hydra like to support the arts in any way we can muster, one of those ways is by creating outlets for our growing community to display and sell their wares. 

For example, we host artist bazaars several times a year. At these bazaars, the seven of us take turns to come up with a one color shirt design to sell as a limited edition run. 

Here's a quickie one T-Bone came up with:

And here are a couple more that Aljax made

Wanna see the sketch? Well, here it is anyway:

Hail Hydra!

Hey all! Over 7 months of silence, we've never been busier! We'll be posting a ton of works over the next few days, so let's just start from the beginning shall we?

First, Hydra Artist Studios.

 T-Bone & Aljax collaborated with, built, and share this place with 5 of the most awesomely talented dudes we've ever had the pleasure of not just calling friends, but family. For those who aren't in the RDG area, it's a 10,000+ square foot creative playground with individual workshops for all walks of the arts such as film, design, music, photography, painting... the list goes on. The space also holds a green screen cyclorama studio, a movie theater, performance/ runway stage with VIP room, 2 bars, an arcade, mini golf and an auxiliary gallery/ common area.

We opened our doors on November 14th to an enormously receptive packed house. The pics above  (photo credits Andy Jackson) show the main gallery space, featuring our art and the art of our homies. Performances, corset fashion show, and the vaudeville sideshow on opening night are shown below  (photos credit Bryan Elias) 

Glamtastik on the runway:

Jim Stillianos Freak Show in the auxiliary gallery:

Echoes Talk Back on the main stage:

And 3's Co. holding it down through the event and finishing the evening (well, 4 a.m.)

And finally, the 7 of us together in the freight elevator:

Left to Right - Andy Jackson, Justin Ciemiwicz, Deric Hettinger, T-Bone, Schon Wanner, Aljax, Anthony Mark. 

So much more to come. Stay tuned.