ToyCyte: Toy Culture Collected

You know that slice of trivia about how Usher finds it soothing to sort his M&Ms by color before a show? Yeah? Really? You do? Stay with me, I’m going to loop back to that. Toward the beginning of my time at ToyCyte, I was writing about Jon Burgerman A LOT. A toy here, a T-shirt there, but certainly something every single week. I became very interested in the variety of “canvases” open to today’s artists, and I began to dig around. In an attempt to keep ToyCyte a balanced blog, I held back and ended up with a surplus of bookmarked bits. Eventually, I decided to start a separate dedicated Jon Burgerman blogography.

The Internet is permanent in many ways, yet ephemeral in others. Things sell out, pictures are removed, sites fade away, links get broken…There’s also a lot of art out there that’s not meant to last forever. Maybe it gets lost or worn out or removed or eaten up.

Doodlesplatter was born out of a desire to present a complete “artkive” of Jon’s work. Organizing and categorizing doodles is perhaps as close as I’ll ever get to sharing a wavelength with Usher. Through chaos, I found calm. Some people have asked me, why did you choose to do this with the work of Jon Burgerman? Just go to the website. The answer is in the artkive. With just a few clicks, you’ll see Jon illustrate that any surface can be a canvas. Whether you’re sick on a plane (airplane vomit bag) or stuck in the rain (umbrella collab with SIZE?), Jon’s doodles are there to cheer you. I find this very inspiring and happy-making. So I’m returning the favor: Jon Burgerman has a posse.

Doodlesplatter wouldn’t have been possible without the awesomeness of a few individuals: Jon for doing what he does, and then later for answering all my queries and doodling me some bespectacled artkivists. And stellar Molly and The Neon Hive for unparalleled web design skills and really “getting” the idea. (They made me an Error/404 page you might not actually mind encountering.) Seriously, talk about sharing a wavelength. One day I said to myself: ‘I think I’ll interview Jon Burgerman as if I worked for Tiger Beat,’ the next day I had my questions answered by Jon, and the next day I had a perfect Doodle Beat layout by Molly. If you like reading Doodlesplatter a fraction of how much I’ve enjoyed making it, I’ll surely meet the requirement to deduct charitable donations on my 2009 taxes. Ha ha HA. That’s a joke, IRS.

Go check out the site, and join the posse. We’re collaborating on some more stuff, so stay tuned. Also, fellow Americans: Jon Burgerman is currently in your midst. Live painting at Cute & Dangerous in Laguna Beach this Friday, followed by a summer residency in NYC. I’ll see you there.