First Friday: February 2025
Inspiration & Updates from Brian Madden Studio
You want love? Be love.
You want light? Be light.
― Cleo Wade
Hi friends,
I find so much joy in the process of creating art. It’s cathartic in good times and bad. But over the years I’ve started to feel that what I make doesn’t always feel like art unless someone else is able to receive it, see it, hear it, hear it, experience it. I’m a big believer that art is relational — a two-way conversation, a way to express myself, and a way to show love to others.
This month, I’m excited to welcome you into the studio practice and share:
WHAT I’M MAKING: 2025 NFLPA Players’ All-Pro Awards
WHAT I’M SHOWING: Studio Null & Brian Madden / Grief & Hope
WHAT I’M SEEING: SF, Carmel-by-the-Sea, Prospect.6 NOLA
WHAT I’M READING: Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life
WHAT I’M HEARING: From the Bay to the A
You’re receiving First Friday because you’ve supported my creativity, visited the studio, or otherwise signed up to stay in touch.
Thank you.
WHAT I’M MAKING: 2025 NFLPA Players’ All-Pro Awards
The 24-25 NFL season is coming to a close, and that means it’s time to unveil our awards for the NFL Players Association’s The Players’ All-Pro. This is an accolade given to the top NFL players in each position, and each of the 29 recipients are selected through a vote from their on-field peers. Heartfelt recognition, by the players, for the players.
With each trophy’s meticulously crafted marble silhouette, one of the most exciting aspects of the awards is the personalized placards, featuring bespoke playbook illustrations for each player, in their team’s signature color. Here’s the hand-off to San Francisco 49ers Fullback, Kyle Juszczyk:
Continuing the momentum of the inaugural awards we created last year, each marble football silhouette was built through a complex choreography of hands and machines. Each step generates unexpected artifacts that are beautiful in their own right, like these nero marquina remnants from the waterjet cutting process.
While we created a consistent silhouette between years, we also wanted to keep things fresh for repeat winners and the overall storytelling standpoint. The awards featured a personalized black acrylic placard and an element for repeat recipients.
The process of creating 30 custom awards and gifting kits is a complex orchestration across my team and vendors, and it’s so rewarding to see it come to life. I was even lucky enough to fly down to Orlando last week to prepare and stage the awards for hand-off to the recipients.
With Super Bowl LIX coming up this Sunday in New Orleans, I took a moment to capture the 5 recipients from the Kansas City Chiefs and the Philadelphia Eagles who will be competing for the Lombardi Trophy on Super Bowl Sunday. Good luck to Saquon Barkley, Jalen Carter, Joe Thuney, Creed Humphrey, and 3x Players’ All-Pro Chris Jones.
WHAT I’M SHOWING: Studio Null & Brian Madden / Grief & Hope
SF Art Week happens every January, and this year I was proud to host an event with my friends at Studio Null. They make incredible non-alcoholic wines, and I was proud to team up with them to introduce more people to their wines during a time when many are exploring low- or no-alcohol alternatives.
January was also a challenging month in California with the terrible wildfires in Los Angeles. I heard too many stories of friends who lost everything and others whose lives were upended. We decided to use the party as an opportunity to auction off an editioned print from my Six Months in Dogpatch collection to support Grief and Hope, helping LA’s Artists and Art Workers start over.
We honored Lunar New Year with a beautiful, abundant spread of mandarins, fortune cookies, Boudin bread, butters, and cheeses that flowed around a curation of marble awards. BBM LLC board chair and star baker Jen brought some fantastic homemade focaccia and the most delicious slab pie I had ever had. We washed it all down with Studio Null’s non-alc wine.
Thanks to everyone who purchased prints as part of this month’s auctions to help fund Grief and Hope’s charitable work. I’m grateful to be a part of such a supportive community. Keep an eye out for future opportunities to buy art in support of great causes.
WHAT I’M SEEING: SF, Carmel-by-the-Sea, Prospect.6 NOLA
The start of the year has been jam-packed with inspiring art events, which has been a welcome distraction amidst the otherwise constant barrage of breaking news. This month’s lineup started with an inspiring group show only a few blocks from my place in SF, and ended up with a citywide art festival in New Orleans.
The Box Show, The Jones Institute, San Francisco
Earlier this month I stopped by The Box Show, curated by Ruth Charlotte Kneass at The Jones Institute, steps from Alamo Square in San Francisco. Ann Hatch’s Box of Thorns was mesmerizing, and I found myself both drawn to and repelled from this carefully crafted box. I could only imagine the secrets one might keep inside. The Box Show is up at the Jones Institute until Feb 15. So many great treasures to explore in the beautiful Victorian home.
Anderson Collection Curator Tour, Stanford University, Palo Alto
During SF Art Week, I visited the Anderson Collection at Stanford University for a curator-led tour of Bringing it Home and An Expanded Lens as part of the museum’s 10-year anniversary celebration. I felt moved by seeing work by artists like Julie Mehretu, Mark Rothko, Nick Cave, and Larry Bell. I enjoyed how the works were presented like they would have been in the Andersons’ home, and how the curators featured correspondence between the collectors and the artists they worked with over the years. Thanks to Christian Gonzalez Ho, Jason Linetzky, Trisha Lagaso Goldberg, and Pamela Hornik for hosting!
Libby Black at Anthony Meier Gallery, FOG Design+Art, San Francisco
At the FOG Design+Art opening party, I stopped by the booth of Mill Valley-based Anthony Meier Gallery and fell in love with Goyard Life Vest by artist Libby Black. She is a painter, drawer, and sculptural installation artist living in Berkeley, CA, teaching at San Francisco State University. Her artwork charts a path through personal history and a broader cultural context to explore the intersection of politics, feminism, LGBTQ+ identity, consumerism, addiction, notions of value, and desire. I loved the color pop of the sculpture on the wall, the imperfect stippling on the painted pattern, and the work’s possible commentary that came to mind. In our branded world of consumerism, has buying a coveted object like a Goyard bag become its own cultural life vest?
Eyvind Earle, Gallery 21, Carmel-by-the-Sea
Jen and I took a quick getaway with friends in Carmel-by-the-Sea a couple weeks ago. As we walked through town, passing by countless galleries, I was pulled into Gallery 21 by a landscape in a league of its own, with bold colors and sculptural forms created with vast areas of minuscule stippling. We came to learn that the paintings and prints that filled the space were by Eyvind Earle. His work is most famous for defining the iconic style for Sleeping Beauty, Walt Disney’s classic film.
Prospect New Orleans 6: The Future is Present, The Harbinger is Home.
This week in New Orleans, I wanted to make sure to see as much local art as I could. I stopped by the Contemporary Art Center New Orleans to check out the 15 minutes of Prospect.6: The Future is Present, The Harbinger is Home, part of a citywide exhibition across New Orleans presenting new works by 51 contemporary artists including the Bay Area’s Stephanie Syjuco.
One installation I caught that really drew me in was this trio of electrical transmission towers by Eddie Rodolfo Aparicio, inspired by his family’s histories in Los Angeles and El Salvador– the electric transmission towers spanning LA, and the dolls made by the artist’s Salvadoran grandmother. The bulging forms are wrapped with clothing left behind by family members who disappeared through the Salvadoran Civil War, and stuffed with fiber from Ceiba trees, native to Central America but now commonly seen throughout LA.
WHAT I’M READING: Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life
I recently cracked open Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life by William Finnegan, an epic memoir about the author’s journey relocating from LA to Hawai’i and back as kid, to becoming an obsessed amateur surfer, and eventually building a career as a globe-trotting journalist and war reporter.
It’s still early, but I’m already inspired by the vivid tapestry the author paints of his journey through the surfing world. With all the global events and change throughout the book’s timeline, it’s reminding me of Forrest Gump, as the Finnegan’s personal story is also punctuated by historical milestones.
What I’ve enjoyed most though is his vulnerability in explaining his own anxieties, mistakes, and learnings as he grows through life. I’ve surfed a bit over the years, and wouldn’t call myself a surfer, per se, but I think Barbarian Days is worth picking up no matter what you call yourself.
WHAT I’M HEARING: From the Bay to the A
This month’s playlist was overheard in San Francisco, Carmel-by-the-Sea, Orlando, New Orleans, and Atlanta. With all its ups and downs, this was a great month for music. Laissez le bon temps rouler, my friends!
A friendly reminder that the First Friday Playlist can only consist of songs I’ve heard, received, discovered, or rediscovered out in the world… songs overheard at coffee (& beignet) shops, restaurants, bars, galleries, or received from friends and family IRL & online.
Thanks for reading. Take care,
Brian
brian@brianbmadden.com
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“I did not consider, even passingly, that I had a choice when it came to surfing. My enchantment would take me where it would.”
― William Finnegan, Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life