Big Bernie.

Here's some pictures of the finally completed Bernie, standing in at 9' 10" tall and weighing an easy 850 lb.

Here's an earlier picture of Kenny and myself maneuvering the head into place (also note: the day before install he had no eyes, no hands, no feet and no neck.)

All finished up, Bernie lays down for a nice trip over to the Bethel where he was soon to be installed.

My excellently efficient work crew who helped lift and carry and transport this massive sculpture (from right to left: Michael Ponce, Brandon Huebsch, myself, Dan Green and Josh Green).

Here's a picture of Bernie being fawned by some local ladies.

And here he is in hall is glory:

An old poem

Careful Complacency

//

Please place complacency carefully in the place adjacent to where your sub basement used to be.

Usually the used look that ensues civility in so serene in its own placidity that the dim witted seem geniuses who've been struck dumb accidentally.

I have a reason to believe that there's reason to leave,

the legion of lesions that you are yet to receive,

are seasoned in the easements of the next lines reprieve.

We're all so quick to deceive but you'd be quick to perceive

that through disbelief you'll quickly achieve

that very much needed sigh of relief

so long as you recite all the words that the righteous repeat

and yes, you maintain the right to retreat.

Just be aware;

that there are people out there, who will eat your soul like a treat

cause we're all sides of beef who've just recently learned how to speak,

and we've yet to outgrow that mammalian wont of eating the weak.

So to speak, so it goes

it's all part of show

that we star in for reasons god only knows

//

Gridlock

So I've been, ostensibly, off the grid for about a week now. That turn of phrase however, doesn't hold the weight it used to. Way back in the day (1998?) when someone said they are going "off the grid" it generally meant they were leaving their house for an extended period of time, possibly to some remote-ish location, where the mere thought of connectivity with the outside world was a complete joke. Now it doesn't matter where you go; the entire united states is pretty close to one big wifi hot-spot; everyone has a cell phone; most people have cell phones that have the entire internet on them; everyone has a laptop that's wifi capable... so if your off the grid you have to be making a serious concerted effort. And if you're someone who has a blog, a twitter account, a facebook account, a digg feed, subscriptions to multiple RSS feeds, a Tumblr profile, etc, etc, (you get the idea) and all of a sudden you stop posting, or even slow down your posting pace, than you are making a bold statement about your distaste for the social medias as a whole; because we all know that it's probably easier to stay connected to all of these things than it is to escape them... even for a couple days. So when I said I was, ostensibly, off the grid, I meant more that I was only writing/checking on my blog/twitter/facebook one to three times per day.

I think the main issue for me is the fear that these social networks are each chipping away at our sense of reality. The more we immerse ourselves in them the easier it is to become dependent on them. The opiate of over-connectivity. We develop connections and create relationships which are based entirely on the exchange of digital typefaces viewed on liquid crystal displays. What happened to steadfast, three dimensional, reality?

....

Well despite the overarching hypocrisy I'll be posting with renewed vigor once again (including daily updates on the state of Mr. Glove).

Photo Shoot

Man do I love messing around with Macro Lenses.

The work table.

Here's a quick look of just some random old and new sculptures I have lying around on the shop table... It's a bit messy at the moment...

Glove and Death

Oh that foolish and terrible "zac" (and do not deign that my lack of capitalization is an accident) thinks I am incapable of autonomous movement! I am capable of such and much more. Allow me, dear reader, to relate my harrowing tale and the sad state of affairs which has brought me mysteriously back to the place I started:

You see, dear reader, my fanciful journey began along the humble roadway known as Route 17 in the north western quadrant of southern New York (two hours north of Manhattan). I was being ferried carelessly from my home on "zac's" shop table to some sort of outing, some field work or what have you, I'm not really sure where we were going but I'd heard it involved bagels and large steel mailbox and I will say no more (the mere thought is unnerving). Whilst on this journey, sitting in the back of that horrid pickup truck I decided to make my daring escape. You see I noticed a large passenger van just behind us with Colorado plates and with that in my sights I caught a slip stream with just enough gust to carry me into the open side window of the van. From there I remained hidden inside the van until our arrival in Boulder Colorado.

While In Boulder Colorado I managed to spend a little time at UC Boulder, eventually meandering my way through the sea of litigations which buffer the admissions process and became a full matriculated student. During the time spent there I received my undergraduate in literature and quickly was invited to become an adjunct teacher for a semester. During which time I taught a class entitled "Life's a bitch and then you die" which actually focused on the pains of the afterlife (Dante's Inferno was the course's foundation).

Eventually, mid semester to be exact, I was accidentally placed in the briefcase of a traveling Evangelical who preached the Gospel of Trebufette the Blind Ox-boy to Carni and Circus folk at various locales along the Mississippi river. I found the mans sermons to be ridiculously abstruse and riddled with holes but the tenants upon which it was founded were imbued with rich moral fiber of which I heartily approved.

However I could no longer stand the man's countenance and was forced to again derail my path. I managed to get caught up with a group of New York bound Hop-heads who were intent on stopping at every rave and music venue they could find. Eventually these bewildered maniacs made it the state of Ohio where they were (rightfully/thankfully) arrested for possession of narcotics. The state trooper in charge realizing that I was a helpless captive took me into his own possession. He was going to, I assumed, restore me back onto my journey in a manner befitting a man of the law... I, of course, assumed incorrectly. You see instead of sending me off somewhere he simply placed me atop a beer bottle which sat on the rail of wooden fence at the edge of a vast field and began to slowly walk away from me. I simply thought that this was some strange way of releasing me into the wild. When he reached about 200 paces, however, he stopped walking and turned around and drew a large police issue Magnum revolver and began to slowly set up for the shot. It was at this moment that I realized that this man was not a member of the standard American police-force, but rather a symbolic figure of death brought down to restore the cycle of my torment and misery. He fired the trigger and everything went black.

You see, dear reader, I assumed that was the end, just as you likely did. Much to my dismay I was not greeted by a host of scantily clad angels or a divine garden or pearly gates atop a sea of clouds or anything of the sort. In fact I was treated to what felt like a single nights restful sleep and upon re-entering the world, I was back hanging on the wall at that very same welding supply store where my naive eyes first looked upon my hated captor, that awful "zac". And whom do you think the first face I would see is... none other than he. And I tell you, I had never before believed in the Law of Infinite Returns, nor understood it's precepts, I tell you that now it as clear as day to me. And this is my cycle of infinite returns, this is my 7th circle of Dante's inferno, my recurring nightmare, my terrible fate.

-Glove

It's better to have a glove thats lost, than to never have gloves at all.

It's been three days now and my glove has not turned up. I was fairly confident that the glove itself was incapable of autonomous movement, however I am thoroughly mystified as to how it could have disappeared. You see I may toss him errantly around in the shop leaving him on Clifford (my welding machine) or on the floor or on a chair, but he always turns up. I really am at a loss here people... I've been using one of the multitude of other disheveled gloves lying around, but it's just not the same. I still cling to the hope that he will return, and until he does I will leave a candle burning in the window of my blog.

Here's a picture of what I made today for my buddy Larry:

The Playlist

While I'm listing things I might as well get into music, because music is a quintessential part of everything I do. It's hard to be in a bad mood when listening to light bubbly reggae and it's hard to be unproductive while listening to some base-heavy old punk song. So in tandem with my recent list of books, I will now issue a list of my top six songs/artists/albums and their associated work mode/mood altering tendency.

1. Mozart - Well I gotta start this list off with the classic of classics. Inspirational, productive, whatever he's always a good choice.

2. Offspring (Smash) - Now I've been a fan of Offspring since I was like 10 years old and I still really thoroughly enjoy them. I'm not talking about anything they've done post 1996, the old stuff is what does it for me. If I have to weld or grind or do some single task for a long time, I blast some old offspring and power right through it.

3. Tom Waits - If I need some deep intellectual inner thinking I'll turn to this moody bastard. Of course he can be depressing and dower but damn if he doesn't bring out the rawest and most human qualities in his music. Good for the figuring out process.

4. The Amelie soundtrack by Yann Tierson - Okay so if I'm ever getting on a roll and stuff is starting to flow I'll throw this on. It makes everything feel so epic and climactic and beautiful that working to it makes me feel like a conductor in a scrap-metal orchestra (see also my entire dumpster divers sculpture which was built primarily to this soundtrack).

5. Steel Pulse or Black Uhuru - These are just two of my recent favorites, but if I want good vibes and a relaxed atmosphere to get through the tedium of difficult work, I'll put on either one of these guys or just one extensive reggae mix to zone-out to (but not too zoned out, just enough to get the job done in a calm and easy way).

6. Heart it Races as played by Dr. Dog - This song, originally by Architecture in Helsinki (not personally too familiar with them) has grown to be my current favorite and I often find myself starting or ending (or both) my day with this track. The pure energy that pulses through this song makes it a great track to get the ball rolling.

Thats all for now.

Mr. Glove will be on to complain shortly

-Z

Ten most influential books

Alright you've all gotten well acquainted with Mr.Glove , and I have a feeling he'll be making his presence known regularly throughout the summer, but that doesn't mean that I am not going to post anymore... so without further ado:

A couple months ago I read about a popular trend amongst bloggers to post their 10 most influential books in chronological gut-feeling based order... So I will do just that.

1. Where the Wild things are - Well I don't remember my exact reactions to the book, but I do remember that this was my favorite book read to me as a child and definitely plots a course that I've maintained (both in the books I've read and in the work I've created). So here's my earliest nod to the world of monsters and fantasy.

2. Grunts - Maybe I'm jumping ahead here and skipping over like 8 years or so of constant fantasy novel reading, but I gotta be somewhat discerning about this list. Grunts, written by Mary Gentle (a purposely ironic pen-name I'm guessing), is the tale of a group of inherently evil Orcs who stumble upon a cache of Guns and Ammunition and begin to wreak havoc on elves and sprites and other fairytale creatures. It's replete with gore, violence and sarcasm; I loved it.

3. Brave New World - (Written by Aldous Huxley) Another couple year jump ahead in time, my first dance with the Distopia genre; a genre which I would grow to love and devour. Maybe it wasn't my single favorite distopic story, but it was damn close and it set the pace.

4. Discworld novels and a Hitchhikers guide to the Galaxy - okay so I'm condensing and combining a lot in this one. Discworld novels by Terry Pratchette are fantastically well written comedic stories which take place in a phantasmagorical world which rests on the back of four elephants who stand atop a turtle who is floating through outer-space; I must have read ten or fifteen of these. Similarly Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy is probably one of the funniest and most brilliant takes on a futuristic sci-fi ever written, and I doubt anyone will argue that point.

5. Choke - Chuck Palanhiuk's book about Sexaholism is sick, disturbing, grotesque, strange, stylish, funny and brilliant all rolled into one. It was also my real first non-sci-fi/fantasy novel that I read for something other than a school assignment. I went on to read most everything he wrote and enjoyed a good 80-90% of it.

6. Stranger in a Strange Land - This tale of a superhuman born on mars with the ability to see and in hear in a completely different and transcendent way, felt more like a book of beautiful philosophy than it did like a futuristic sci-fi. But I enjoyed both aspects immensely.

7. Atlas Shrugged - Well, yeah, I did the Ayn Rand thing and I read em both (Fountainhead first) and I'm not gonna lie, I really enjoyed them. Opinions of the late Mrs. Rand aside, the book is a stellar read and when you look at objectivism in very simplistic terms and ignore the inhumanity of it, well then you have very driving and motivational concept.

8. Blue Beard - I really have a lot of trouble picking one Kurt Vonnegut novel, but Blue Beard does still reign as my favorite. Kurt Vonnegut waxing, well... Vonnegut, about the Art Expressionists movement is right up my ally. But I can't dwell on that novel; Vonnegut's humanist conceptions and curmudgeonly ramblings have grown to be a great treasures which I store somewhere in the depths of my brain or, as he would call it: my two and a half pounds of dog-food.

9. The Wild Sheep Chase - Picking my favorite Haruki Murakami novel is even harder than picking my favorite Vonnegut. His inimitable style is so spiritual and ephemeral that all of his books have sort of melted together to create a strange surreal fabric... it's hard to explain, sort of like any one of the novel's he's written. The Wild Sheep Chase, though not as in depth as Kafka on the Shore or The Wind Up Bird Chronicles was my introduction to his poetic nature and I have been a huge fan ever since.

10. Infinite Jest - What can I say about this epic novel by David Foster Wallace... I dunno. It's unquantifiable. It's like life.... only.... with a (useful) appendix. Undoubtedly the greatest novel I ever read, but I still will not recommend it to anyone.

11th runner up : Voltaire's Candide because he's right "We must cultivate our gardens"

notable mentions: Dostoyevsky's The Brothers Karamazov, Milan Kundera's Unbearable Lightness of being, Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian, Dave Eggar's Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, Cervantes' Don Quixote (I really should have figured out how to get this one in there), Goerge Orwell's 1984

I'm sure I'm forgetting stuff

-Zac

Glove me tender.

Okay so I was blessed with a brief respite because "Zac" had a "shoulder injury". Oh the poor guy hurt himself doing one too many push-ups or something (like I give a shit, nobody cares about how I'm feeling) so he took a nice and easy couple days off (pussy). But today, he started up again, same deal: putting me on all types of hot pieces of metal and watching as my seams fray and my leather blackens (I think he gets some sort of sick pleasure out of this). At one point he took his hand out because it was burning inside... okay lets analyze this: if his hand is burning on the inside than imagine how it is for me on the outside. It's ridiculous! Look at me! Two days of work and I'm barely holding together. I don't know how much more of this I have in me.

Oh what a cruel destiny fate has chosen for me.

-G

Glove Hurts

Okay, let me make clear a change of tone from yesterday; that post was written by a glove who knew not what was coming. You see I was all excited, I thought "Hey! I'm getting out of this boring old store" and believe me I figured anything was better than hanging around on a wall all day and night, boy was I wrong.

I finished my first day working on the hands of this "Zac" person and I'm going to say right now, right off the bat, I don't like him. Don't get me wrong, he might make some real nice artwork... but he has no regard for his gloves (not just me either, there was veritable graveyard of incapacitated gloves lying around ). He treated me as if I have no feelings at all. Yesterday was my first day on the job, you'd think he'd go easy, gimme a pep talk or something. But no, he just starts welding away. And at first I'm like "hey this isn't so bad" I could see there being a Zen to this.... but then it just keeps going and going. And the heat! My goodness. I mean it ripped a hole in my chest simply from proximity! And thats another thing about this "Zac" fellow he constantly puts me directly on the hot steel! He doesn't even have the regard to dip his work in water or at least wait for it too cool down!! He just keeps it hot and just uses me as shield against the heat, can you believe that?! He just holds me in front of the hot weld flame, so the heat doesn't get to his ungloved right hand! I mean look at me; I'm coming apart at the seems and thats only after day one!

Maybe that was all just some cruel initiation and tomorrow will be an ice cream party...

.... I Hope.

-G

Glove stories.

Hello everybody I'm Zac's glove and I'm happy to say I'll be joining Zac both here on this blog as well as in the shop. So this is me just kinda signing in and saying hi and getting myself acquainted with blog format. I also just want to say that I'm real excited to be working with Zac on all of his exciting endeavors and doing whatever I can to help. I really don't know too much about metal work to be honest but I'm always up to learn new things!

Alright well, you'll be hearing regular updates from me soon.

-G

Mother Nature has a temper.

I think it's time we as human's take stock. That's right count all your ducks and set them in a row, because the earth, well, in my estimation, she aint' too happy these days. We've been on a tear for way too long, destroying and destroying and destroying our precious terra-firma. And surprise surprise, this entity thats billions of years older than us is starting get really fed up with these little mites on it's surface who keep trying their damnedest to chew up everything good she's got to offer. So maybe the volcano in Iceland wasn't the worst disaster of all time, maybe it's just a warning shot, a little wake up call or what have you. She's just letting us know, that the earths got weaponry that no nuclear bombs can fight, it's armed to the gills with some serious firepower, it's got fire, it's got ice, it's got lightning, it's got earthquakes, tidal waves, winds, you name it she can fuck you up with it. I mean we've all seen the day after tomorrow, despite being a pretty boring movie, it does depict some truly pressing and terrifying imagery (if you haven't, it's about what happens when the earth recedes into another ice age), and what it depicts is not pure fantasy, rather just a possible variant of what this world could lapse into if we don't treat it properly. So take stock.

New work

Another Dirge for another social network...

Twitter oh twitter

you're so very lame

the reason I use you

I just can't explain

Twitter oh twitter

it's all quite the same

your meeps and your tweets

are simply a pain

Twitter oh twitter

I just can't refrain

to post and to post

to bitch and complain

Twitter oh twitter

I constantly strain

to be heard by the world

but it all seems in vain

Twitter oh twitter

I try to maintain

the one-forty limit

but it's so hard to contain

Twitter oh twitter

I've boarded your train

but its only in hopes

of profit and gain

Twitter oh tiwitter

it seems your fates in the drain

and it was going so well

until the new ad campaign.

Twitter oh twitter

you'll soon fall like rain

go the way of the Dodo

and end up like Kurt Cobain

When I grow up I want to be an explosion.

I remember when I used to say... "When I grow up I'm gonna be an Artist" or astronaut or whatever. The point is I've come to the realization that there is no actual growing up. We are always who we are, just at different stages of saturation. I've always been an artist and I'd have to say that the purity with which I made art has only been tarnished by my years on this planet. My purest artistry came from wide eyed youth, the art of not knowing any better. I'm still just as much a kid today as I was in elementary school, only now I've soaked up a lot more superfluous knowledge and come up with all kinds of different strange conundrums and conflicting viewpoints about the relevance of my existence and my profession. I do not feel that youth is part and parcel to the ignorance it is often associated with, rather it is a sort of uncorrupted purity which in many ways supersedes intelligence.

Maybe I'm just too corrupted to get my point across without drudging up a condescending psuedo-sophisticant side of myself that only exists in these heavy pontifications and is comprised of words like "psuedo-" and "pontifications" and "comprised"

oh well.

What a handsome young man, and did you see what a cool T-shirt he was wearing?

T-shirts available now. Limited stock per size.

17 per shirt (20 if I don't have change).

Available at SUNY Purchase's Culture Shock festival this coming weekend

Contact me if your interested: zac@zacmax.com

Facebook oh facebook.

Facebook oh facebook your sweeping the nation,

from people complaining to proud remonstrations.

facebook oh facebook your deceiving the nation,

my fan page has a wall, but no insulation.

facebook oh facebook your eating the nation,

as well as the soul of my so called generation.

facebook oh facebook your leaving the nation,

my attention spans short, so I'm changing the station.

shirt-change.

Ok I know I said I was gonna do the oversized print with lots of crazy images... but i turns out the guy who I'm using for my printing can't go that big with the design, so to start off I'm going with 50 of the shirt above.

They will be available this coming thursday and I'll have a bunch for sale at Culture Shock taking place at Suny Purchase. Get at me if you want one.

God bless america... quickly.

Let me start by saying that I don't have television. That doesn't mean I don't enjoy sitting down and watching T.V., only that I've made a conscious decision not to have T.V. because I know how quickly and easily it can suck you in and sap your productivity; also I have a very short attention span and I can't deal with commercials (or most of the programming for that matter). Now don't get me wrong, I'm not some adamant anti-television type, in fact television can be access to a world of highly informative and entertaining..... sorry.. I'm having a little trouble writing this at the moment because I'm currently watching Mythbusters (at someone else's house)... what was I saying? Oh right T.V. can be great, its got a lot to offer, such as shows like Mythbusters and that latest installment to the planet earth series, Life... but as a whole its so riddled with contradictions that its hard to bear, yet no one seems to notice.

I mean lets simply start with Mythbusters, now its not purporting to be a specifically wholesome show, but it is indeed educational, except now they've added a secondary team which is comprised of fairly characterless characters, one of whom is the standard attractive girl, all of whom are obsessed with blowing stuff up and inane use of powerful weaponry. Alright thats not too much of a strike against the show, I like beautiful women as much as the next guy and explosions are indeed cool. So maybe thats a bad example. How about Ax Men or Ice Road Truckers or Deadliest Catch (and I'm just picking on discovery at the moment)... I mean the shows are about average Americans with tough jobs who are doing some real crazy stuff; fulfilling a need, no shame in that... But these shows are about deforestation, raping the ocean, and putting in pipelines to harvest the fossil fuels which we are so quickly and frivolously depleting. There are two sides to every coin; shows about the interesting lives of people who are simple doing a job that needs to be done are also depicting whats wrong with the way we treat the earth... and these are the good shows. These are the shows I watch if I'm at a television, shows that, despite the hypocrisy I'm claiming to see so blatantly, I still enjoy.

The real problem is that Television is more than just a simple thing: it's a mass media. It generates a thought process thats filtered through multiple millions of people, and so much of what is filtered through is pure garbage, not just that little bit of hypocrisy with some human interest attached. Half of television is commercials, commercials for McDonalds and Taco Bell, commercials for prescription drugs to keep you alive and addicted, commercials for insurance, commercials for useless products, propaganda, whatever. Allowing these things to resonate in our skulls is like signing up for mind control. I don't have T.V. and yet I still know the phone number for Nation Wide Warehouse; I feel like I've lost some sort of battle against an enemy I didn't even know existed.

And don't get me started on Reality T.V.

T-shirt results!

So it looks like number 7 is the most popular followed by numbers 4, 8, and 10.

So here's what I'm going to do: Since I'm not exactly swimming in the dinero at the moment I'm going to start with a limited run of number seven. 50 shirts total, all different sizes, 40 of them will be the standard black on white and ten of them will be red on black (and of course a green one for myself).

The white shirts are 17$ the black ones are 18$ and shipping is extra.

Get em while you can. Shirts arrive in a couple weeks.

This is the finished, tweaked and signed version.

The interim...

People really just don't appreciate negative space anymore

-Michael Owen Jones

So since I've returned from California I've been kind of bored. I'm working on house renovations and doing this T-shirt thing... but neither of those things seems to be all that consuming. In fact the T-shirt thing I just came up with because I needed something to do and maybe I could raise some money (though a limited run of a couple T-shirts is about as far from a get rich quick scheme as it gets). The weather is still sporadically shitty and I'm still fairly cooped up in my rural locale; a cause for much turmoil. Add to that the highly limited social life of being in a place where very few college educated 20 somethings want to be. Of course things will pick up as the soggy countryside dries out; like when I start playing soccer with the Spanish speaking chicken and duck farmers; and when I finally get back to work! But at the moment it's still just me aimlessly perusing social medias... editing things on photoshop... occasionally going on a run... watching old movies... trying to get through War and Peace.... and not much else. It's pretty rough.

As a metal sculptor the work season is fairly grueling. The work isn't easy, it's demanding, it's unhealthy, and most of all it's all consuming. I haven't really made anything in like two months and it's really getting under my skin. Of course once the intense metal work begins I generally look forward to a nice long respite period that comes with finishing some sculpture or another. The human condition is a bitch. But in actuality I'm happiest when I have burn marks all up my arms, when my fingers are all calloused and raw, when my face is smeared with dirt and my forehead has the impression left by the overtightened welding shield. And sure I complain and I moan about how tough and how much work I have to do, but it's only natural (everyones a martyr right).

I think the real judge of (artistic) character is not how well one maintains when the work is flowing in and things are busy, but how resolutely they deal with the interim periods, the negative space.

TRL (t-shirt request live) and my take on Hazel Dooney

As per usual: forgive my stupid entry-naming-tendency.

So Recently I've been reading the blog of Hazel Dooney ( hazeldooney.blogspot.com ) and I must say, it's quite interesting. The woman is a psuedo-celbrity-artist with an often embittered take on the overall mechanics behind the art world. Reading her blog has been kind of similar to watching those variably happy and depressing movies about famous artists which I love so much, except with an extra focus on economics. As for her artwork, for the most part, I'm not particularly excited (though there are some of her sketches which I do enjoy thoroughly), however I am also of the philosophy that my personal opinion has the same resonance as the buzzing of a fly . In any case her artwork is not the issue, it's what she has to say and how well she says it, that really got me thinking.

What really impresses me about this Hazel character is that she has no qualms about saying anything and everything and putting it out the world (not to mention she does it oh so elegantly) . Maybe it has to do with having reached a certain level of fame where people tend to hang more thoroughly on every-word you say, but whatever the reason may be, this ability is quite impressive to me. There is an unbearable amount of information circulating within the reach of our fingertips and to give unfettered accounts of ones personal thought process, placing it tangibly in the ether, is well... it's scary. I know I can't really do it.

There is much more I could say about all this but Brevity is the word of the moment.

Hazel I tip my hat to you.

Anyway, a couple people have asked for redesigned shirts and though I didn't follow every suggestion to the letter I did mess around a bit and I decided that these two additions were worth posting :

lets call it 13.

and 14.

The T-shirt Designs (part 2)

So the following post is a semi-comprehensive list of the T-shirt ideas and designs I plan on working with. What I need to do now is narrow down the playing field and decide between three designs which I want to further pursue. I will be printing three shirts.... at what quantity I'm not sure... two of them will definitely be black and white and I may consider doing the third one in color. But first I have to decide on the designs. So to help decide which shirts I will print I'm asking anyone who sees this to vote on which design(s) you like the best.

Hooray for Democracy!

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

The first run of real T-shirt Designs

A few more roughed out t-shirt ideas.

more to come soon.

Zac Shavrick sings the hits.

Not really.

But I've decided to make a post about some phenomenal things which have come out of the movie and music industry, which may not be entirely recognized (well maybe some are and some aren't). I rarely spend much time putting down my thoughts on pop culture or music or movies, though in reality they are as ever present in my life as they are in everyone else's (I just have trouble admitting it).

First on my list is Andrew Bird. Though he is in no way obscure and is selling out concert halls world wide, I still place him at the top of my list. Mr. Bird is an anomaly in our generation of one sided and narrowly focused musicians. On top of a melodious voice, incredible whistling ability, virtuosic violin playing, not to mention adept handling of 5 or 6 other instruments he's also an inspiring song writer. Watching him perform live is like watching a great painter tackle a blank canvas, he plays a part of the song, loops it, then plays the next part on a different instrument; allowing you to watch him layer and create each of his compositions.

Next I will have to mention Paolo Nutini, the 20 year old scottish singer. Now he may not be as well rounded as Mr. Bird, but he packs quite a voice, in fact it's disturbingly good. Though not all his songs are amazing (and I will attribute that to age) the song Coming Up Easy is both lyrically beautifully and a showcase of this young mans talent.

As for the Movie industry, well I haven't had a chance to go out and see too many movies, but The Coen Brothers': A Serious Man quickly lodged itself high in my top 10 all time movies list.

I've lately been watching those movies about famous dead artists, and I must say; they are some of the most fascinating, intense and usually depressing movies you will ever see. It definitely worries me that the movies based on the careers of every great artists are so dower, but they are all similarly imbued with a spark of life that they cant be overlooked. I would have to say my favorites are: Rembrandt, The Horses Mouth (fictional), Lust for Life (Van Gogh) and Moulan Rouge (Toulouse lautrec).

Oh and Akira Kurisawa films, I can watch those all day (my favorite being RAN)!

...

I guess that wasn't very Pop, but it was fairly cultural.

go watch Paolo Nutini : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIQ2Rxh1k9Y