austin bound

I love the sentiment here. I have been working on an out-of-town project over the past few months that has had me traveling periodically. But no matter where I am, this is always my state of mind, and I am always glad to be austin-bound. Bound for home, the garden, dog & cat, partner, friends, family and everything I love about the city I love.

Of course, it is possible to love the city and not love every aspect of every celebration of it, such as the consistency of form in this stickerloo. This piece is striking in two regards. First, it is the only stickerloo that i have ever encountered that features custom letters made two different ways, not once but twice. The letters n and u are made here different ways each time. The first n is made from the letterform of a stock r and main stroke of a stock a. Although this is an innovative approach, I do not believe that a letter 'n' in this font would have the same spur that the 'a' has. The second n is much simpler, constructed merely by lopping the bottom of an 'o' off with some blue. I find this approach to be rather comical. The 'u's here are made first with lopping off the top of an 'o', and then by lopping off the top of a 'd.'

The second point of interest about this stickerloo: the liberal use of the letter 'o'. I have never encountered a stickerloo wherein the creator used the 'o' to fashion three different new letters: u, b, n. The b here is the most convincing of these efforts. Overall this stickerloo represents a strong effort, its letterform multiple personality disorder notwithstanding. The piece starts out with a relatively strong effort to maintain a convincing baseline, at least in the first word, but by the end the artist appears to have lost his or her nerve. This is evidence that while stickerloo is an appealing artform that appears to be accessible on its surface, it is appropriate neither for the weak of hand nor the weak of heart.

Thanks to Bill Norris for collecting this specimen, outside of Houndstooth Coffee in the ATX

drooler

Drooler was sent to me by my associate Addie Broyles. As with all endangered arts, it is important to preserve as many specimens as possible, and I congratulate Addie for recognizing the significance of stickerloo and its crucial role in Austin's fine arts traditions.

This item is rather typical of what you see in the bumper galleries of Austin--it is not that this piece is shamefully poor so much as it is just not particularly inspired, nor was it challenging to produce. I do however find the subject matter amusing and touching personally, being a notorious drooler of diluvial proportions myself. This is a stickerloo after my own heart.

The primary observation I would like to make about this piece is that it is the first we have examined that is in the Slice & Splice style of stickerloo, in which the entire letter is sliced from the sticker with its top and bottom borders in tact. This requires an incredible amount of dexterity on behalf of the artist, who must match up these borders precisely when reassembling the sticker. No such precision is evident here, but this is not to hugely discredit this artisan, because the challenge at hand is truly an immense one. Due to printing inconsistencies, and indeed to the flexible nature of the material, it is a tall order to exactly match up borders with every splice, especially when using slices from more than one original sticker. My recommendation in these situations is to finish the stickerloo, then to cut a piece of border the precise length that you need, and to paste that over the piecemeal border, creating a new and uniform border.

Virtual Waterloo Records Stickers

Screen shot from Virtual Waterloo Records Stickers

I discovered an online resource for amateur stickerloo practitioners. Virtual Waterloo Records Stickers allows artists to manipulate simulated letters from the stickerloo font to create mock stickerloos, which are then archived on the Web site and voted on by viewers. I love this site's efforts at promoting the art of stickerloo. I do wish the developers had taken a more traditionalist approach with regards to the sticker layout and font representation. They chose what I like to call the "ransom note" style, which is not invalid, though it compares to the traditional style something like Play-Doh does to Bronze--fun, approachable, impermanent.

I encourage all appreciators of this art form to check out this site. Get inspired. Then get yourself a pair of scissors and discover the divine pleasure that can only come from crafting authentic stickerloo.

word

I was having lunch with a friend of mine downtown today and confessed to her that I had finally started to open up about some of my innermost feelings about stickerloo via the vessel of this blog. She was pleased to hear it, knowing how I had struggled for years with the conflicts of fame: as a stickerlautist known the world over, I have felt obligated to both represent my community with pride, but also to not "piss in the pool," as they say. In other words, I have had to remain neutral many times when I might have been inclined to speak my critical mind, were it not for the confines and pressures of fame. I have had to turn my face away from immense hackery, selflessly, as if I was immune from pain. No more.

Before I got sidetracked talking about the woes of celebrity, I was telling the story of my fabulous lunch date. No sooner had I told my companion about this blog when along comes a car and parks beside us--with a stickerloo. There is not much to be analyzed with this piece. What it lacks for in innovation it makes up for in concision and adherence to form. It is stickerloo minimalism at its finest, a simple but classic work. Its only real flaw is that time is obviously taking its toll. I can only hope that its creator will feel inspired to craft a new work before this beauty is entirely ravaged by time. Word.

real men love elvis

I found this stickerloo on a red 98 Chevy. I found the Chevy in my driveway and I can say that the sticker is aging much better than the truck. I made this sticker 5 or 6 years ago and it is holding up pretty well, though is finally showing some signs of age.

Here is the problem with becoming a bitchy ass fine art critic like myself: when it comes down to it, people want to know, "OK, if this guy is the world-renowned authority on stickerloo, let's see what he's got." It's like that creative writing teacher from college who had never once published anything. Or the acting teacher who never acted. Wherein lies his authority, you ask? Is he qualified to praise or talk shit about Austin's stickerloo artists, or is he just some other no talent low budget blogger?

I will answer all of your concerns here. At one time I was widely considered (and yes i considered my self as well) to be the Imperial Ninja Master of stickerloo. I had never met a challenger whom I could not take on confidently and so my fame grew. Many imitated, but none were able to match my skills. "moose twat" was one of my famous early works that for a few weeks in the spring of 1996 adorned the pedestrian crossing sign across from Umlauf Scupture Garden. When the sticker was taken down (by some prudish Barton Hills parent, no doubt, who publicly loathed my vulgarity but secretly coveted one of my early works), I replaced the stickerloo with something even more vulgar: "i eat moose twat." It was instantly removed, by foe or by fan I shall never know. I was emboldened by this and replaced it again, upping the ante: "eat moose twat or die." Stolen. My last piece in this series took on a patriotic angle, and read: "moose twat is as american as apple pie"*. This time it was not the sticker that was stolen, but the entire sign. Somewhere in my archives I have a photograph of the barren pole. (I should also note that my car at the time was adorned with one of my favorite stickerloos of all time: sit on a potato pan, otis. It was long and beautiful and onomatopoeiac.)

Now for the analysis of my own work, which I'm sure all of my detractors are eagerly anticipating. Actually, you know what, detractors you can all suck it. This piece is far from perfect (what was I thinking with that slide at the end? And the spacing in real? Seriously amateurish stuff from a known master) but it has three notable qualities which is why I'm sharing it with you: 1) The n is awesome, true to form, and usually not done by beginning stickerlautists. It is made from several letters. The main stroke and bowl are from the stock d, turned upside down. The terminals of the n are cut from the l. It is important to maintain an appropriate aperture, such that this letter looks as if it was part of the original font. This example does. 2) The v here is one of the better examples I've seen, crafted from the w. The v and y are two of the hardest retrofit stickerloo letters to craft. 3) this shit is funny! Bound to irk some conservatives who may see it as blasphemous, but there's a flip side to that coin: a lot of people who love jesus also love elvis.

*Hunter Cross, now a local artist in more mainstream disciplines than stickerloo, followed this with the very inspired (and true): "david loves moose twat medium rare." (honestly it was more of a like than a love, but young Hunter had not yet figured out how to craft a k)

susie rock city

I apologize for the inferior quality of this photo. It was taken from a moving vehicle. While I'm at it perhaps I should apologize for the inferior quality of this sticker.

This is an interesting piece of Stickerloo. The author is to be given credit for attempting a challenging piece, though there are some serious problems with the execution. I am conflicted here with regards to the artist's motivations: was she trying to stay within the parameters of the stickerloo font, and merely failed to hit the mark? Or was this a deliberate attempt to resemble a ransom note? If the former is the case, then this author needs to devote herself to a few years of intensive study as the piece is rife--almost unbearably so--with stylistic errors.

A complete analysis of this work may be too depressing to attempt, so I will just cover the basics:
1) Customized letters: Although I commend any stickerloo artist for taking on the challenge of creating letters that are not "stock", I lose sympathy when it appears that the artist has made no effort to stay within the established guidelines of the stickerloo font. Making an i that is too long for the font standards is one thing, and only a minor annoyance in comparison to the hapazard crafting of the u in this piece. Cutting an o in half? Is this seriously the best you can do? Amateurish doesn't even begin to describe the quackery on display here. Have you ever thoughtfully considered a stickerloo letterform before? Did you pause to consider what the aperature would be in a proper stickerloo u before you decided to cut that o in half? Did you ponder the curvature of the letter's bowl in this hypothetical u, the style of the letter's terminals? I think the answer is an obvious hell-fuck-no.

2) Alignment: If this piece was meant to be a serious representation of the stickerloo craft, there is evidence of a patent disregard for the font's baseline. No attempt appears to have been made to bring the letters in line with the conventions of this font.

3) Oh crap I just can't look at this any more. The hideously long descender on that y is like a dagger though my stickerloo heart.

world peace

This beauty was on a Mazda Miata parked at Barton Springs Pool the other day. It's in really bad shape, which I'm kind of mystified by. I have a stickerloo on my truck that has been there for like six or seven years and is in better shape than this one. I can't tell but i think this artisan may have built this sticker on the actual bumper, instead of doing it on a substrate of another Waterloo sticker. This latter method is really the only way to do this and make it last.

Other than the obvious deteriorated state of this stickerloo, it is a fairly well-executed piece. It is not a necessarily challenging one since all of the letters are "stock", but the spacing and alignment is pretty good, at least until the last couple of letters. I think the technician who assembled this work did a reasonable job at staying true to the font, though I would have been more careful with the upside-down-d-as-p in the middle. It is not acceptable to just flip the letter and use it; you have to align it such that the body of the letter is in line with the neighboring letters. A solid effort. Would like to see this artist challenge his or herself to try engineer some new letters, or a longer piece.