Oh yes, I have heard it. All of it. Did you really think we would leave you high-and-dry like that? From little love notes on the gallery door, to people calling, and mumbling under their breath, believe me, I know you’ve all been waiting to find out “What the heck is going on with NakedCity?” Admittedly, I wanted to see just how much hubbub I would actually witness if I just sort of kept things hush-hush for a month or three. And I can tell you that I am relieved that it has been A LOT! I gave you a little teaser on my Facebook status back in October of 2011 letting you know I was dreaming of what to create for you next. I wasn’t kidding. And although we had planned to have this new-and-improved NakedCity in your hands by January 1, it has taken my team and I a bit longer to put this book together. Here is what you have to look forward to because of it:

1. NakedCity Magazine will now be published 6 times per year
2. NakedCity Magazine will now be 64 pages plus a beautiful spot-varnished cover
3. NakedCity now has 6, brand new categories
4. NakedCity will now print and distribute 15,000 magazines, up from the 10,000 we did in the past
5. NakedCity will now be a larger format than before….bigger photos, bigger articles, bigger ads, bigger, bigger, bigger!

Basically, it’s NakedCity on steroids. We will still have the same awesome coverage of local music, concerts, artists, theater, and urban life in Wichita written by the author’s you’ve grown to love, only now there is even more.

To celebrate our new changes, I would like to offer all businesses* that have considered advertising with NakedCity a chance to test the waters and allow us to make you a believer! For one issue only, if you call me TODAY, Friday, January 13, 2012, I will let you make me an offer. You tell me what ad size you want and what you are willing to pay for it. I want you in this first beautiful book. Give me a call today at 316.708.6090. Yes, I’m posting  my personal phone number for you to call me directly. Let’s chat. Let me help you reach the hippest, smartest, most active audience in Wichita….and you name the price. Space is limited though, so don’t waste time. Once it’s sold out, there will be no more. Geeez, I sound like a really bad infomercial.

I can’t wait to hear from you today! HAPPY FRIDAY!!!!!

~xoxo

*new advertisers only

I wrote a few years back about what I felt could be done to better Wichita’s ever-growing music scene. I wasn’t trying to preach some unifying theme. I am aware of how diverse this town can be, even based on its per capita ratio. I just like the fact that people are going to shows and enjoying live music, even if I think the band you are venturing out to see is a musical abomination. But it would seem still that more could be done. One simple way to help better things is for promoters to actually promote their shows. I know I am not going to make a lot of friends with that statement, and that’s fine. If you ever see me out and want to chat about what you are doing and how hard it is to do shows as a promoter in this town, then by all means, let’s chat. But what I will say, is relying on Facebook, Twitter and electronic media only to get the word out, is not going to get the job done or people out to see touring bands.

I am so sick finding out a band was in town and I missed it because someone I don’t know booked the show and thought the 300 friends they have on Facebook should be the only ones in the know. Exclusivity helps no one, especially the bands on tour. When bands are on tour they’re hopeful that the promoter did his job and the audience did theirs by remembering to show up. Not every show has to be a sell-out, but I can certainly say, that in the past 3 months I missed four out of six shows because I was completely unaware or it was not visible enough to help remind me.

Visibility is the key. We are so inundated with messages all the time, that it is easy to miss something, but there are still simple and effective ways to get across to people. I deeply miss seeing fliers. Yep. Fliers. Pieces of brightly colored paper with everything from professionally done design to hand-written-cut-and-paste punk rock Xerox jobs. What they do, that Facebook or Twitter don’t, is be the best kind of eye-sore and they are more effective than a buzzing update on your smart phone. I love walking into my local watering hole, bookstore and pizza joint and seeing something new for me to pay attention to. There are a thousand places to get the message out with fliers in town, and most business owners welcome it. If you’re only printing a couple dozen fliers and hoping 200 kids show up, you shouldn’t be surprised when they don’t. It takes far more to spread the good word around town. Put them in all of the places you think your target listener might hang out. Don’t forget the insides of stall doors…you’ll truly have a captive audience.

Additionally, give your fellow promoters and local businesses a hand. If you see a flyer promoting an event that has expired, take it down. It takes a village folks. If we help one another out by keeping the business-owners real estate looking nice and tidy, they will be happy to allow you and others to continue to promote with them.

I think this is just one thing that can be done to keep old jerks, like myself, and others in the know. It’s not really that big of an idea, but it is something that I’d like to see more of.

Big Poppa E is a three-time veteran of the HBO DEF POETRY series and National Poetry Slam Champion based in AUSTIN, TEXAS. His live performances combine poetry, stand-up comedy and dramatic monologue into high-energy rants that skewer pop culture, politics and the pain and beauty of relationships. Works by Big Poppa E cover areas of gender, sexuality and masculinity with a playful irreverence, and this focus has led to a growing following amongst high school and college students, especially those involved with speech competitions.

In addition to making his living as a performance poet, Big Poppa E often works with human rights organization AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL and campus group MEN AGAINST VIOLENCE to raise awareness of issues such as social justice and sexual assault.

For more information, check out www.BigPoppaE.com or search for Big Poppa E on Wikipedia. For more than 100 videos of Big Poppa E in action, simply search for Big Poppa E on YOUTUBE. There are all kinds of things on there to watch.

Big Poppa E, will be the featured poet at A NIGHT IN VERSE, a monthly poetry series hosted by NAKEDCITY GALLERY. The fun begins at 7PM, Thursday, December 15th. Admission is free, but donations are appreciated. See you there!

pretty girls make me sad (2010)

mine is the art of the awkward pause, the comedy of mortification,

the joy of realizing you have no idea what to do next. i am the king

of unrequited love, the prince of crushes, the emperor of yearning

from afar.

i fall in love with everybody and scatter pieces of my broken heart all

over this country hoping one day i can follow their trail home, but

the moment they touch the ground, a poem sprouts, and birds make

nests in their leafy words. i have planted forests that pulse and throb

with the rhythm of my blood. i am johnny appleheart, and i am lost

amongst these trees.

and the wind whistles through the holes in my chest. if i twist just

right, it makes the most beautifully sad music, so painfully lovely, so

horribly alive, this symphony of sighs.

i spend more time looking at the tips of my toes than i do the face of

the moon, and i spend more time on both than i do looking people

in the eyes. i didn’t used to be this way. i used to wear my heart on

my sleeve, but it made my wrists too bloody.

now, i am clumsy around girls. i never know what to say. they just

smell so good. i flirt with mixtapes and poetry and have no idea what

a first date is. i always have to ask. is this a first date? it hardly ever is.

i hug every girl i meet so i can share heartbeats with someone even

for a moment.

i have fallen deeply in love with l06 girls who were absolutely perfect

for me, except for one fatal flaw… they didn’t love me back.

37i keep hoping for someone to cross a crowded room and stand

brazenly before me and reach out and hold my face in her palms

and smile with her eyes and say, there you are! i have been looking

everywhere for you! now that i have found you, i promise i will

never let you out of my sight.

but no one ever does.

i am a little kid lost in the mall and crying, clutching at the hems of

passing skirts and mouthing the name of someone i’ve never met.

are you my true love?

no, said the steam shovel, i am not your true love.

oh, my sweet heart-shaped girl, where are you? follow my poems

home to me, my scalliwag, my succatash, my sweet potato pie.

i am so tired.

When we go to a bar, we have an agenda. Refreshing, tasty beverages aren’t what most of us seek when we walk into our favorite watering holes. There’s no natural lust for alcohol that beckons us to imbibe. There is, however, a yearning for connection imbued in each of us. We buy drinks, dance with strangers, and take random people home in hopes of filling a void. We believe others will give us what we cannot give ourselves.  We are always disappointed.

You don’t have to be homo or live on the range to have this experience. For people who are gay or lesbian, though, the emotions are compounded.  We aren’t just looking for a partner when we intimately connect with someone of the same sex; we are often trying to find ourselves inside another person. That dynamic is an equation for ascertaining doom.

There’s no greater catastrophe than a life unfulfilled. Every person who is gay has experienced some kind of rejection; we seek shelter in the arms of others. Intimacy can’t be manufactured, though. It can’t be found on Craig’s List. It also can’t be served at a bar. That gut-level unsatisfaction so many of us feel every day is really an imbedded barometer reminding us that we need to get our internal house in order. And so we try.

We’re sitting at the Vagabond on a Saturday afternoon, the latest issue of The Advocate our only companion.  We’re lonely. We want to be connected. So we pull out our iPhone and log onto Grindr! The gay-dating cell phone application displays diagonal rows of dozens of men within a few thousand feet from us who we can talk to. We zero in on a shirtless guy with scant information about himself in his profile. We chat it up.

We decide during the nascent texting/dating ritual that this avatar will be our salvation. The shirtless man behind the pic will fill our void. He will give us everything we deserve. None of that is apparent by the few dozen lines of text we exchange, though. We decide to meet up at Rain later that evening. In the flesh it will click.

So we enter the bar with an agenda. We forget that we’re about to meet a distinct person with a whole host of issues and aspirations distinct from our own. We meet. We order a drink. Shirtless Grindr guy turns out to be pretty lackluster. We have little to talk about. Or maybe we do. It’s hard to have a real conversation with someone when you’re holding at bay the disappointment that this person isn’t exactly who you wanted he or she to be.

Now we have a choice. We can politely excuse ourselves and go home to a lonely night’s slumber. Or, we can invite our bland beau to our abode. The night’s machinations can either be tame or wild; the morning’s musings are pre-ordained. Either way, he leaves. The chasm remains.

It’s within that space—that void—that redemption lives. The awkward moment when we realize the person we’re drinking with isn’t the person we want is really the instant when we discover that pieces of us are missing. Instead of going to out bars, we should probably be doing yoga, meditating, or just spending some quiet time reflecting on how to become the people we want to be.

When we do meet up with people, we should interrupt that awkwardness with something real. We shouldn’t be afraid to embrace the uniqueness that lies within. We should receive individuals as they are, too. Our own agendas must be set aside. People are not canvasses for us to paint our insecurities onto. Everyone is their own masterpiece, worthy of faculty and symposium. Ultimately, we hold the keys to the undoing of our own doom.

This isn’t just a gay issue. Heterosexuals manufacture intimacy, too! There’s a certain politeness in straight society that prevents the honest admission of what’s really going on in most people’s lives, though. Leave it to the gays to shake things up a bit.

In 2012, let’s all try to fill our inner-chasms with more than just alcohol. Let’s stop looking for other people to make us whole. Let’s start finding salvation within.

That was the simplistic picture message Odin sent me last winter. His random text was accompanied by an image of whitewashed woodland. A little red creature darted across the snowy terrain. Its bushy tail dusted a trail as he ran.

Initially, I was perplexed by the message’s random nature. Later, however, I had become entranced by its profound depth.  It took a tragedy to shake meaning out of meagerness; Odin died unexpectedly a few months later.  He bequeathed me a fascination with all things foxy.

The occasional apocalypse is necessary for the long-term evolution of the soul. Old habits, aged ideologies, and outdated practices have to be destroyed so that the individual can survive in an evolving world. Sometimes, it isn’t just a Phoenix that rises from the ashes of doom. There are moments when we must mind the fox.

Odin’s fox was going somewhere; he was on a mission. The where and why were irrelevant. It was only the advent of his interloping that mattered in that moment.

Odin saw what others missed. The frame of his mind minded not the fences we tend to put around ourselves. In a smart-phone society, we lose focus on what’s in front of us. Most of our actions are premeditated; much of our existence is preordained by the rigid schedule we box ourselves into. We get so consumed by the details of our life that we often forget to live. We miss the foxes in our own backyard.

And sometimes, we forget about the foxes in our bedrooms! Odin’s message reminded me that I had a fuzzy creature in my own midst.

His name was Victor. He was an unassuming, fluffy, toy animal. My parents gave him to me on my fifth birthday. I vividly remember unwrapping a round, red box and finding a furry, stuffed creature snuggled inside. When my eyes met his plastic gaze, I knew we’d be companions for life. We went everywhere together.

Though he had always been a fixture in every bedroom I’ve inhabited, twenty-five years later, I had somehow forgot about him. Odin’s picture message jolted my brain. I called him up and exclaimed proudly that while he had a fox in his backyard, I had a fox inside my apartment. Odin was captivated when I sent him my own fox pic.

“Why didn’t you ever tell me about Victor?” he asked. “We’ve talked all these years and finally I’m impressed by something of yours! Send me one picture of him every day for a month.”

It took a lot to impress Odin. He was always annoyed by the things I thought I loved. We found a common denominator in a fox.

For a month, I sent him a picture of Victor posed in different places, behind unique paintings, and with blends of various people. Each photo was an opportunity for us to connect. He listened with interest when I filled in the details of where and with whom Victor was socializing each day. Eventually, that led to me telling him about all the places Victor had been over the years and about all of the events he had seen unfold before his plastic eyes.

And the more of Victor’s visions I shared, the more of O’s adventures I became privy to.  Eventually, O and I were talking beyond the fox. We were communicating with each other. We came to know, understand, and love deeply. We were men having an incorporeal connection; I never knew a plush toy could be so therapeutic.

I also didn’t understand the relevance of what was happening. I was too busy living the many motions of my life to fully grasp what those foxes—one alive, one fake—were trying to teach. There was something about the construct of Odin’s mind that disallowed the rudimentary to take root too deeply. He saw the understated, simple things. He minded the foxes.

Odin’s untimely death was the personal apocalypse that opened up my eyes. It was my own 2012. I promise you, there’s something beautiful when the calendar flips.

Just like the fox in his backyard, Odin, too, was on a mission. His sojourn in this life ended all to soon, but he left valuable insight behind. We must mind the foxes in our own backyards. We must find the forgotten animals in our bedrooms. When we allow ourselves to focus on the simple beauty that is in front of us, we become illuminated by the sudden majesty that surrounds our being. Let this furry creature guide you into an illuminated new year!

Matsuo Bashō is one of the greatest Japanese haiku poets. Living from 1644-1694, he was instrumental in solidifying the five-seven-five syllable structure we know today. His best known masterpiece is as follows: Furuike ya,kawazu tobikomu, mizu no oto. Translated to English by Nobuyuki Yuasa, it reads:

Breaking the silence
Of an ancient pond,
A frog jumped into the water –
A deep resonance.

While the English translation does not hold to the five-seven-five structure, the beauty is poignantly conveyed. The haiku, as the shortest poem accepted in traditional Japanese poetry, is respected worldwide for its intensity, clarity, and brevity. The amazing amount of emotion and sublime narrative put across by just seventeen syllables is, well, no small feat.

Working in this format reminds us of the impeccable discipline and lucidity it takes to purify ideas. Every syllable, every inch, is maximized to its fullest potential. The haiku eloquently illustrates the splendor of simple, and Bashō’s poem demonstrates that small is sublime.

Drawing inspiration from Bashō’s poetry, NakedCity Gallery will assemble a host of small works by a variety of local artists for the show Deep Resonance. This show gives pause to the creative distillation and gem-like quality of each small work. Moreover, Bashō’s poem gives credence to the importance of a simple act. The impact of the frog jumping into the pond – a natural act – takes on a profound meaning when we consider the unknown consequences of our actions.

As we brace ourselves for the cold months ahead, let us meditate on the simple acts that come as naturally as a frog leaping into a pond. Let us make these actions are gifts we give to each other because, despite their size, they are powerful. So when you give a small gift over the coming months, give one that will resonate deeply.

The White Ghost Shivers have been called the most amazing band on Earth. That might be a bold statement but the Shivers’ live performance is definitely one of a kind and not rivaled by many. This Austin based band is difficult to classify because they draw influences from a wide variety of genres. They have a kind of Dixieland-meets-hillbilly-meets-ragtime sound. But musical talent is not all that this energetic troupe has to offer. Their cabaret-like performance is enhanced by each member’s outrageous and entertaining personality. Songs with titles like Toot Yer Whistle, Blow My Horn, Weed Smoker’s Dream, and Chinatown feature taboo lyrics abundant with innuendos that tiptoe on the line of appropriateness, which is half the fun. Seven plus foot monster of a man, Shorty Borgasm is typically front and center playing banjo and sporting a ridiculous mustache. Lead guitarist, Smokebreak Slemenda rocks his old acoustic like he’s in a metal band. Beautiful Cella Blue mixes sultry vocals and flirtatious antics to capture the audience’s attention. The rest of the troupe includes a variety of musicians playing instruments such as the clarinet, standup bass, fiddle, piano, ukulele, mandolin, horns, accordion, and kazoo. Notice that there is no percussion included in this list.

Throughout the past few years they have performed in Wichita just over a handful of times.  The Shivers busted into Wichita’s scene opening for local alt-bluegrass favorites Split Lip Rayfield at the Cotillion in late 2006.  Since then they have played a variety of venues including The Roadhouse Blues, Rack Em’ Up, Barleycorns, Rock Island Live, Abode Venue, and next up is Naked City Gallery on November 19^th. Every experience with White Ghost Shivers is a unique one, whether it’s a change in their 1920’s era garb or someone else added to the lineup playing a new instrument. Regardless, their live show is always fresh and exciting.

The Shivers recently released their first full-length album since “Everyone’s Got Em” five years ago. Their newest creation “Nobody Loves You Like We Do” was recorded 99% live in Austin’s Tequila Mockingbird Studio and features their newest member (and ex- Squirrel Nut Zipper) stride piano maestro, Reese Gray.  Smokebreak says, “Nobody Loves You Like We Do is definitely our best album to date and still self- released.” Kansas’ own artist and musician Joshua Finley (JoshuaFinleyArt.com) created the original artwork for the new album and CD release tour poster. They will be playing in Emporia, Manhattan and Lawrence before finishing up their Kansas release tour in Wichita with the Kansas City Bear Fighters. The Shivers will be bringing their new album on the road with them available on CD and vinyl (for all the dedicated fans, record nerds and hipsters out there).

Catch this one of a kind act at Naked City Gallery (121 N. Mead) on Saturday November 19^th at 8:00 pm. Tickets are available online at parson.ticketleap.com/whiteghostshivers for $15. Come prepared to sing, dance and drink the night away and leave with a lifetime worth of golden memories and fun!

{links}
www.whiteghostshivers.com
www.KCbearfighters.com

{bio}
April Pameticky is a thirty-something poet, teacher, wife, and mother. She received her MFA from Wichita State University in 2006. April enjoys writing in Wichita and her associations with the KWA and the National Writing Project.  Her chapbook, Sand River, is under consideration at BlazeVOX, and her work can be seen online athttp://aprilpameticky.wordpress.com , Mikrokosmos, Chiron Review, and Zaum.

{poem}

IT STARTED ON MORNING ON A BRIDGE

I

Smells of sour human, rocks

scattered in random beckoning

across the spillway, even as the

bowl of the museum across the

river waits to receive, a building

full of expectation. The water

stumbles and pours all the

wreckage down the way, and I

say, send it down the river,  all

your fear and grief, all your

worries and concerns, send it

down the way in a baptism,

the dirt of our lives congesting

the flow.

II

We sit in silence, not out of

respect, but because words

escape us in our ineptitude.

You are there, across the table,

your hands fidgeting with the

fork.  I want to scream,

“Choke,”

but play with my water glass

instead.  I want to see around

this corner in time, predict a

future different for us, but I

know, even as Szechuan chicken

and wontons arrive, that we are

feasting our last supper.

III

We fear forgetting and stomp

in stone and marble our moments

of mourning until the formation

and purpose overshadow original

intent.  If we grieve less, we are less

worthy of grief, so we make a show

and promenade, a vain attempt to

make our spectacle permanent, as

final as a river.

The Occupy Wall Street movement – OWS for short and #OccupyWallStreet for Twitter – sprung up in New York City’s Zuccotti Park almost two months ago.  OWS was initially billed as a response to fat-cat-bankster greed and corruption, and the catch-phrase for the movement has become “We are the 99%” which is meant to delineate between regular folks like you and me and elites who gain special favor through their wealth and attendant political clout.

As is often the case with much of my awareness of the world around me, I heard about Occupy Wichita about a month ago through a friend on Twitter who asked what this trending topic “#occupywichita” was all about.  My friend had read tweets from other friends who were spreading the #occupywichita meme across virtual ICT.

Like OWS, Occupy Wichita found traction on Facebook and Twitter, which led some to draw parallels to the “Arab Spring” that spread through the Middle East and North Africa earlier this year thanks in part to social networking websites.  During the course of my awareness of Occupy Wichita, their Twitter followers have nearly quintupled, from about 200 at the beginning of October to exactly 1,053 at the beginning of November.

Interested to observe the Wichita version of these protests, I ventured down to Chester I. Lewis Reflection Square Park near the corner of Douglas and Market, strategically and/or coincidentally located catty-corner from the large Bank of America building at Douglas and Broadway.

Among 80 to 100 poncho-clad Occupiers on a rainy Saturday afternoon, I spoke to a young man named Niles who told me that he felt that Occupy Wall Street and its Occupy Wichita offshoot were based in a humanistic spiritualism – that human decency has been devalued in our modern economy and that people across the country were coming together to speak out against this.  With a little bit of my own testimony thrown into the conversation, Niles and his girlfriend expressed concern with student debt loads that have far outpaced the incomes graduates can expect in our deracinated job market.  And no doubt, a large number of Occupiers are disenchanted, indebted, underemployed degree holders.

David Heffelfinger – dressed as Ben Franklin, with a tri-point patriot hat, spectacles, a heavy overcoat and knickers of some sort – held down the American worker plank.  Between posing for photographs from other Occupiers admiring his digs, Heffelfinger explained that he considered himself an “ashamed Republican” as he felt that the American middle class – which he believes is the medium of good-old fashioned American values – was being undermined by GOP-supported corporations who are playing a sort of Three-Card Monte with American jobs and wages.

Tristan Jones, who does a little bit of work on the technology side of the movement, was quick to remind me that Occupy Wichita – like all of the Occupy movements – is leaderless.  “Nobody is in charge,” he told me – and not as a criticism.  This fits another Occupier theme.  Hoping to purge Washington D.C. of moneyed influence, Occupiers idealize a purer form of democracy different than the one that has lobbyists and corporations standing in line in front of common citizens.  For Occupiers, this means direct representation through a “General Assembly” where the policies and bylaws of each Occupy outpost are determined through a purely democratic process.  No line-cutting and no favor-currying.

Which is all very idealistic and noble, but it remains to be seen exactly how full-tilt democracy will play out.    My first visit to the Occupy Wichita saw a sort of airing of grievances in which individuals stood in the center of a circle of Occupiers to shout through a voice amplifier about their particular cause or philosophy.  Occupiers in other cities often rely on “human megaphones” where a speaker’s sentences are repeated back by the crowd so that all listeners can hear what is being said.  The tactic also allows the crowd to act as a medium for the speaker’s voice.  But all of this is time-consuming.  The knock on it is that it might work in smaller groups, but it cannot be replicated across society as a whole, which is the ultimate goal of Occupiers.  But the key concept still holds:  do something about unchecked political influence held by the select few.

Across the country, debate is raging over how to properly define these Occupy movements.  Are they socialist, Marxist, or progressive?  It’s clear that they aren’t conservative, but does their mixed ideological bag transcend definition?  Some, such as the movement in Oakland, California have turned violent, and some of the various camps have experienced incidents of sexual assault, burglary, and other criminal acts.  But at the heart of such ideological inventory is an age-old question:  how do we evaluate and define political movements?  As was the sticking point for the Tea Party movement, do we define conceptual movements by the people who support them or by the movement’s ideals?

At the Occupy Wichita events I’ve attended there are some signs proclaiming “99%” membership and others begging to “End the Fed”. Some oppose war while one woman was handing out pamphlets calling for a boycott of large banks that have funded privatized prisons.  But underlying all of these individual concerns is the greater driving force behind these foothills of civil unrest.  People are frustrated and losing hope, and they are just now trying to figure out who the hell to yell at.

You’ve seen his logos around town. The Anchor. Beards Floral. Ribbit’s much needed new look . And so many more. The man behind these local gems is Chris Parks. Majority of his twenty-year career as a designer and illustrator has been spent right here in Wichita. With a formal education in sculpture and design, his identity-based work is a skillful marriage of visual craftsmanship and artistic sensibilities. He completed many large, national projects over the years and produced logos for numerous local entrepreneurs. But these highly visible works are just a fraction of his professional portfolio.

This month NakedCity Gallery presents a selection of Parks’ body of work – familiar and unfamiliar – to explore the formal complexities of design and illustration, and question the business of art. His extensive body of work merits a context stripped of an advertizing function to appreciate his artistic execution, but this recontextualization does not remove corporations or commerce from the larger discussion.

The places where art and business intersect have always been fraught with tensions. Andy Warhol threw these questions to the fore in the 1960’s. Warhol, who began as a commercial artist and illustrator, mass produced his work in his studio The Factory which, in turn, called into question the value systems of the art world. A more contemporary example of this is Takashi Murakami. Since 2001, Murakami’s corporate entity Kaikai Kiki Co., Ltd. has blown Warhol’s Factory model completely out of the water. Murakami’s designs are refracted through the world of high fashion, high art, and easily consumed goods.  With key chains, stickers, mugs, buttons, and t-shirts based on his larger works, he takes the “Pokemon-gotta-have-em-all” approach to this range of merchandise.  This goes far beyond mass reproductions of already existing corporate designs.

Artist such as Warhol and Murakami hold their positioned firmly within the art world and deploy a commercial production of art with the delivery methods of identity branding. These strategies are aimed to critique consumerism, artificial value systems, and (let’s not kid ourselves) to make a ton of money. Parks is positioned on the other side of this divide. Conversely, he takes art world methodologies and applies them in the arena of design and illustration. His strong identity development and illustrative skills, in tandem with an education in sculpture, gives him a unique presence in the design world.

The crisp legibility of Parks’ work lends itself instant recognition – similarly achieved by Warhol and Murakami. But the true enjoyment of Parks’ work comes after spending time carefully inspecting color choices, the composition of the elements, and the melding of the underlying concepts. Such time is typically reserved for art and not logos. However, with a close look, one will appreciate the way the flatness of his forms maintain a muscular quality. The heavy lines in his designs behave more like planes of color than contours. Be it a gnarly skull or the shading of a figure, many of Parks’ work is virtually line-less. This seems counterintuitive considering the characteristic curves and sharp angles that make his work so distinctive. Instead, he fits together planes of color with a machined precision so that they maintain an overall flatness, but keep a sculptural presence.

More than a hired gun, Chris Parks demonstrates that there is room for artistic vision within a business driven market. His serpentine route toward professional success gave him the interdisciplinary experience needed to craft his distinct visual vocabulary. Many time of the course of his career, he valued the portfolio opportunity over profit opportunity. Instead of selling out, he is selling up. And in this regard too, he raises the bar for graphic designers and artists alike.

Chris Parks:  Laid Out is on view at NakedCity Gallery from October 21 – November 11, 2011