create something beautiful

I don’t mean to preach my politics on anyone, but with the election coming up and even one of my good friends and some of my family members not entirely convinced that they should vote Obama/Biden over McCain/Palin, I can’t help but cringe every time I try to restrain from fighting with them. Everyone is entitled to their opinions and political persuasions, but there are some issues I can’t help but get up in arms over. The right for a woman to choose whether or not to have an abortion is one of these issues. Please just watch the video. If you still want to vote McCain, that’s your choice. I just hope you have strong reasons for doing so. I’m voting Obama and I have mine.

It’s true, a new one. I’m going back to NYLON. I submitted my resignation from Hearst last week because I was offered a full-time, salaried job doing the paid version of what I did when I interned there. Expect the return of graphics posts and whatnot come August, when I’m the new Web Design Assistant there. It looks like I was always meant to be a designer, art school or not.

On a separate note, I’ve loved Exploding Dog illustrations for a few years now. Buy me a print as a celebration gift if you love me. Or just go to the site to fall in love with them as well.

I’ve been a big fan of Banksy’s work for years now. If you don’t know who he is, good. That’s the point. He’s tried to remain anonymous for a long time, perpetrating what many consider vandalism, what other - like myself - consider street art. I’m not going to get entirely into his history right now, but some of his work has become entirely iconic and his the act of posting them incredibly buzzworthy. For example, you may have heard of the guy who was hanging his own paintings in several museums when no one was looking. Some remained up for hours, others days before anyone noticed that they didn’t belong with the other classics.

Today on NYmag.com I read an article about his latest major statement. Apparently England has been installing a large number of closed circuit surveilance cameras and many people are getting the “big brother” feel from always having a watchful lens pointed their way. Over the weekend, Banksy put up three stories worth of scaffolding, under which he painted a massive message and two figures onto the wall, all under the eye of one of these cameras. When he removed the scaffolding, the work was revealed - on the side of a post office. It’s his biggest work of “vandalism” to date and I think it’s pretty brilliant.

What do you think?

So while I was at NYLON on Friday, Faran got a press release announcing the introduction of a new eco-friendly line of Keds sneakers. Aside from the topic being near and dear to my heart, I got to design this fun graphic to accompany the article Faran wrote up for the website.

Here’s the breakdown about the shoes. They will be made of the following
100% Organic uppers
25% Recycled uppers
25% Recycled rubber outsole
Water based printing inks

They’ll cost $50 and $1 from every sale is donated to Artists for Humanity, a Boston non-profit charity providing professional art experience for the local community through after school programming. The aspiring artists designed a shoe to express their concerns about the environmental impact of bottled water consumption (water bottles are featured on the shoes!).

To further understand their concern and why you should make an effort to reuse your water bottles or, even better, use your own reusable/washable bottle, check out the facts on bottled water consumption:

- Four of every five plastic water bottles end up in landfills or as litter which is over 2.5 billion bottles a year!
- Water bottles buried in landfills can take up to 1,000 years to biodegrade.
- Incinerating used bottles produces toxic byproducts and the bottles themselves leak toxic byproducts into the groundwater.
- The plastic used to make water bottles is derived from crude oil. It takes 1.5 million barrels of oil per year to satisfy America’s demand for bottled water.

I stumbled across the latest from activist Italian artist Graziano Cecchini today while I was catching up on posts at BoingBoing. Anyone here in the U.S. who has heard of him, has probably heard the name in association with a stunt that took place at the Trevi Fountain last October.

The water in the fountain was dyed red and a box of leaflets was found nearby which claimed “the red paint was a protest for expenses incurred in organizing the Rome Film Festival and symbolically referred to the event’s red carpet.” (source) Cecchini was blamed for the event which caused the water in the well-known tourist hotspot to look almost like blood when he was identified by a security camera, but was never charged since he denied involvement.

His new artistic protest also resulted in a splash of color in Roma. Half a million colored plastic balls were dumped down the Spanish Steps, with many finally filling the Barcaccia fountain at the bottom. (source)

This time, the work of artistic expression (or vandalism, depending on your perspective) took place as a statement on the worsening waste situation which has been causing health concerns in Naples over the past 6 months.(source) In my opinion, it’s a beautiful alternate display of protest. Walking around New York City, you can regularly see people with picket signs or the giant inflatable rat which signifies a strike, but to see something like this is truly a different statement, one that is difficult to ignore both as protest, and art.

There are videos of the protest all over YouTube but I kind of find the photos a bit prettier.