SUBMIT

The following is my artistic statement for a sculpture class. My "art" will all fit this general theme. I am going to share it with you.

SUBMIT.

From birth, people in modern society are taught to believe that individuality is the ultimate goal of self growth. To be special. To be unique. To be loved.

Ironic that, considering the social equation that is supposed to produce a product of idiosyncratic behaviors is the same that creates the rampant conformity that spreads through civilization like the poisonous venom coursing through the veins of a snakebite victim.

But why is that so bad? If this contradiction should be resolved, why not eliminate the indiviuality that is throwing the balance of things asunder?

Submit.

Submit to the current sociopolitical landscape.

Submit to the bitter reality that there is no control, people are just groups of atomic firestorms going through the motions set into effect by the big bang.

Submit to beautifully uniformed chaos.

Submit to the vacuum of truly original human thought and submit to the concept of a universal subconscious that controls us all.

No one is special. No one is unique. No one is loved.

There is no real meaning of art. There is no real meaning of god.

There is no Jesus Christ. No Ward Cleaver. No Superman.

Submit.

Everything is going to be okay. Nothing could be any other way.

Submit.

Submit.

SUBMIT.

The Seven Soldiers of Victory

This is another contest I entered just for the fun of entering contests and it's a pin up of the original seven soldiers of victory. The theme was golden age and I think the group represents everything awesome about the golden age of comics. You got the big time pulp hero in Crimson Avenger,

you got the western stories with Vigilante,


the fantasy with Shining Knight,

you've got the superheroes with a child being put into extreme danger... and tights in Star Spangled Boy and Stripsey,then of course the same thing but with bows and arrows in Green Arrow and Speedy. Because archery is badass!

Hmm, if the blue turned just a bit ago, that is totally not intentional. Sometimes I just can't control the font that appears on my screen. Hope that isn't a link to nowhere...

Anyways, so I put these all together with some magic and no computer work whatsoever and this is the end product.
Feel free to click it and see its true size. I think it will show in full size anyways, its done so in the past.

Anyways, hope all of you (YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE) like it and stuff.

Victim of Resizings...

Well, I had some pretty big pipe dreams of entering this project rooftop Batman 2.0 challenge thing that's going to go down soon and I spent a lot of time working on a high resolution image of Dick Grayson as Batman with a cheesy Japanese hero/batmobile/batman beyond mash up of ideas that probably didn't work out as well as I would have hoped they did... Anyways, I uploaded the bastard on photobucked and say how silly it looked shrunk down so I went into Gimp which is what I use to color and work on it at 427 pixels wide which isn't very big... then I save OVER the psd file! Argh, huge headache and now all that high res work I did is essentially ruined with only a rougher draft left as a relic of the image that I had going. I am going to use that one to show anyone reading this blog here and now:


Course you click on it and see it at its full size.

Anyways, so here was the one I ended up emailing to the fine folks over there at project rooftop.


So there you have it. It's not very different from the first one and its not like extremely tiny but the angle is different the background is lighter and there are just some minor differences that I was getting really caught up over that became my undoing in the end when I couldn't go back to the pre-image scale version.

I probably won't even be in the little mentioned ones because the more I look at this, the more I see everything that's wrong with it.

DC Superheroes

Some of my favorite dc characters done in a similar pin up style that I have a lot of fun drawing.

Let's talk about... Wonder Woman.

See the thing with Wonder Woman that I respect is that She is a strong feminine character but what I can't stand is that everyone has to let me know that she's a strong feminine character. I feel like with this character I am told too often that she is beautiful and wise and noble and powerful but I rarely told this in an organic fashion. Even in the best interpretations of her (I don't read the Simone book but I should) like George Perez's acclaimed run on the book, its a lot of putting her in this grand position in the DC Universe. I think the character is done proving herself and there was a simpler time when the character was created that she was allowed to act independently of her status as a symbol and could be degraded and bound and beaten like you know... pretty much every other character does. That same equality isn't there and by making her a feminist symbol that is always this stoic figure, it feels like a contradiction to me.

MR. A.

Man is a rope stretched between the animal and the Super Wal-Mart

A rope over the abyss.

A few years back, my sister had a friend that was a foreign exchange student from Germany and at the end of the year, before her departure back to Europe she took pictures of various of the somewhat mundane features of Manteca California. I guess if you are from a place where you just don’t see large groups of cows and fields overgrown with weeds it is a sight to behold but what was more interesting was that she made a note to take a picture of Wal-Mart of all places before leaving this humble country. Wal-Mart, I thought, what a strange think to want to remember. Yes, they guarantee Always Low Prices, Always but beyond that I didn’t really think it different from the other mass market retail outlets like Target or K-Mart but I was wrong. Wal-Mart is far more
culturally significant, but would I qualify a trip there an event? No. That’s why I went to Super-Walmart.

Underneath one roof is nearly anything you could imagine from snow tires to Christmas decorations. From garden rakes to an economy sized case of Oreos. From a 5-dollar DVD featuring 5 classic episodes of Little House on the Prairie to a brand new pair of shoes. The sheer volume of product crammed into a single building was a little overwhelming yet everyone else seemed to mindlessly gravitate from lighting fixture to fresh produce to hunting equipment aisles as if it was the most natural thing in the world. Because wandering aimlessly is not nearly as eventful as following blindly, I shadowed a gentleman in a leather jacket, pressed slacks, silk shirt, and a cowboy hat with the word “Rodeo” stitched into the brim proudly. Initially, he seemed to have no more of a purpose being in the store than I did and I was regretting my decision to follow him but as he cruised casually down the halls, running his fingers over socks and searching through a massive bin of DVDs he started to show his motive. First, he found a pair of women’s snow boots that he was particularly fond of so he found a salesman and seemingly tried to talk the price down. When the hapless employee showed no signs of willingness to haggle, the man left placing the boots back as if he didn’t really want them but as he walked away threw them longing glances. He then walked through the woman’s clothing section lifting the sleeves of shirts carefully looking at each intricate design before moving on to the next rack. Nothing seemed to satisfy him though. I followed him almost out the door, caught up in his dismay when suddenly his head whipped around; something had surely piqued his interest. A bouquet of roses! On sale even. The man I had been following was a romantic. He was suddenly vitalized with a burst of optimism. He looked as if nothing could stop him now and triumphantly walked towards the checkout aisle when he realized something, a light bulb went off in his head. He sprung towards the medical and sanitation products section of the store and quickly returned this time with a box of provalactics. Stories are told in how people shop, its live theater with every customer.

More maddening than the barrage of merchandise though was the blatant talking down to the consumer. It would appear that taste has no place in American culture, not when you are being drilled constantly on what to buy. Walking through the store I couldn’t help but get caught up in different sensations just because I saw entire rows of shelves dedicated to that product. For instance, I had never once expressed a desire to see what this Hannah Montana “thing” is but after spending an hour walking through Super Wal-Mart I was convinced she was bigger than the Beatles. Who else but the Beatles could have their faces on the cover of not one but two specialty themed board games, dolls, pillows, video games, coloring books, cereal boxes, and really anything big enough to have her face printed one… and don’t get me started on DVD’s and CD’s. Within Wal-Mart there is an insurmountable blitzkrieg of forced celebrity that is constantly pushed on unsuspecting youth. Unlike stores where the shopper is respected, Wal-Mart has harsh lighting, a harsh McDonalds at the front of the store next to a bakery, and blaring speakers every other aisle almost to the point where there is an effort made to deliver a full on assault to the senses. What’s worse is the whole thing is masked in a shroud of convenience because everything is in one store and supposedly much cheaper, but at what cost?

Super Wal-Mart is a Mecca of conglomerations where major corporations converge to push a true free market out of the equation and bring people to their knees by offering cheaper and often inferior products. It’s a place that condescends its own clientele constantly with no remorse and will gleefully exploit buyer habits and turn people into drones with wallets that buy things they probably don’t need for a quick bargain but its also a true sign of what American civilization is about. You can be idealistically loyal to a brand easily when there are only a few to choose from. You can buy into a product thinking you need it because it’s popular without knowing why. You can bow to the alter of Super Wal-Mart with all its wares and all it wants you to surrender is your wallet.

Note: this blog was turned in for a grade to my Civilization class and I got full points. Score.