My life couldn’t fill a penny post card - Andy Warhol

The quote “my life couldn’t fill a penny post card” was written by a 21-year-old Andy Warhol in response to a magazine request for biographical information. The year was 1949 and Andy Warhol’s rise to cultural fame was only just beginning. The full note is show below. The original may be found here and a transcript can be read here.

The quote, as I have presented it, is intended for large format printing. I have sought to perserve the handwriting characteristics while offering a clean presentation beyond simple enlargement. At near full resolution, the image appears like the capture below.

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Don’t do it for anyone else - Keith Haring

Artist and social activist Keith Haring is best known for his 1980s pop-art that began with chalk drawings in the subways of New York City. By the end of the decade he was internationally renown for his work. 

The quote above was written circa-1987 in a note to a fan and aspiring artist. The full letter can be found here.

The quote, as I have presented it, is intended for large format printing. I have sought to perserve the handwriting characteristics while offering a clean presentation beyond simple enlargement. At near full resolution, the image appears like the capture below.

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Flight is possible to man - Wilbur Wright

“Flight is a possible to man” is a quote from Wilbur Wright written on May 13, 1900. Wilbur along with his brother Orville are credited with building the first airplane.

The handwritten text is sourced from a letter Wilbur Wright wrote to renowned engineer Octave Chanute outlining their future plans for flight and seeking guidance. The original five page letter can be found here and a full transcript can be found here.

The quote, as I have presented it, is intended for large format printing. I have sought to perserve the handwriting characteristics while offering a clean presentation beyond simple enlargement. At near full resolution, the image appears like the capture below.

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The Handwritten Word

- Wilbur Wright, 1900

- Keith Haring, circa-1987

- Andy Warhol, 1949

The handwritten word is dying. Some argue, the pervasiveness of technology will inevitably kill the need to write anything by hand. Time will tell. However, it is clear, as a culture we write less than we once did. 

I think that’s a shame. 

Unlike print, handwritten text transcends the words it uses. It’s personal and unique and it changes. It’s human. Graphologists will tell you a sample of handwriting can reveal a ton about the writer’s circumstance and personality. 

Visually, it can also be simply fascinating to inspect.

That said, I see value in exploring the handwritten word as art.

Initially, I have focused on gathering handwritten, inspirational quotes from well-known or historical figures. Much of my search has occurred on Letters of Note, a fantastic blog of letters, postcards, telegrams, faxes, and memos.

My current approach is to enlarge and graphically simplify a selection of handwritten quotes into large-format prints. More can be seen here and Behance.net.

I’m also experimenting with selling some of the work on Society6.

Reflections

(click the images above for larger resolution)

Kaleidoscope-type imagery has captured my imagination of late. Recently, I’ve seen it in video form accompanying music from artists like Bon Iver and Jay Z/Kanye. It was also a big part of the visuals of the Tycho show I attended a couple weeks back.

Sufficiently inspired, I wanted to see how I could translate this idea to static images.

It probably seems pretty straightforward. Split an image in half, reflect one side over an axis and call it done. Here, however, I hoped to do something more nuanced, to emphasize the geometry of nature, to create depth, and to blur reality.

These images are also available on Behance.net.

Off Belay Magazine

Recently, I became captivated by old climbing photography. I wasn’t able to find much digitally, so I decided to purchase a set of 12 Off Belay issues via eBay.

From what I can gather, Off Belay was a climbing/mountain magazine published from January 1972 to February 1981. Edited and published by Ray Smutek, Off Belay featured articles on everything mountain related from equipment reviews to landscape surveys to full-page photographs. 

I am definitely not a mountain climber, but I think the imagery is fantastic. To me, mountain climbing, whether it be present day or 40 years ago, takes incredible courage. The Off Belay photographs are even more powerful considering the climbing technology available in 1972 was probably rudimentary at best. The photographs feel super old, but the landscapes and the human desire to conquer the terrain are timeless. 

I’ve scanned a handful of the images and posted them on flickr.

The War for Our Attention vs. the Obesity Epidemic

I have this problem. I can’t focus. Or, more specifically, I have trouble focusing for any extended length of time because my smartphone and the Internet distract me. Everyday I struggle to be productive and I feel I am not alone. 

In fact, I see this struggle to maintain focus as a serious and growing cultural issue, a war for our attention. To grasp the scope of this problem, I thought it would be a useful exercise to compare the war for our attention against the American struggle with obesity.

I’ll define the war for our attention as the difficulty to maintain focus and be productive in today’s super connected, forever updating, saturated world of media, information, and data. It’s starting that project or work activity, but abandoning the line of critical thinking to check your email, Facebook, Twitter, etc. 

Similarities

Enormous Scope: According to the CDC, about one third of American adults are obese. Now consider that 81% of Americans use a computer at work and 35% own a smartphone and half of Americans are on Facebook. The potential scope is quite large.

Enormous Cost: Obesity has obvious medical costs that totaled $147 billion in 2008. The cost of a distracted public is less clear, but it’s fair to say our favorite social network or iPhone game is not making us more productive at work.

Initially Ignored: Only after decades of fast food consumption, did the health community determine our culture had a weight problem. I think we are in a similar space now as it pertains to the distracted public. The technological culprits are too new for extensive academic research. Although, diagnoses of childhood ADHD are on the rise.

Notable Differences

Social Stigma: It’s pretty clear when you walk down a sidewalk who is overweight. As comparison, we are surrounded by a perpetual stream of advertising and marketing that reinforces the ideal body type. Unfortunately, you can’t quickly tell by looking at someone whether they can successfully focus for hours at a time. (You can see, however, the idiot who never looks up from his smartphone as he walks.)

Fixing the Problem: Similarly, because many people don’t see being distracted as an abnormality, there is little social pressure to solve the problem. In fact, some, notably college students, think a few Adderall is enough to do the trick. Obesity is a killer, while a scattered mind, not so much.

Finally, I’ll conclude with an important similarity in my mind. For most of us, I think it inevitably boils down to simple choices we make everyday. To eat the cheeseburger or not. To log in or not. Sometimes it just feels out of our control as we are fed more and more content and media. Public awareness of the issue would be good for those who don’t recognize the problem. But, just because you know something is not healthy and unproductive, doesn’t mean you won’t indulge.

Curves/Lines