I was asked to be a part of the Penmanship show at Vox Populi, something curated by the very talented Grayhood, Mikey Burton, & Elysse Ricci, which was subsequently a kick off to the Design Philadelphia week, which I also had the chance to do some posters for. Needless to say, I was excited to be a part of the excitement!
The theme for this show was “penmanship”, and one of the only things I had to work from was this quote:
“A man’s penmanship is an unfailing index of his character, moral and mental, and a criterion by which to judge his peculiarities of taste and sentiments.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, Man of Letters
Because of the freedom and looseness to the theme, it left me at a loss for quite a bit. I sketched and sketched which sadly only resulted in failing ideas. I finally revisited the quote and looked outside of the quotations for some inspiration. I imagined what it would be like if there was a club or society called “Men Of Letters.” This took me in a new direction and it brought me to where I ended up. I wanted it to be representative of the act of making lines to form the letters of the alphabet, but also then the idea of taking those letters to form words, and those words to compose letters that you send in the mail.
It was really beautiful to see all the posters hanging together, knowing everyone put some serious thought into how they would represent this idea. For having some many designers take part in this, there was an obvious variety to the work, but also and impressively, a synthesis to everything. The show will be up until the 23rd, and I strongly suggest trying to make it out. I’m also hearing rumors of a closing show??? I’ll let you know if that’s happening. Probably though twitter.
It was also awesome to finally meet some people who’s work I’ve been following and admiring for some time and find out that they are regular people. Okay, some are super humans. But they still occasionally participate in some normal human activities.
(Photo courtesy of Jim Viola.)
When Did You Choose To Be Straight?
Two nights ago I got into a fight on Facebook. Not something I’d normally be proud of (necessarily
), but it was one of those instances where you are unable to hold back and you know you are signing yourself off for a night of back and forth arguing. I’m sure you can tell the nature of the argument by looking at the poster, but if it’s unclear, a girl was claiming that people aren’t born gay, that it’s a choice you make, and on top of it all, it’s wrong.
The fact that people believe this is appalling to me, and so for better or worse I entered into what became a huge debate between me and some future members of the Westboro baptist church. I don’t know if it got anywhere (arguments online rarely do) but I felt glad that I stood up against something I believed was absolutely wrong. My final input to this 80 plus comment bomb, was a single line informing her that I was deleting her as a friend.
You’re not going to talk much sense into people like this, they’re too caught up in their own twisted belief, but one question that no one cared to answer was the one on the poster above. It seems simple enough to answer… or not. But in its unanswerable quality, you kind of see where I’m going with it.
So a few things… I hope you’ve all remembered to wear purple today, it’s a seemingly small action, but anything raising awareness is not only important, but integral. Secondly, be brave in confronting people, standing up for what you believe, and do not be afraid to take the leap and delete anyone on facebook who is holding onto these ideas of hate and homophobia. You’re better off without them.
I’m beyond looking for tolerance and am looking for complete equality and acceptance.
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Tagged as 10/20/2010, acceptance, art, church, comment, design, equality, facebook, fight, gay, gay pride, graphic, homosexual, lesbian, LGBTQ, matt goold, new jersey, Nom Now, october 20th, Poster, purple, spirit day, straight, tolerance, wear purple day, westboro baptist church, when did you choose to be straight?