LBC

Artist's design statement follows this comment


About those booze bottles...

The artist's response to those who "don't believe alcoholic beverages belong on a bicycling jersey"

I see my "booze bottle" design being strictly about art, and art, as always, is strictly in the eye of the beholder. Seeing anything in it beyond that is totally superficial.
The fact that i am using Prohibition era antique liquor bottles as an artistic and decorative element in my work may evoke "puritanical" or "family value" feelings from some viewers - and completely different feelings from others.
Clearly, Prohibition didn't work. Nobody has come up with any better idea on how to deal with chemical dependency - hiding the facts certainly doesn't work either.
This family-type event not need suffer because of a little "original art" being included this year. The details of the graphic design on the labels, the shape of glass, its transparency and color, the layout, and the printing on the fabric - that's all this art is about.
The fact that the bottles contain a spirit occasionally associated with negativity says nothing more than what is seen in life around us every day.
I'm hoping that everyone has a good time analyzing this year's t-shirt and jersey designs and then reaches a conclusion that they personally can live with - then we can all move on to the next discussion.
There is so much art yet to be made.



About the overall design concept...
The artist's vision of a "different type of bicycling jersey"

The whole idea of using old booze bottles happened kind of by mistake. I had wanted to do a full-color photographic jersey - because I had never seen one before. And I wanted to do a jersey that was totally different in other ways too.
Because I work in the "POP Art" style (appropriating images) I felt like the old label art would lend itself well - without encountering any copyright problems.
Actually, a design concept I liked a lot more incorporated photographic images of the still new Kentucky Quarter. This idea was turned down by management, much to my disappointment. It would have made a super classic jersey for the silver 25th anniversary of the OKHT.
Being a unique individual I decided that the whole jersey design concept I classified as "le Tour de France look" was silly and totally inappropriate for a "family fun" ride. The cycling jersey needed to be reinvented.
I mean, what's up with this "serious racing look" that bicyclists seem to be hung up on?
Grown business people wearing Lycra shirts - two sizes too small - freely advertising European financial institutions and mega-corporations that no one in the USA has heard of before - with "larger than billboard" proportioned graphics plastered all over their bodies. The design elements always seem to be loud, obnoxious and absent of good taste.
Enter the idea of the "totally new genre" of jersey design.
I decided to borrow from the "Hawaiian print shirt look" - a repeated pattern that actually was cool to look at and wasn't selling something that I didn't want to endorse.
I wanted a design that wouldn't make me look like a dork if I wasn't within 10 feet of my bike - something I could wear out to a bar and women would try to get friendly with me. You know - something cool looking - not stupid looking.
While the average lay person may not know much about fabric printing - graphic design - or even what they are looking at most of the time, a full color photographic image - like a color magazine photograph - on fabric - is really a totally different look, one you never see on cycling jerseys.
Take away the dorky "larger than need be" graphics, advertisements and other "useless distractions" (i.e. graphic elements that tend to get very old very quickly) and you begin to have a subtle - yet intriguing - design. Add in some humor to keep people from taking themselves, or their sport, too seriously.
Then t hrow in some basic identity, tastefully done, in this case using the archaic type face "Mesquite" on the back of the jersey to create the look of gold leaf lettering on an old saloon door, and then a small "official 2002 OKHT logo" on the front left breast - and you have everything you could ever need in a commemorative souvenir cycling jersey.
Sure, the subject mater may seem gloomy, dark and depressing - nasty old booze bottles - but photographs of naked people might have caused too many bicycle accidents.
Chances are you'll still be enjoying this jersey long after the newness has worn off.


john paul ~


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This year's OKHT Jersey is "UNEXCELLED FOR MEDICINAL PURPOSES"
©2002 The Louisville Bicycle Club / jpaul.us