Radiolab Presents Words
I would expect nothing less from Radiolab than this beautiful, mesmerizing essay on the subtle power of language to thread through human experience.Very cool.
As you may have noticed were not doing so hot, America that is, at least economically. We all have our theories as to why and i am no exception. So what is eating America (in my opinion) is Greed. An overarching lack of moral responsibility lays over our country, and as this illustration displays it is eating us. I am sure it is more complicated than i understand it to be, but as far as i can see we all want what we want but dont want to pay for it. Unchecked this will cripple us. But maybe hard times are what we need. My Noni (grandmother) as a child worked her way through the great depression, growing all there food and not having any hot water. as she told me this story said ” i am afraid for your generation and the next, because they have never known life without comfort.” I agree with her, more comfort doesn’t mean better quality. We need to learn how to live with less.
This illustration was collaged using old magazine newspaper ads, and recently published newspaper graphs.
For the last few weeks i have been traveling all over for vacation, conference, wedding and bachelor party. now i am back and ready to start work again. although i dont really know what that looks like i am excited to find out what that will look like this season. this is a piece i did this morning, a little bit of experimentation with newspapers and old books. I really like the way old print looks and will probably experiment more with this. cheers
Experimentation day! Yay! i have recently realized the importance of experimenting in your work. its great for finding new processes and also for keeping your interest from fading over time. So i dedicated the entire day to just letting myself explore new things with the materials i had. My goal is to create a process that is mostly hand made. I get tired of looking at a computer but i have a longer attention span with real materials. This is one of the things i made from yesterday really experimenting with style and process. when experimenting it is important to let go of content (unless your experimenting with content) this will free you to only focus on the materials and process. so i focused on the recession rooster. freedom is exhilarating but it can also be scary, there is nothing scarier than doing something no one else has ever done before. there is no way to know if it is good. you just have to trust yourself and let go of that thing on your shoulder that gives you a hard time about everything. yeah first punch that thing in the face and then get to work, i am much happier when i do this.
This is work is by illustrator Gary Taxali. i had the pleasure of hearing him speak at ICON 6 last weekend and to be honest i was a little star struck when i would pass him in the hallways. I think his art is inventive and intelligent. he references vintage comics but in a satirical way, although his characters are whimsical and funny he uses them to communicate the ironies of now. very clever to use something old to say something new. At the conference he spoke mostly about speculative work. Some people treat illustrators differently than other types of businessmen. You would never ask your accountant to do your taxes and only if you liked the results he gave would you will pay him, so why do people ask illustrators to do speculative work. that is the basic idea behind the controversy with speculative work, and as you can see it makes illustrators a little upset.
I know its becoming too easy to satirize BP these days but i am ok with that. What they have done is unacceptable. We should not be allowed to drill for oil in places we know we can’t cap if something were to go wrong, and in no way is it ok to lie to the public about our ability to do so. I know i have already made and illustration criticizing the current BP situation but this concept literally came to me in my dreams. I often do my best thinking right when i wake up, when my mind is a little freer to move without limitations and distractions. I like the idea of devine concepts acceding on me from above, which sounds unlikely but the more i study the concept process the more i realize no one knows where ideas come from. what we do know however is that it has more to do with our subconscious than we give it credit for. Although is sounds pretentious to claim you come up with concepts in your sleep, that might be true.
just finished this concert flyer for a friend. Adam Bettino is a great musician with some good things to say. come check him out at the Trip in Santa Monica on july 2nd.
As you may know the new iPhone 4 came out this week and i want one as usual. here is an illustration to show how the iPhone as evolved over the years or is it us that has evolved?
This image is based on the old fable the Goose that Laid the Golden Eggs. I put my own spin on it to make it about the recent American decline, it is now called the Eagle that laid the Golden Eggs. If you havent read the Fable you might want to. I think it speaks profoundly about what greed does to opportunity and good fortune. something we as americans need to work on.
This illustration is loosely based on this interview i heard for a book called The Shallows. The basic idea behind this book is that the internet is a medium of distractions and we are loosing our ability to think deeply. He claims that the more you practice being in a state of distraction your brain reconfigures its neurons to function that way, thus loosing the ability to focus on one thing for a long period of time. i havent read the book but you can listen to the interview here at npr.com and judge for yourself if hes on to something.
soon you will be able to fuel your car with ocean water, your welcome- BP
new image based on an old nursery rhyme. its titled “there was an old woman who lived in a shoe (she couldn’t afford)” kind of about the housing market crisis and living above your means. bad bad naughty people you.
meet Marc Johns he will make you laugh.
iphone illustrations i did to promote the usage of my phone by clients.
