PHXDW Poster Contest Non-Entry 2012

In Phoenix there is this annual poster design contest, a feature of AGIA’s Phx Design Week. I made two designs. This is the one I didn’t enter. The theme this year is “Here and Now” so what I did with this is I got the AZ Republic and scanned the various stories from that day for short phrases which, I’d hoped, would describe the ‘here and now’ without ever getting specific. Then I made a ‘false-function’ informational flow chart out of those little bits of journalism. For kicks.

Satire 2006

Dan Dennett, 2006 for TED

Thanks to Kevin Wiedeman for (accidentally) showing me this.
It's just sensible talk, is all, about religion and like that.

Ha Ha I'm Drowning(1998)

Could be I went a little crazy back during the summer of '98.

Here's What I'm Thinking(2008)

Yes, I know it's way vogue these days to want to save the planet and all that.

The environment's in jeopardy and we all have to pull together and do our part, etc.

Everyone I know is recycling or, at the very least, they're lying to everyone else about recycling and I'm thinking, "What for?" 

What exactly are we trying to rescue here? 

Somebody really smart needs to explain it to me 'cause as far as I can see, life on Earth sucks a fresh turd. 

You really expect me to separate my garbage for this fucking shitpile? 

Hell, as far as I'm concerned, our rendezvous with total disaster can't arrive soon enough.

Where the hell are all these nukes everybody's always whining about? 

Let's light a few of those up, why don't we. 

That would kind of end the suspense, wouldn't it? 

Break the tension? 

Or maybe our finest scientific minds could find a way to alter the Earth's orbit and steer us into the path of one of those big asteroids, you know - one of those 'Global Killers'? 

Listen, all I'm saying is that not recycling just isn't gonna cut it. 

We gotta get pro-active, people! 

Let's make it our resolution for 2009...

Blanket Statement(2007)

or at least it feels that way sometimes.

Previous Post: "Neato Graffito"(1996/2004/2007)

"Hey.

I just thought of something.

Okay.

A little while ago I was walking around this area of St. Louis called Soulard. Maybe last month or something. Anyway, I came across this graffito.

I really like it and I should 'cause I did it.

I stenciled it, like, must've been two or three years ago and I completely forgot about it. I did a bunch of these around the area, but I have no idea where the other ones are. This one is right in front of a schoolyard. I'm not really sure if that's good or bad. Probably bad.

There were some other phrases I did. What were they...

"People are true believers in artifice." was one. This showed up prominently in this one "propaganda piece" I did in Los Angeles. I'll talk about that later.

Another was, "Your crime is you believe you are innocent." I remember spraying that on the parking lot wall of the Smile Lofts. Then a guy came out the next day and removed it right away. So I sprayed it on again in exactly the same place. Then he came and erased it again. Then I just gave up.

There's one more. What was it? These are all taken from this little book I made back in, oh, 1996 called, "The Revised Conventional Wisdom No.1" so if I want to, I can just go look it up... but I don't want to. I'm that lazy.

Well, hell, I'll go look.

Anyway, you might like to read them all, so I'll go find the link while I'm at it.

http://studiogustave.com/wisdom.html

And the other stencil was, "You wouldn't stand a chance if you didn't sell out." I also put this at the top of my music page a little while ago and then Josie Cotton, who sang that great song, "Johnny Are You Queer?" wrote in reply, "But if you sell out and don't make it, then you got nothin', my friend!" I was so overjoyed to receive that comment 'cause I think she's just the bee's knees.

My music page, by the way, is www.myspace.com/exquisitetenderness

The typeface on the stencils was an adaptation of Futura Bold or Futura Black, which I was really into at the time I cut them with my friend Dan in San Francisco. Then I got into a big Times New Roman phase. Then it was nothing but News Gothic. Then a breif flirtation with various seraphy fonts. Now I don't know. I'm sort of back to News Gothic, which is the font you see on all the panels on my page right now, but I don't know. I'm not really in a committed relationship with any one font right now. That's okay, though. The right one will come along.

Yeah, so trippy coming across that after so long. It's held up better than I would have expected.

Do I have more to say about it?

No. That's it.

Oh. Wait. 'Graffito' is the singular form of 'Graffiti'.
Did you know that?
I just now figured that out."

Celebrate Good Times

Come on.

Obama's Arts Plank

Hey, I just ran across this in Artforum

Obama and McCain on the Arts

11.03.08

"Jeremy Gerard reports for Bloomberg that the arts plank in presidential candidate Barack Obama’s platform includes everything from increased support for arts education and the National Endowment for the Arts to changing the federal tax code for artists. “It is unprecedented,” said Robert L. Lynch, president and chief executive officer of Americans for the Arts, a Washington-based arts-advocacy group, explaining that no presidential candidate in recent times has addressed cultural issues in such detail. Obama began forming his culture plank in the spring of 2007, long before winning the Democratic nomination. He brought together a committee of artists and arts professionals, headed by Hollywood writer, director, and producer George Stevens Jr. and Broadway producer Margo Lion. The committee's members include novelist Michael Chabon, Broadway director Hal Prince, musicians Eugenia and Pinchas Zukerman, and Museum of Modern Art president emerita Agnes Gund, as well as Lynch, of Americans for the Arts."

"According to Gerard, the committee developed a program that advocates the creation of an “Artists Corp” of young artists trained to work in low-income schools and communities, the expansion of public-private partnerships to increase cultural-education programs, increased funding for the NEA, a commitment to “cultural diplomacy,” attracting foreign talent in the arts, and providing health care to artists. Obama also backs the Artist-Museum Partnership Act, introduced by Senator Patrick Leahy, the Vermont Democrat. It would amend the Internal Revenue Code to allow artists to deduct the fair market value of their work, rather than just the cost of materials, when they make charitable contributions. Senator John McCain, who has consistently voted for cuts in the NEA budget, says arts funding is a local issue. A brief statement on his website says that where “local priorities allow, he believes investing in arts education can play a role in nurturing the creativity of expression so vital to the health of our cultural life and providing a means of creative expression for young people."

And in summation (this is me talking now) Obama: good, McCain: fuckyerself.

Who's It Gonna Be?

Seems like kind of a "No doy" answer to me, but that's what I said four years ago and look what happened then.

I'm gonna leave the house in a little bit, walk about 16 blocks, and vote for Barack Obama for President of the United States and probably some other Democrats, too. That's just me.


The other dude was never, it should go without saying, a consideration. His campaign and constituency seem pretty fear and hate motivated to me and that is bad. Maybe I'm being naive. Maybe I AM naive. Maybe I just want a better health care situation for myself and people like me. Maybe I once saw McCain on TV and he had some pernicious, little waves of evil radiation coming off his head when he spoke.

I gave thought to voting Socialist - just to be a pisser, I guess. Or maybe to just not be on the winning team, which feels just too obvious and easy, you know? So I flirted with that even though I don't know anything about the candidate or platform. You know what I did? I asked a guy I know from way, way back, name of Kary, whom I heard is into this stuff a little more than me and here's what he told me: "This election is a scam, I'm afraid. I voted for Cynthia McKinney, myself, since Ron Paul was kept from winning, as he should have, during the primaries. We might have had some hope, with a Ron Paul/Cynthia McKinney ticket, but that is not to be... "

So that didn't inspire me much and I quit with the notion right there.

Alright, I'm pretty sure this is the last time I'm gonna get all political on this here blog. It's not really my area anyhow but, what with the electing the President and all, I guess I felt like some sorta something was indicated... but I'm done now.

Hell, it's all so boring anyway.

Let's talk about these drawings! I love 'em!

I'm setting what I'm thinking will become a precedent for future postings here at PROOF. I definitely wanna feature the work of other artists I like and this one, it happens, is Dana Smith.

Now, I just met Dana really recently when I showed with him at the "As Above, So Below" show that happened a couple weekends ago. I'd seen his paintings around and even shown with him a couple times at Hoffman/LaChance, but, for whatever reason, having finally met him and then finding his work online and, most particularly, these drawings, I have to say I'm more charmed and impressed than ever by his output. Nice guy, too.

So, listen. If you like these, then go visit him here
and say, "Hi" from me.

Thanks.