HEY APATHY! Alternative Comics
I spent the fall and early winter of 2007 preparing for a large scale drawing installation. The show opened on the first of December and ran for an entire month at the Resistor Gallery on College Street, Toronto. The new years cold month were spent at the Kensington Market studio producing a series of 3 extended and extremely intricate pen and ink drawings. I returned to the street for my last full time season during the late May of 2008. In this my final year I had mastered my performances. I had overcome territorial battles, imitators, city by-laws and perfected my display. However despite conquering many of the streets obstacles there was one battle which could not be won. The 2008 street season proved to be one of the most gruelling of all as Toronto was swamped with unseasonably wet weather.
Last Street Drawing The Corner of Queen West & Soho
Though it was my practice to produce smaller detailed drawings during the week cumulating with weekend performance extravaganza’s the was not a single live painting produced on the streets in 08. The warm weather came late after a harsh and cold winter and was dampened by constant thunder storms and rain. In fact it actually rained every single Saturday and almost every Sunday for the entire spring and summer that year preventing all my public painting. The weekdays weren’t much better as I found myself perpetually closing up shop midday to avoid being drenched. Business was great when it was sunny but the clouds were relentless. A picturesque example of my street art that year is the image of me and two customers trapped under my umbrella waiting for the storm to pass so we can close the sale. I produced approximately 30 15 x 30 “ detailed pen and ink studies including my last street drawing depicting the landscape around me. Frustrated by the rainfall I found the season more contemplative than progressive and decidedly started illustrations regarding my evolutionary course. The diptychs explored comparative imagery of similar landscapes drawn in my initial hieroglyphic style and my more modern comic book renderings respectively. There were not many crowds and nor live paintings in the streets and having done some final analysis’ I decided it was time to move on.
CITY OF GEARS from a far and from inside.
Fortunately and fatefully cosmic at the same time I as the streets were fading I received three invitations to work at gala events. I painted at a huge fundraiser at the Don Valley Brick Works and at a Queen West Gallery Event, followed by a commissioned clothing design for the Art Gallery of Ontario and a performance in the storefront window of Toronto’s Hudson’s Bay Company Store. All the cards were lining up for me to move on as I found my street art exhibits landing in the most unusual of places. While the outdoors grew less friendly and workable due to the poor weather, many new doors were opening up and welcoming me inside.
The City Fish! HEY APATHY ink drawings 2008
I had expended much energy trying to work around the awful weather and found that my time was more fully consumed by this irritation than by the act of creation. I stopped working the streets in Sept of 08 though the transition was as natural as necessary as I’d already spent the better part of the season indoors. Feeling satisfied with my investigations I resided to start focussing on certain more detailed and sustained projects which could not be made in the streets. Not only did the rain dictate the amount of work being made but so to did the wind, dirt, and bird droppings which often plagued the streets. The life span of an illustration board being worked on in public is approximately three days. After this time the dust and moisture begins to take it’s toll. The tree I depended on for shade and shelter from the elements also had a tendency of releasing particles of sap across my papers. Therefore any drawing had to be completed quit quickly so as to be wrapped protectively under plastic before the streets ruined the piece. This meant no sustained artworks and absolutely no comics for such projects require pristine environments for production.The rain also played a huge part in determining the work for if the skies looked threatening I had to work on a small scale. No brushes or wet inks could be used on such days and as a result I worked exclusively with technical pens through out 2008.
In the fall I resigned and retired from my full time venture in the streets and decided to pursue the development of the HEY APATHY! comics. Having learned many things about architecture and others I set up my studio to start my surreal memoirs. The new comic book series would be a simultaneous exploration of my true life experiences and the mythological illustrations I created on the streets. The goal being to share my experiences of strange interactions with my sociological symbolic superhero drawings. Even though I was now well researched and certain that I’d learnt all I could from the public venue, I knew that I would miss the constant exchange of ideas so I started to plan ahead. Instead of working the streets I started booking a number of public festivals ensuring that I would perform at least once a month throughout the following year. Today I am still working at numerous festivals while simultaneously maintaining a ridged studio schedule. The result has been more comics and animations but no of the stories could have possibly sprouted with out the 5 years worth of investigative interventions which I performed in the streets.
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