visitordesign.com | sitemap

homepage : entry to visitordesign.com, presently structured to focus on the FORE by visitor picture dictionary / poetry / illustration / stencil folio project
fore sight : photo-based grid of each of the pages of the laser-cut stencil edition of FORE by visitor. rollovers show each of the pages atop a black ground
fore sale : online store for purchasing the handpainted edition of 100 copies of FORE by visitor, the laser-cut stencil edition and the FORE by visitor posters (edition of 500, series of 4) all signed and numbered
fore words : text describing the FORE by visitor process and project
fore tune : quicktime movie slideshow of the handpainted edition of FORE by visitor - this movie is compatible with the iphone
support subversion protest magnetic ribbons : anti-war versions of the yellow and red white and blue magnetic ribbons so prevalent on gas guzzling death machines in america. i made these in november 2004.
shelflife : my blog--half portfolio/half objects i've collected from others
protest records : my antiwar / protest music archive project / collaboration with thurston moore of sonic youth. site features mp3s from numerous artists as well as downloadable stencil illustrations that i've drawn.

FORE by visitor | PROJECT

FORE is a collection of 14 years worth of image/ word associations--original stencil illustrations coupled with four-letter words. The pairings range from the pedantic and apparent to the obtusely personal--nodding to pop culture, politics and adolescent vulgarity. Collectively, these illustrations and text form FORE--an invitation to vandalism and creativity masquerading as a 26-word homage to 21st century youth that moonlights as a picture dictionary trying to make it as a handmade artist book.

FORE capitalizes on an unreasonable 21st century expectation for the fast-food packaging and commodification of everything. FORE caters to consumer culture's compulsion to "collect" as a bid to buy into exclusivity. Stenciling--an expression that once, by its very nature, invited and inspired propagation via counterfeiting--has become a commodity to be captured, tagged, authenticated and sold to the loft with the fattest wallet. Why bother with concepts, sketches and razor-worn fingertips when you can just flip thru FORE, undo a couple of snap-rings, compose some pre-fabricated ideas and apathetically soak your composition with spray paint. It's all of the creative rush with none of the messy process. FORE is graffiti's Hallmark greeting card.

Less cynically, FORE is an experiment in democratic design. Who needs a 3 dollar shirt or bag stained with ten cents worth of someone else's ink for $40 when you can get 26 designs with which to customize whatever you have around for the price of two mass-produced $40 shirts? Underdeveloped drafting skills or a lack of studio space shouldn't impede production. FORE is an invitation to tools. It's a conduit for the crossover from consumption to creation.

Collect it or exploit it. Exploiting FORE defies its collectivity and collecting it stifles its exploitability. Exploiting FORE creatively ensures its eventual deterioration as an object. It wears, rips, frays and stains like most other tools. Its destruction becomes an artifact of the personality of its owner. Pampered as an object and untouched by paint or pens, FORE persists as a signed and numbered picture dictionary, but that existence too becomes a telling mirror of its owner.

FORE by visitor | PROCESS

FORE existed initially as an alphabetized poem of four-letter words. Ink drawings were then created to evoke associations with each word of the poem. The drawings were re-engineered as stencils and combined with type to suggest picture dictionary pages. Stencil typefaces were created to reflect the collective aesthetic of the illustrations.

Each page of FORE underwent round-after-round of editing with razor blades, mylar and tape before stencils were achieved which could both exist as relatively complex works of detail and still prove conducive to production and repeated handling. Eventually, the designs were converted to digital files for further enhancement. Ultimately, each page was defined as a graphic that could be electronically transferred to first a knife plotter for production prototyping and then to a laser for self-publishing and production.

Each page is cut. The pieces comprising the negative space of the stencils are manually removed. The pages are collated and bound with snap-rings. A slipcase is laser-cut and constructed by hand. A slip sheet of black construction paper is laser-etched with instructional text and cut to size. The slip sheet is placed atop the bound book. The book is slipped into the slipcase and a copy of FORE is born. Each book is an intensely demanding exercise in self-publishing.