Lansdale Station featuring Judge & Lauren Murphy: Home

Sunday, August 8th, 2010

Julliard Summer Concert Series

Saturday, September 11th, 2010

The 2nd Official Artista Gang Party

ARTISTA really began in 1978 at the Peanut Gallery in San Raphael, California... the studio to resident artists Stanley Mouse, Alton Kelley, Victor Moscoso, Pat Ryan, Dave Sheridan, Tim Harris, Larry Noggle, Linda Miller and Enid Hansen. In october of '78 they had a joint show at the gallery entitled "The Concrete Foundation of Fine Arts Show" which was a rousing success. The following January they did another show at the Zamora Gallery in San Francisco, which Pat Ryan and Dave Sheridan did the invitation for, it had a dragon on it squeezed from a paint tube, holding a lightning bolt... This was the birth of ARTISTA.

Unfortunately the building that housed the studios at the corner of 2nd and B Streets was sold and all the artists had to vacate the premises, so they all got together for one last show. In July they held the first ever C.F.F.A. T-Shirt Show. Since almost all of the artists involved were designing t-shirts at the time (Mouse & Kelley had their own T-Shirt business - Monster Company of America) the show was a huge success. Once again Pat & Dave designed the postcard invitation art which would eventually be turned into a T-Shirt. This time they were joined in collaboration on the art with Alton Kelley and Larry Noggle to create a most unusual design with the baby ARTISTA dragon wrapped peacefully around a concrete foundation, with a levitating Buddha/King Tut rolling a joint with San Raphael in the background and all the artists reflected in his sunglasses.

The eighties began with a gang! Pat and Dave moved their studio to Fairfax, and in no time Alton kelley joined them to create a fabulous full color rendition of the ARTISTA Rainbow Dragon. They had black satin jackets with this image embroidered full size on the back, and when people saw the jackets, they all wanted their own... thus began the ARTISTA Gang! Eventually ARTISTA numbered over 700 members and the parties they threw became a mythical legend in the musical circles of marin that lasted throughout the eighties.

Sadly we lost Dave to cancer in 1982. pat and Kelley carried on in Sheridan's ansence, surrounded by family, friends and a colony of artists and their families that ARTISTA had evolved into. Besides hosting the Harvest Moon Ball parties throughout the eighties, pat was coach of the ARTISTA Co-Ed Softball Team, which won several championships in the legendary San Geronimo Valley co-ed softball league.

Some of the musical talents that appeared at ARTISTA parties included their house bands, The Dinosaurs and Smoke, Inc., The Mix... also The Tubes, Roy Rogers with Norton Buffalo, The Freaky Executives, Ron Thompson and The Resistors, Tommy Tutone, Terry Haggerty and The Sons of Champlin, even Huey Lewis and The News. The cool thing about the ARTISTA parties was that they held the parties at different venues every time... Which included almost every available place in Marin County. That's because that rowdy partying crowd was never welcomed back to THAT place again... after all, ARTISTA's only rule was... "NO RULES!"