TShirts, Stickers, Prints, Art Objects
WhatIsWhat 1.0 2003
Topic “2D”
The First Crutch
ABOVE: "How Its Going: Crutches" Text and Line Art by Bill Shannon
What was the first crutch? It was not the first recorded crutch. It was not the first staff. The first crutch was before it all. It was a branch. A branch grabbed on impulse to survive a moment, to get through a threatening situation. The first crutch was a life and death situation. The first crutch was born of a moment when a human, under threat from a predator, impulsively invented a tool to assist their own mobility. Crutches at their essence are rooted in survival. Crutches are a sign that the person using the crutches is likely the weakest in the pack. Crutches, in short, equal death. That survival response to seeing crutches is still with us today, at the very core of our innate survival instinct. Mortality symbolized in an object that one uses to move their body. The first crutch, before it was a crutch, was a random branch from a tree that had fallen to the ground. It was laying in a specific place, sufficiently thick but not too thick, the correct length, not too long or too short. Just the right length to work for the human that happened to pick it up.(cont.)
Spring 2013
My plate is full this year with multiple ongoing projects. The Rex "project" mentioned below several months ago has stabilized after 6 months of staggeringly little sleep ( or awake-ness ) and I am happy to share with you that the Rexy continues to payoff in a myriad of very small beautiful ways and I am BACK!
Barnum Parade 2012 / For The Love of Circus
I have always loved photgraphing people since my very first Black Plastic Kodak Instamatic Rectangular box. Accidently encountering the P.T. Barnum Parade was a treat. There were no animals in the Parade.
ABOVE: P.T. Barnum Parade 2012 / Drumcore
Skateboard Graphic Strategy To Validate Medical Usage
ABOVE: Painted Skateboard Griptape Graphics To Communicate medical usage of Crutches with a Skateboard To Complete Strangers. The graphics emulate existing color and symbols in public space for safety boundaries and disabled people. I also added the Red Cross with MED written inside it to further reinforce the message. Normally graphics are painted on the bottom of the board and the tops are black griptape. Communicating through symbols from the top of the board is a very useful way to answer questions without them being asked.
KEEP KEEP KEEP DANCING DANCING DANCING
Greetings dear Readers. It has been far too long since I have last posted here. If you have been with me since the beginning then you are well aware that I do have these long breaks between posts. This site is not really a bloggers site, in the blogger sense of blogging daily, but rather an artist's site that starts and stops and starts again with a regular irregularity.
ABOVE: "Keep Dancing" Intaglio Ink Print on Archival Paper 8x10 2012
Tetrapak Creations 1.1 : Acquisition Processing and Storage
In my haste to post up the step by step of breaking down a tetrapak I skipped over the various phases I have ongoing with my tetrapaks. The easiest way is to process them as they come. Taking on a bulk load or waiting till you have a bulk load is more daunting and might cause your tetrapak dedication to waver. Many restaurants throw these away ten or twenty a day. If your partner is a foodie like mine then there will be no shortage of these amazing little boxes.
ABOVE: three of the most common sizes I encounter. Note that the larger tetrapak on the left was processed later in my tetrapak journey as the edges are clean. The tetrapaks to the right were processed early on and reflect a certain ignorance as to the importance of clean edges.
Processing tetrapaks is not fun but the end result is well worth it. after the jump I show the various states of tetrapaks in my possession
Good Morning, I Love You
ABOVE: pillow with arrow indication of where my dreams may have taken place
Illustrated Note on "The Condition Arriving" Phenomena
THISISWHATISWHAT
ABOVE: original notebook scan. Illustrated Notes on Cultural Phenomenology; The Condition Arriving and notions of invisibility within its context. I have posted this same image in the 2D section of this site but it is cleaned up of all the writing.
THISISWHATISWHAT
ABOVE: A graphic I created for a project that I never realized .. a project about personal space in the digital era.. the title was "mywirelessistouchingyou" I think the graphic is pretty cool, not stellar or anything just funny and provocative.
TOOLING UP FOR A HANDMADE ART BENDER
ABOVE: i have been dumpster diving a sign store now for years now and I am completely out of space to store anymore. I have enough letters now to write out a new message in three foot high letters of varied fonts. The truth is I love making multi-channel surround and multi-channel composite video works but lately I have fallen back into a place where the physical handmade object is reborn in the spirit of my imagination. - cont.- I truly hate the materialism of it all when it comes to the video installation challenge. Conversely I see the material of rusted thrown out garbage decaying to a point where it becomes alive.
Wandering Streetz of Warzawa, Poland 2010
BELOW: Warsaw, Poland. A bas-relief of a mother with child from the socialist realism era within Poland slowly decays in the acidic rain as a late capitalist cultural force represented by ZORK leaves its global human scrawl beneath it.
random 2010
I have been taking lots of pictures long before the digital era when I was given a Kodak instamatic rectangular black box. Now with the ability to share it has changed the game for me. In earlier years a contact sheet was printed negatives stored away and that was it. If an image was particularly well done I would give it to my friend who worked at a lab and he would print them 8 by 10 color on the side for free. Each image now is a passing thought whereas before it was a work that earned its right to be printed. I love photography. I am not a photgrapher.
Photos 2010
BELOW are a few recent photos. I try and focus on some thought or statement with these. Bank Owned is particularly relevant to this era where taxpayers are giving money to a government that is paying banks that fail billions to stay afloat while regular folk suffer with unemployment and degradaton of their quality of life. The McMansion on the right side of the frame is an icon of the banking debacle and wild nature in the distance puts it all in scale.
Salt Lake City Utah
Pittsburgh, PA
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a peek in the blackbook
blackbook cellphone grabs
ABOVE: My first draft illustration of a useful seated position for a pedestrian crutch user. This depiction of the elbow lo-mid holding position leaves the individual hands free while the nested crutches function as a casual arm rest. This position is especially useful at crowded events such as parties and concerts. It has been my experience that not only will drunk or high people find a way to trip on a crutch tucked into a corner but they are also likely to pick up the crutches and "have a go" at them without asking first. This seated while holding position makes both of those regretable scenarios far less likely. .. more drawings after the jump...
line art and thought process
My blackbooks are where my ideas are born and take shape.. both as a conceptual process and as a design process. i have been uploading drawings and graphical work based on those drawings to my 2D section which got me thinking as to artmaking as a product versus a process. i am not producing drawings as an end product but rather use drawings and scribblings as a process of discovery. My end product as an artist is the successful closure of a line of inquiry into how i might best express an idea or a philosophy.
