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January 10, 2011
YUYUNIPITIOANA "the shouting mountain" 3D Print
Yuyunipitqana is one of the names associated with Smohalla, a Native American Medicine Man of the Shahaptian Wanapum tribe of South Eastern Washington state. He lived in the time of Lewis and Clark. As the Wanapum became overrun by white settlers he taught a return to tribal lifestyles, traditions and beliefs that became the Dreamer Religion.
This picture represents Smohalla as a spirit conjuring traditional ways as represented by the horses. He pulls them up out of the modern landscape and he sees them through the modern ways.
Above the horses heads are the symbols for the mountains and the desert that they lived between, on the Columbia river (shown in the background).
This picture came about via a recent visit to the area. I started drawing what was around me as I learned the story. The early drawings became the lower landscape. The fun lower right with help from Liana :)
Currently there is an on-going massive cleanup in progress of the cold war nuclear reactors on the Columbia. This work drives much of the local economy.
18x24″ , 6 color screen print
signed/numbered edition of 79
all gone
Posted by John at 9:31 AM
Buffalo Print 3D
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Buffalo Print 3D
18x24″ , 4 color screen print
signed/numbered edition of 100
Sold Out
click pics to zoom
The idea of making a buffalo print was first suggested by a friend who has buffalo on his ranch in New Mexico. He sent me photos, and the central buffalo in this picture is one of his. But the picture expanded as I researched the story of the American Buffalo, and the handfull of people who saved them from extinction.
The composition is reminiscent of a renaissance holy ascension painting, but the levitating figure here is coming down from the heavens into view to illustrate the story told by the buffalo spirit on the left with his companion reptile.
The buffalo spirit is passing the story of survival down to the living descendants on the right. The central effigy apparition is Sarah Larribee, the French/Cheyenne wife of James 'Scotty' Phillip (Scottish immigrant, gold miner, then rancher) who together saved the American Buffalo from extinction in the late 1800s.
When Sarah was young, in the 1860's, there were 60,000,000 Buffalo roaming the American Continent. After they married in 1879, Sarah and James watched as hunting parties and hide hunters killed all of the Buffalo. They wanted to do something about it so in 1899 they bought 54 head from Pete Dupree's estate sale and then grew them into a 1000 head heard before James died suddenly in 1911. Living American Buffalo are direct descendants of this herd.
Posted by John at 9:30 AM
Jagermonkey image for Mozilla Firefox Javascript Team
Almost all my artwork is hand drawn, but since this project was about the people who write open source code, it made sense to build the image from 'open source' vintage clip art. This picture is a collage of several old etchings combined to look something like an antique product label. Coders are sometimes referred to as 'bug killers' thus the dead flies at the bottom. heh
The project consisted of this art as an edition of 100 6 color 18x24 signed numbered screen prints, 1000 4x6" stickers and 528 6 color locally printed shirts. Putting this together was a lot of fun and the folks at Mozilla were awesome to work with.
Not for sale.
Posted by John at 9:29 AM
Teekkarilakki 3D Print
This print is from our 2009 European Flatstock adventure. It's a road drawing compilation travel-log of a trip. It goes in and back out as read in a circle in either direction.
In the Hamburg airport I saw a group of college students with fantastic tasseled hats. After making a drawing of the hat, I asked them what the hats represented. They were very friendly and explained that they are a Finnish engineering student's hat called Teekkarilakki. The hat's equally fantastic name became the name of the piece.
24x24″ , 4 color screen print
signed/numbered edition of 100
all gone
Posted by John at 9:27 AM
Teekkarilakki 3D Book
Teekkarilakki is the Finnish engineering student's hat since 1895, when it was pointed out that the tassel is very pleasing to women :). This print book is about our European adventures on our show tour of 2009. There is more info on the-one sheet print post adjacent to this post.
This book is designed to have a feeling similar to a pop-up book as each page turned produces another 3D 2-page spread. This was challenging to lay out and to bind so that the shared elements on corresponding pages align to work beautifully within a handmade context.
6x8″ , 4 color screen printed 12page book
signed/numbered edition of 100
all gone
Posted by John at 8:45 AM