Nick Myerhoff's Blog

Girlrider in Germany

Just got back from a fantastic trip to Germany where we visited my wife's family who is incredibly generous and crazy fun. Our travels began in Bavaria at Alice's cousin Sabina's retreat in Penzberg where Mathilda got to meet Martin and Heike her German cousins and I introduced Girlrider to Sport Conrad an awesome family owned sport shop in Bavaria. The shop is immaculate, super high end with indor pools and waterfall. They will hopefully be the first Girlrider retailer in the EU, very exciting.

We visited an alpine lake and rode the train to the top of the Zugspitze the tallest mtn in Germany. We nav'd freshly paved roads winding in and out lush farm lands and splendid micro towns sporting painted fresco's like a fairy tale. Each town more quaint and inviting than the next. The warm germanic people drinking (good) beer, smoking and eating brotchen in the sun swept hillsides. Its hard to imagine so many people so spread out among these little villages, with that hearty yet painterly Bavarian architecture. Not a spot of trash, not a single homeless person.

Then to Munich with Kathy and Joe, our State dept friends where we saw freakin locals surfing in the middle of the city on some water canal. Check out the photos! Had to poke my head into the Nazi death camp at Dachau. Germany has done an incredible job of making this an unforgetable monument when our instincts are to wipe it from the face of the earth. Munich is a Very hip city, we were only there for a day though.

After we headed north to Bremen and saw this 8th century city, one of the most gorgeous western European cities I have ever seen. Standing in awe craning our necks as we gazed upon cathedrals and the Rathaus where low and behold, there is a brewery and seller below where we had a private wine tasting (beer better than wine). I guess all the city hall buildings in Europe have breweries/wineries down below, hmmm maybe we should have this in all gov buildings. The time warp occurs when watching ultra modern wifi'd power suits strut these weathered cobbled streets where you can almost hear Charlemagne's troops gathering for a fox hunt or whatever they did waaaaaay back then.

Later we drove down to the Netherlands (no borders in the EU) to visit a super cool artist friend of mine Jason Eden, check out the photos of his incredible artwork made entirely from Playboy centerfold cutouts. He is featured in a gallery in Amsterdam which we did not get to visit. I have known Jason since nursery school. He moved out of the states to pursue his passion and now lives in a remote farm village in Holland where he focuses on his fine art. The studio is in a 300 year old barn, lots of mosquitoes...

At some time in there, we jutted out to Wuppertal to visit cousin Tiger and family. Its an industrial city in western Germany famous for this super strange and unique hanging train called a Schwebebahn . Its a hanging train (another feat of German engineering) that was build like 100 years ago or something. Somewhat rickety but cool factor is high.

Lastly we spent time in Botrop staying with Dixie and Menlein my wife's aunt and uncle. Mathilda got to play with more (six total) of her cousins, Drago, Ulia, Felix and Florian. I gave them all Girlrider custom trucker hats. They were happy. We ate tons of brotchen, kesa and of course Pills. Camping at Ottenstein with Pint and Tina's caravan is an entire blog in itself. Suffice it to say we ventured out with the scouts to a singing competition which has been going on for like 20 years. By scouts I mean beer drinking, chain smoking interlocked Germans, swaying back and forth, and boy can they drink. The display of baritone camaraderie endeared me to Dauchland.

Have to mention Girlrider in Germany. We showed our line to cousins and friends who wore Girlrider clothes and hats, loved the materials and new designs. Heike did some modeling and we found this way cool horse rider in a remote ranch near Bremen who loved my Girlrider painted trucker hat. I ended up trading it for like an hour of horse riding for Mathilda. I wonder if Mathilda loves horses as much as I love German beer...

San Francisco Apparel Market

I did the San Francisco Apparel Market show earlier this week. It was a great trade show for Girlrider . My friend Michelle came to help from Elevation Pilates one of my best retailers. The show at first glance was slow and seemed to be off target in terms of my customer. However by the end we had written a bunch of orders, in fact more than we did at the larger ASR shows. We also met some super cool people. I have to plug my new friend Kimo of Effies Heart. She is a super authentic classy chick with an incredible amount of talent and drive. She has managed to launch her entire line in just 1 year pioneering some major shows in NY and Vegas while doing all the cut and sew herself. But my most special thanks goes to Michelle, yet another Michelle at Girlrider, who helped me out and will be my new NorCal rep. GREAT JOB Michelle, you rock. One of the nicest people I met was Nancie from Lulu Blue in Marin who will be carrying Girlrider hand painted Trucker hats and clothing. They have a way cute store, take a look. Oh, I also took the time to create some bitchin' new paintings right in my booth on the floor. Check the neon artwork out. The skateboard is for a non-profit art show coming up in SF. More to come.

Painting Hats Again...

A week or two ago my buddy Mythos came over to paint Girlrider hats with me. Check out his artwork, its raw and down right ghetto, even though he is a bonafide white boy. But anyway, he came over to paint with me and gave me a ton of new ideas. In fact that is how I ended up doing the canvass paintings which I'll write about and post later. Here are some photos of my newest Girlrider custom trucker hats. I think I have painted like 300 hats so far. This has been one of the most fun projects I have ever undertaken. The layering and depth in these pieces is fantastic. Recently I have had some luck selling these in 5 packs so the response has been excellent.  Email me if you want  to order one.

Girl Rider Models in Golden Gate Park

Most of you know Michelle Hohensee, she is our first Girl Rider model and one of the absolute best subjects a designer could ever ask for. A week or two ago she brought her friend Emily to join us modeling the newest Girl Rider shirts and hats. Here are some photos of the shoot. It was great to see these amazing girls wearing my stuff. They are smart, hard working and throwing themselves into fields that help the world. Emily is a true SF city biker and works for the Ocean Conservancy. Krista another one of Michelle's friends is a 2nd grade teacher. THANK YOU for inspiring me to make cool clothes for energetic women like yourselves! There will be more from these three, including a full spread in the gallery with all the pix.

Skiing with mathilda

We took our amazing 2 1/2 year old daughter skiing a week or so ago. It was awesome. The sun was shining and she wasn't whining thank god. The snow was great at Squaw Valley and we dragged Mathilda around by the poles until she fell apart. It only lasted a few minutes but there were some classic moments with her carrying equipment around and stealing peoples poles to play with.

Girl Rider at Squaw Valley Snow Fest

We made it up to Squaw Valley SnowFest this past weekend with a fistfull of Girl Rider hats and something to proove. I specifically stenciled some rad new artwork to show at Squaw Valley and everyone seemed to like the new garb. We got to jam with the Unimog from Space Cowboys, wicket beats, dance with our friends and promote the company. The sun was shining and we could not have asked for a better weekend. DJ Shooey was sportin her GR hat, thanks Shooster.

Nick Myerhoff's Ceramic Art

As some of you know my background is in Ceramic art and fine art. My undergrad degree is actually in Ceramic arts from Sierra Nevada College. I have posted an entire gallery of my work which spanned about 10 years (more photos to come). Much of my ceramic art is wood fired and saggar fired. Since ceramic arts were are a large part of my background, this will be an ongoing post.

I have worked with some phenomenal and famous artist. like Otto and Vivika Heino. I helped them build a kiln in their studio in Ohai which is the former house of Beatrice Woods. Otto and Vivika were my mentors and I spent a lot of time with them.

Another artist and mentor was Rodney Mott who was taught by Paul Soldner at Scripps college. Rodney had a huge effect on me. Although he was at times abusive and neurotically deranged (a quality many of the most talented artists seem to share) he was a fantastic visual artist with absolute mastery of the clay media.

My skills as an artist vary with the amount of focus in a specific media at any given time in my career. At some points my 3D computer modeling skills are at a hight point, at other times my wheel throwing skills were quite impeccable.

As an artist, you are supposed to focus on one media and master that media. This was told to me by galleries that turned down my submissions. I think I understand the meaning of this now. But looking back, my strong skill was wheel throwing and I did manage to master that. Often times I wish I would have focused on illustration as that skill seems to solidify an artist more than most other skills. Anyone can say they are a photographer, but to be an illustrator you have to prove yourself. I suppose I proved myself to myself a good potter. Whats next....digital art. I write more later. But for now take a look at the photo album of ceramic art.

New Girl Rider Artwork and Music

Hello all, today I made some new artwork for Girl Rider. I was out yesterday with my new NorCal rep and saw some amazing designs and new processes. It made me depressed at first cuz I am very critical of my work. Then it inspired me to get better. So peeled myself away from the computer and did some illustration. Hopefully this design will make it into my next line after some cleanup. Let me know what you think.

Also, getting started with my friend Aaron Pope on a Girl Rider CD. I am going through about 30 gigs of music for reference. Then we are going to mix our own CD, put some cool graphics and artwork on it, and give it away to retailers and customers.

Urbanda is this super cool Rap/ street music we saw live in Buenos Aires a couple years ago, it rocks! I can't find the music at i-tunes, but I'll post a few tunes when I can convert to mp3. For now, here are a few other sample tunes 1, sample tunes 2.

Happy Valentine's Day

Today my wife instructed me to give out like 50 cards to each and every kid at daycare. What a pain. Its mandatory to do this. I think there is a Vday police on staff. But anyway, I plan to surprise my wife at work today with some flowers.

As most of you know I spent a long time as a bike designer and still do it as a freelancer for my old boss. Here is a design (great for valentines day) that I just completed for a 24" BMX girls bike.

 

Here are a couple photos of me at my daughter's valentine's day party.

 

 

 

New Girl Rider Summer 07 Preview

Here are a couple images of my latest design work and new shirts. There are more images on the gallery. This is a work in progress, but you can get an idea of what I'm going to offer in 07. Long and layered is still the trend. While cotton/ poly burnout shirts are still quite popular. If your an individual and want to purchase any of these Girl Rider items, just shoot me an email and I'll point you to the nearest retailer.