When I can’t think of anything to write about, I surf Flickr’s Creative Commons sections for cool art. (Keyword “illustration” or “collage”, sorted by latest upload.) Here’s what I found this time:
Computers, in the hands of talented and/or interesting humans, make gorgeous things, no? People also prove creative with little bits of paper snipped out of magazines…
The spider is especially sinister. Somehow the whole collage reminds me of the recent Gawker debacle — probably because I’m primed to think about it. (That’s what happens when you follow a bunch of reporters on Twitter.) It’s something about the Uncle Sam “I want you” vibe, pointed finger and all, and the figure’s vague resemblance to Nick Denton.
Today I met with community organizer Nicholas Arzio to discuss the anti-graffiti project that he’s working on. Arzio, who almost won an El Cerrito City Council seat in 2014, is a member of the Crime Prevention Committee. Currently he’s gathering resources to have murals painted on frequently-vandalized BART pylons. Just one pylon to start with, but maybe more in the future.
The idea came from seeing art on the sides of vans and trucks, which owners commission to discourage would-be vandals. Arzio also cited public art in Oakland as an inspiration, when he presented his idea to the Arts & Culture Commission on April 27th. San Francisco’s Mission District is another example of a place full of beautiful murals, and I immediately thought of WPA artists from the 1930s.
I’m interested in this project. Depending on how things develop, I might pitch the story to a publication like Pacific Standard or California Sunday. I would talk to local graffiti artists and report opinions from both sides of the issue. People’s responses could reveal interesting cultural expectations.
Of course, I don’t know for sure whether I’ll write about this in depth. It’s hard to predict. Certainly things will take a while: Arzio has been working on the graffiti-prevention initiative since February, but he doesn’t expect painting to start until September. City governance is not speedy.
Arzio and I discussed a lot more, but I’m still processing and figuring out what I want to do. I would love to dig into local government and have El Cerrito and Richmond be my beat… but I’m not sure how feasible that is. Again, we’ll see!
Loose Meat Sandwich is a quarterly zine produced by Teflon Beast, an art/music collective based in Austin, Texas. They sent me a PDF of the first issue to evaluate.
I pretty much agree with Teflon Beast’s self-description of the publication, in which they invite readers to “feast your eyes on colorful faces and read the humorous rants of an iPhone madman.” I especially enjoyed the latter experiment, a nonsensical poem “generated using iPhone’s auto-correct on email.” This method is the “tech-savvy cut/paste method for today.” Sample lines:
“Definitely not the only hologram
We’d love to jog in light
Addictive hmmm the gouged out agreement on the phone
Wedge kit for the next administration”
Weird, huh? The illustrations were also very pleasing: bright fruity colors and psychedelia. I would recommend Loose Meat Sandwich to pop-art fans and noise-pop enthusiasts. (Tbh, I skipped most of the music-related stuff. Not my scene.)
Law & Order detectives always want to “get justice for the victim”. Opponents of police brutality also call for justice, by name. No one opposes justice, as far as I know. And yet… what is it, exactly? An eye for an eye? Moral concepts can be so slippery. I can’t get a handle on justice.
The Macmillan Dictionary defines the word as “the fact that something is reasonable and fair” or “treatment of people that is fair and morally right”. To make sense of these definitions, you have to define “reasonable”, “fair”, and “morally right”. Those words are difficult to pin down, to but I define them like this, respectively:
Truism: life ain’t fair. Therefore… justice is an infrequent occurrence? (Hence the first illustration, in which Lady Justice walks naked through the wind, brandishing her scales and sword.) Most often the way I hear justice used tallies with “retribution”, but isn’t justice supposed to be a more noble concept?
Roughly a week ago, I went over to my friend Kelsey’s place to catch up. We sat on the floor playing with magazine scraps and making fun of her cat, who also wanted to play with magazine scraps. It was a good time. Below are the collages that I made…
“Moving and we abandon the virtue. Build it. Enough.” I chose the caption using intuition rather than having an idea of what I wanted to say beforehand. Meaning: I chose the words randomly.
Collage is my favorite method of visual expression for the soothing opportunity to make simple choice after simple choice. I don’t think about it much, but I keep on juxtaposing the images that I like. What results is meaningful to me in a mysterious way.
Reducing the image file of a magazine scan can lead to the printed texture being over-emphasized.
Britney Spears is virtually immortal! And modern! Like popsicles! Or, um, something about desserts and female sexuality, commodification of sensuality in general… IT’S ART, I SWEAR. C’est un artiste. I don’t speak French.
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