Sloppy Joe drinks his coffee from a complimentary mug he received in a cigarette promotion years ago...He has one very complex story he keeps to himself
Sloppy Joe's Complimentary Mug
Sloppy Joe drinks his coffee from a complimentary mug he received in a cigarette promotion years ago...
Post-Rachel. Free T.Shirts
a collection of poems and other typos
in an uncertainly post-rachel world
free t. shirts for the masses
looking at Pollock is like looking at clouds...
1. Means and Ends
What does it take to be my favorite episode of Tom & Jerry? Something situational--like company or inside jokes, shared laughter. It's just funny--a russian blue in a zoot suit sweet talking a prissy pussy. Tom & Jerry successfully communicated to me and my sister--eliciting a certain response (in this case laughter) usually reserved for real life experience. Gee, I thought, this is one smooth cat. My uncle wore a zoot suit to his prom some 60 years post-hoc. I'm not sure what to make of it--I thought it was cool when I saw the cut. But I doubt he got laid.
Is this art? Sure. Where does it place the artist? It is, after all,
A Metro Goldwyn Mayer cartoon
I wonder if modern art has become Jeff Koons and Damien Hirst. Both have effectively robbed Duchamp of his ready-made power. These are two "artists" who've effectively paid to make their product. The argument is that the concept is their own, regardless of the methodology.
They, as "artists", embody the mordant commodity/consumer relationship. So empowered by the idea of their idea that they no longer need invest a personal energy. Hirst did not personally fish the shark for his "The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living" and Jeff Koons is proudly photographed over his sweatshop of painters and metalworkers.
Without a doubt, they are artists--brilliant conceptualists. But they push the collective notion of art (driven by those willing to purchase and/or admire the individual pieces) into a state of moratorium. By now we should know--the process is just as important as the concept. Assuming time as a linear concept, imagine the Caves of Altamira as the original embodiment of the process and imagine Duchamp as having freed the concept. Now, as we begin to commonly associate time and space as a singular entity, we can see the process and the concept as one.
I imagine Koons employs some hundreds to complete his pieces and thats a lovely idea in times of recession, but has it come down to business? Is the modern artist also a maven of marketing and business savvy? Jay-Z would certainly have you believe so. I enjoyed staring at Hirst's piscine opus--but in my mind I thought "this guy is such a fucking hack". You can lump Warhol in with this class of pop artist; even Dali (Koons was a big fan) who designed the Chupa Chups logo. These are artists who enjoy the dollar.
Media has made commodity of public persona. Artist, chef, musician, designer--you can always expect a posthumous movie or anthology. Their concepts are purely aesthetic--Are they making art or commercials promoting themselves? Before you make a judgment look up the works of Jeff Koons, Mona Hatoum, Jay-Z (yes...) Hirst, Warhol, etc. Try to find, view or listen to their "work" firsthand. Is it art or cult of personality? Can it be both?
2. Moratorium
As something of a post-script, we often muse on a label for contemporary art. If all things promoted as art are in fact considered art--then there is no need for label. It is emblematic of the world we live in. The lines have been blurred in the supposedly post-racial world. Art is art and it's now.
Seeding
can you love another mother
presently more
then your lover can you
love another more presently
then the sister you have can
you love a different sister more
or your father
or your dog
or your home
how relative is capacity for love?
Capturing Humanity in Comics: an Interview with Sarah Oleksyk
Sarah Oleksyk (comic artist, writer, illustrator, master of extra sensory perception...) is immediately accessible. I'd stumbled upon her work and was drawn to her ability to capture expressions, candor, warmth, alienation (the beauty in alienation) and so much more with a genius sense of timing.
Meet Sarah...
What is your earliest memory of illustration? How long have you been illustrating?
I have been drawing all my life, but as a child I would study wildlife books and plant books, trying to draw from them. I've always stuck to a strong foundation of drawing from life. I'd also copy other people's artwork so I could "learn" how they put the image together.
How did you come to the conclusion that it was your passion?
Comics are my passion - I actually hate illustration! I've always loved storytelling, and I was set on comics as a way to incorporate that into a visual medium. Even as a kid my comics were focused on characters and personalities.
What comics influenced you growing up? What do you like to read now? Any cartoons? (I think cartoons kind of suck now)
I started with more strip-format comics, or single-page or single-panel comics, like Life in Hell and Lynda Barry's Ernie Pook's Comeek. Then I discovered horrific based-on-true-life tales about WW2 atrocities, like Maus and Barefoot Gen. I was really into atrocities. Later on I sought out longer stories about people my age doing things I wished I could do - I read some Sandman short stories a boyfriend lent me, got into Ghost World by Clowes, even Johnny the Homicidal Maniac. Once I hit art school in NYC, all I was reading were independent comics - anything I could get my hands on. I'd read drug comics written in the 70s because I was sort of enamored with the idea of their (probably fictional) lifestyle then - nomadic, drug-using, free livin' types of people.
Now I try to read everything my friends do and everything that's gaining a buzz in the independent comics scene. Even stuff I don't care for, I'll read it so I have a foundation to like it or not like it - I like to know WHY I enjoy and respect something, or not. I try to keep up with what's currently coming out, because I consider it a professional duty to be aware of the work concurrent to your own.
excerpt from: Old Men Overheard by Sarah Oleksyk
Your work, especially the comics you have posted on the site, cover a wide range of emotions and ideas. For example, Old Men Overheard is your recreation of something that we can all relate to. After I read I wondered how I would illustrate my own experience?
this was mine:
UNLIKE TRAVELERS
CONVERGE ON COMMON SPACE
would you like some ice cream?
—he asks
no, thank you
—he responds
but that’s really good of you
It doesn't have the same hilarious finish, but you have to imagine the first speaker as a mentally ill old man eating an ice pop and the second guy as a gruff looking trucker. I mention all this to come to the idea that your comics, like some of the greatest short fiction of our era, captures a complex human essence with brevity. Do you find that the dual nature of comics (as a simultaneously visual and literal medium) is conducive to capturing such emotion and range?
Definitely. Comics sucks you in and brings you along for the ride. I've felt strong attachments to characters in comics and in non-graphic literary work. I've had to develop my editing skills over the years to bring in that brevity that makes a story snap, however - like a lot of people, I tend to put in too much, and it took a while to learn to remove all but the key bits to keep the story both flowing and still understandable. I look at Jaime Hernandez to see how rich a story you can tell while taking out so many unnecessary moments. But comics is unique in printed media in that it can insert a single panel of environment that sets the time and place better than an entire paragraph of written description could. Well-done comics can make you experience the story as though you were directly taking part in it. When I manage to achieve that in a comics story I consider it a major accomplishment!
Your style, especially in black & white, reminds me a lot of Local: an indie series by Oni Press, illustrated by Ryan Kelly and written by Brian Wood. Your own project, Ivy, shares a lot of similarities: a young woman in a transitional phase discovering herself in the milieu of a new world. There is an interesting undercurrent of Bildungsroman/self-exploration in your work. How much of Ivy (and some of your other works) draw from personal experience? Tell me a little more about Ivy and how it/she came about.
Ivy began years ago as straight-up autobiography, but when I stopped to consider the events in my own life I was writing about, it was a point in time where I'd done nothing but comics about myself for years and I was beginning to tire of it - the self-absorption, the need for "accuracy", the underlying idea that I was trying to make the readers LIKE ME. I reworked the storyline and removed the main character from "me" to this girl who was a sort of distillation of, how do I put it - not of who I was, but of how I felt most of the time as a person at that age. Anger. Impatience. Frustration. Insecurity. Once the character was no longer "me," I felt better about making her a little less likable, letting her make more mistakes.
Then I thought about why I was telling this story. It's an adventure story where the main focus is Ivy's interactions with the people in her life, and how she allows them to shape her. I asked myself what the message really was - and it's a hard one, it's that no one is going to come along and make your life magically better, no one but you will ultimately solve your problems, and most of your problems will never get solved. You just have to deal, adjust, move on, accept things and allow them to make you stronger. I wanted to write a book that I could've used desperately as a teen. When I was actually in high school, there were very few books that had a female protagonist to whom I could relate. All my favorite books starred boys. Things are starting to change now, but rather than sit and complain about it I decided to even out the balance with a book of my own.
Your illustrations are beautifully rendered. The color choice is vibrant, dreamlike and cartoony--setting fantastic moods. How do you illustrate? Pencil, cell, photoshop--a combination of mediums?
Thanks! I almost always ink my comics and illustrations on Bristol. I used to use a nib pen but now I use brush almost exclusively. Once inked, I scan in the drawings and clean them up in Photoshop, and if there's color that's where I add it. I'm not very skilled with paints.
What comics have you drawn for?
Hmm. I haven't worked on other peoples' titles. Generally if I'm not publishing my own comics, I'm contributing to anthologies. I've been included in Tugboat Press' Papercutter, on the Dark Horse Myspace Presents website, in the Missed Connections anthology, the Awesome anthology... the list goes on. I did a comics piece for the Girl Scouts of America this spring. It'll be in a young-teen handbook about being active in your community. I'm always looking for paying jobs, heh! But at the moment my highest priority is completing Ivy. I can't wait to see it published in one volume.
Thank you for your time and wise words Sarah. Best of luck in completing Ivy, I look forward to reading it in its entirety.
Sarah is a testament to independent art: the beauty of her creation and the hustle of her endeavors. Her eyes and ears are open to her contemporaries--something I have found most helpful in the advancement of my own work. Keep an eye out for Ivy and some of Sarah's other pieces. And be sure to support! Visit the site!
Two Poems by Mahalet Dejene
Itaytay, whose hands are withered like an off-season peach
is rubbing the blood off the dress my father bought me.
It was white like the powder that falls from the sky in America.
Melaku yinadedibignal inde? I asked, “is father going to be angry?”
She looks down at me, her old eyes black like olives and says Anchi tifatena, “troublemaker.”
There Are More Fish In The Sea, Or So They Tell Me
in the style of Terrance Hays
I think you know, you think I know, I think she knows, he thinks you know, you think she knows, we think who knows over and over again. When? I discovered the origin of our decision was lost: someone somewhere forgot to document who cared more. The dolphins we loved, floundered alone in beach sand. The same way she did. Me? I'm an opening doors kind of gal, the girl who sees the glass but not the water. The one who swears when she sneezes and cries when she wins, you know what I mean? (I sing when I feel like it and I talk out of turn, but that's another story entirely.) I fought back in the same way sea lions do. I roared and sunk my tooth in. She was a wild turkey almost everyday, and he, he was flying too high to begin with. But recently, when I'm feeling bluegray, I touch my elbow and remember your once tight and leathery grip.
in the style of Terrance Hays
I think you know, you think I know, I think she knows, he thinks you know, you think she knows, we think who knows over and over again. When? I discovered the origin of our decision was lost: someone somewhere forgot to document who cared more. The dolphins we loved, floundered alone in beach sand. The same way she did. Me? I'm an opening doors kind of gal, the girl who sees the glass but not the water. The one who swears when she sneezes and cries when she wins, you know what I mean? (I sing when I feel like it and I talk out of turn, but that's another story entirely.) I fought back in the same way sea lions do. I roared and sunk my tooth in. She was a wild turkey almost everyday, and he, he was flying too high to begin with. But recently, when I'm feeling bluegray, I touch my elbow and remember your once tight and leathery grip.
Mahalet Dejene
is going to be a Journalism and Spanish double major and Creative Writing minor (concentrating in poetry) at New York University.
Disco's blues
dysphoric bray! boy tell the tales
of disco
disco the blue firefly who once
took down a maple in one swoop
the vagrant humans in deep cerulean
songs. they cry to him
disco the blue firefly who was eaten
by a giant bluebird.
of disco
disco the blue firefly who flew to
neptune and back.
who knew each of the ladybugs
infinitely bounding between spots
disco the blue firefly who once
took down a maple in one swoop
welcome to disco, you're in like
disco
disco the blue firefly who wandered
the summer back alleys gently warming
the vagrant humans in deep cerulean
songs. they cry to him
disco the blue firefly who inspired
the great dung beetle strike of 1348
he smiles slate blue orbs in the moment
of his mood.
by a giant bluebird.
Karolina Q.
Two, in the front,
playing like children
Two, on the train,
laying like lost & gone
delicacies oblige,
the drinking era
age, error
shrieking terror
night tremors in the sunday
mums from a siberian
sea. cold eyes warm heart
stiff dandy taste tart
plays 'master, drink me
be all of the deep sea
shallow as the black
be bodied, miss me
Three Poems by Steven Grant
Home Invasion
A memory knock
ed on my door last
night. It pushed its
way in before I had
a chance to send it
on its way. It look
ed a little like I rem
ember you, when it
asked “how’ve you
been?” The quest
ion caught me off
guard; having fail
ed to take inventory
for some time. I con
sulted with my re
grets and sent a no
te to days gone by,
but I couldn’t for
the life of me fig
ure out why it matt
ered to a lonely me
mory seeking she
lter from the sum
mer evening heat.
Koko the Gorilla
“Darn darn floor bad bite; trouble trouble”
Is it a sign of things to come,
or has the time come for me to sign?
I stopped grunting long enough
to hear the door close.
What was it you said to me
on your way out?
You spoke to me in English,
French and Spanish at least that’s what
it looked like when I read your lips.
I was mute for far too long
but you only ever learned one sign.
I guess I’ll just have to ride
out this little quake alone
and hope my vocabulary
improves over time.
Behavior Modification
I want to kiss a dangerous girl under the harsh lights
of Broadway without so much as a “nice to meet you”
or “thanks for the dance”. I'd like to walk through
the south Bronx at midnight counting my money
with un-calloused fingers and an “I dare you” smirk.
I think I will dangle my feet off the platform at 59th & Lex
while the ground shakes from the overdue six train.
I want to taste the bitter sweet drip of coke as it slides down
the back of my throat with a rush of elation. I'll flip off cabs
and piss on a cop car in the middle of Times Square.
I want to drink scotch for breakfast, sleep until noon,
and make love with strangers three or four at a time.
I’ll drive into the night at a hundred miles per hour
with my headlights off, play chicken with all my regrets
and steer with purpose to destinations as yet unknown,
-SMG
Schizophrenia
each body bending light is
taken on the whole; a mea
ning. he and she serve a s
ouvenir on the reel. eyes o
pen sieve no sky while rat
tling panes speak soft & va
ried lingo. a sound of some-
a long drawn clip of the past.
egress of bodies bending light
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