The best part of writing about toys isn’t always the toys themselves. Often, the toy is just one platform within a rich mediascape in which designers make their marks. These days, urban and pop artists design skate desks, clothing and housewares. I recently blogged about Infectious car art and Pop Clings wall decals and noticed that Zeptonn was involved in both projects. I caught up with Jan Willem Wennekes (aka Zeptonn) and found out that when he isn’t making things that stick to smooth surfaces, he’s drawing and drawing and drawing. Last month, he released Black & White Freedrawings, a book of collaborative art with designers from around the world.
Regarding the book’s title, “freedrawings” refers to the lack of restrictions, themes and guidelines in the collaborative process. The drawings are free, but Jan Willem distinguishes them from mindless scribbles by noting that they are not preliminary sketches, but rather final artwork. Black & White Freedrawings is an investigation of collaboration, an insight into the drawing process and a documentation of the bonds of friendship between artists located all over the globe.
Black & White Freedrawings‘ creative process can be likened to the exquisite corpse technique of the Surrealists…with a 21st century twist. While pen and paper were the cornerstone of the concept, the Internet made it possible to trade the drawings back and forth worldwide. Jan Willem describes it as “collab tennis.” Each artist began a drawing, scanned it and sent it to Jan Willem. He then added another layer to it and volleyed it back. The drawing was then electronically swapped back and forth, morphing and growing into a
collaborative work until it filled the page and was complete. According to Jan Willem, the longest volley was with Jan Avendano (12 rounds). The shortest was probably 4-5 rounds, and on average, it took 6-7 rounds.
There weren’t many rules, apart from the fact that everything had to be drawn, not vectorized. I asked him if collaborators were allowed to erase any of the image as it was being created, to which he replied: “In most cases we added and added and never erased, just changed things. If there is a part where you go wrong, or that you don’t like, then we just had to find a way to make it work. Accept what is there and see what you can do with those parts. Make it black, turn it into an eye for a face, make something of what you have! In some cases you can probably see that someone else went ahead and changed some part or added to a part in an unexpected way. Those are the most interesting parts of the collabs I think.”
I asked about the cover image in particular–whether a mass collab was utter fun or a complete logistics nightmare. Jan Willem was cool enough to send me some files illustrating how it all went down (above, and as a .gif animation up top that you can play by clicking on it). The process of creating the cover went something like this: 1) Notification to the
artists that the cover was going to be a huge collab if they wanted to participate. 2) Artists sign up for a turn to work on the file within a certain date range. 3) Jan Willem sends out a multi-layer PSD file to individual artists on the date allotted. 4) Each artists sends it back to Jan Willem within a day or so, and he sends it on to the next artist on the list. They used places like yousendit and their own servers to get the file ready (the final cover PSD file was something like 120 MB).
The book itself has a nice tactile (and eco-friendly) quality that reminds me why art books aren’t obsolete in an era of Flickr. Many of the freedrawings reflect the fun and camaraderie the artists had in making them. In all, 44 artists worked on Black & White Freedrawings. The book shows the completed collaborative drawings, solo work and photos of the artists’ workspaces. Regarding that last bit, you’ll see a lot of IKEA furniture and a lot of toys.
If the toys aren’t the focus here, they’re undoubtedly a point of unification. It was a bit like an easter egg hunt flipping pages to reveal Dunny, Munny and Qee figures on the globe-spanning desks of Alexander Devol (England), Hello, Brute (USA), Jan Avendano (Canada), Jon Burgerman (UK), Kronk (South Africa) and Pete Harrison (UK). Leendert Masselink (The Netherlands) keeps a Baby Treeson nearby. Mulheres Barbadas (Brazil) has an Icebot. And Onesidezero (UK) is never far away from a Teddy Trooper. As these collaborations relied on the merger of often disparate styles, not every single piece works as a final standalone artwork. However, given the diversity of the undertaking, it’s almost surprising that so many of the collabs actually do work to the extent that they’d look great blown up on a wall. Standout collabs are Zeptonn with Jawa (US/UK), Jon Burgerman, Julia Sonmi Heglund (USA), Kinza Rave (The Netherlands), Pete Harrison, DGPH (Argentina), Shin Tanaka (Japan), Mulheres Barbadas and Kronk. Designer toy fans will also appreciate seeing the doodles of Meomi (Canada), Peskimo (UK), Sauerkids (The Netherlands), Undoboy (USA), and many many more.
The collaborative effort of the book extends beyond its contents to its promotions. While Jan Willem is still working out the details of U.S. distribution (likely through Threadless and Grass Hut), you can order the Black & White Freedrawings through several online outlets in conjunction with t-shirts and skateboards. Fresh Cotton and Shirt.Woot both sponsored special deals that bundled the book with a shirt by Zeptonn. You can also buy the book right now at the Black & White Freedrawing website, which offers instant international Paypal purchasing options. The book is 132 pages, 210 x 297 mm (8.3 x 11.7 in), features over 160 illustrations and over 100 photos, and this first edition is limited to 450 copies. It comes with a yellow dustjacket (that doubles as a poster) and the recommendation of this here blogger.
Further reading: If you enjoy looking at artists’ studios and toy collections, you’ll definitely want to click on over to Guillotine’s Project S2DIO where you can look in on the likes of Huck Gee, Gary Baseman, Tristan Eaton and many others. I also highly recommend paging through contemporary writers’ artifacts of inspiration in How I Write: The Secret Life of Authors. And for further collabs from designertoyland, check out Jeremyville Sessions, which examines the collaborative process through the mediums of toys, tees, art shows and more.
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July 15th, 2008 at 5:20 pm
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