The team. The troops. The guild. The gang.
We thirsted and dRANk on Mojave Flat.
We dRANk the water on Wachusett Slope
We dRANk through rain on bridges to Brooklyn
We dRANk on Kelvin under Forth & Clyde
We dRUNk the water in Great Slave.
I am a team of creatives who work together to create projects in a variety of pursuits. Each of us represents complementary strengths that bring a holistic approach to projects in these variegated interests. These are larger than individual projects. More like directions of interest that are based on our character strengths. Here’s a quick introduction to each.
Bichael Lester Anarchy Godspeeed!
Bichael the vector demon was born in England. He is team captain of Escutcheon Athletics, an art team with a sports problem. Bichael‘s favorite thing is fluid motion action, whether running, skating, cross country skiing, or biking (get it?). In terms of his contribution to our practice, his impetus is the action in the intermediary space between the artist and the artwork. Whether unrolling 1000m of paper on a treadmill, or drawing by lifting weights, or staging his own assassination to draw a tattoo, he focuses on the exhaustive exertion of producing a mark.
jd killingshead
Jd was raised in the hells of Mojave. He is our lead designer here at aMoral House of Cards. He takes care of how the practice integrates at the social level, be it bureaucratic work, public image, or the plain aesthetics of our products and projects. AMoral is a factotum design house producing the artifacts and imagery of living in lifestyle art. These aesthetics are drawn from a personal mythologized past, and help to embellish or distinguish the narratives that turn our present into tomorrow’s mythology.
humble hubris halgotto
Slogged to existence on the dreich art circuit of Glasgow, our dear hubris is the Pirsig of Middlepath, a mystical guild of runners. He is the cerebral and spiritual head of operations. If Bichael handles the sheer work, and jd is focused on what it looks like, hubris is responsible for Why. Hubris insists that no work is a declarative statement, but an attempt at learning how to ask a question. He’s the one who looks to find salient moments in the past to connect our stories to the future.
Sam E Self
Sam’s new here, so we don’t know much about him. She runs Grand Schemeless Garage and is more or less the handy man around here. The How to hubris’s Why. When the rest of us are daydreaming, Sam is the one that figures out how to make it happen. We think she’s from Northern Canada, but she don’t say much.
What happened first?
The State Bar, Glasgow, 2006. Four pints in, we postulated the idea of lifestyle art to colleagues who scoffed and said it couldn’t be done. So of course our stubborn asses plowed forward. We set out to create an existence in which the act of living was itself the substrate on which we made our mark. It has taken many turns, but is always growing. At some point along the way we turned to the stories of our past, and drew them into deliberate embellishments, mythologies. In turn we started to design events that served our future narratives. Our practice is not just what we make in the studio, in the workshop, in the gallery. It’s how we walk, how we eat. It’s how we love, and how we fuck it all up.
Initially, we formed Escutcheon Athletics to investigate the physical act of making. Action itself is the creative moment, any objects or images left after an act of art are merely documents. We set up impositions on the desire to make a mark, and worked through exhaustion to overcome those obstacles, through sheer physical effort, or willpower, sometimes even relying on coercion.
While working in the studio, we fell into a deep trance while reading Leo Gurko’s Hemingway and the Pursuit of Heroism. When we emerged we stuck a piece of tape to our door that said “aMoral House of Cards.” We sat down and drew a symbol. You’ll have seen it around by now.
By the time we achieved Escutcheon Athletics and the Toms & Bitches of Turtle Island we peeled back another layer of the mystique of making. If we believed that art was an ephemeral moment of creativity, and not just a placid object, AND if we believed that art is produced with the notion of audience (don’t hold us to that, we’re not sure we’re committed), then it’s reasonable that the audience deserves the right to witness the process. Transferring a gallery space into our studio, we performed our post-modern alchemy everyday in front of a live studio audience (usually the gallery staff). We worked diligently on projects and we played Catch with any audience that showed up.
Breakout!
Integrating into the community of Old Town Yellowknife, the practice took on a very close relationship to audience. In a small, remote town, our work was less likely to be presented to an “art crowd” of strangers. These were personal friends of ours, and the nature of making work for a gallery became mismatched to the reality that our work was a casual part of our social life, present while drinking coffee or beer with the same people we would be paddling with in the bush, or hanging out with at bonfires. For the show Introductions Upon Departure, we allowed three agents the autonomy to produce work that exemplifies their personal directions. We threw a small social event to present to our same friends who had been present for the process. This was the first time the identities of the agents have been presented, demarcating for any to notice what is most important to that agent’s role in our little game. Bichael achieved enlightenment on a guerilla velodrome, chanting the liturgy of surf rock gurus Daikaiju. Hubris idly meditated playing catch with a friend. Jd inserted his love for his social space by marking it with hand cut brass leaves.
Comin’ Up
In our upcoming project IMPROBAbLE PARAbLES, we are raising the stakes yet again. This work is a hydra headed collection of media, from film & video, performance, social act, installation, sculpture, apparel design, site intervention, and body modification. During this progress we are channeling the writing of Alejandro Jodorowsky, Robert Pirsig, and the practice of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. We are designing a series of progressive performances and installations that mark, very literally, the progression of shedding one’s past and stepping into their future self.