Kimbra Inspired Dancing Stencil Panels

This is a brand new collaboration between James Roberts (me) and Mark Bueno, a prolific body and mural painter in the western US. This series of 11 wood panels was inspired by the video for 'Settle Down' by Kimbra, the New Zealand pop singer of Gotye 'Somebody I Used to Know' fame. This project is a meditation on movement, gesture and time, and a question about reproducibility and uniqueness. Thanks for looking. -J

Olena Kostevych

Olena Kostevych

An incredible performer and a knockout!

Olena Kostevych is a pistol shooter from Ukraine who has won three olympic medals. It's strange how she drifts into my attention every so often when I get interested to watch pistol shooting.  She's always there in the top women. It's easy to think of her as an ordinary person, which is interesting. I wonder how different she is than the competitor on tv. There aren't many people I know by name and admire, but know almost nothing about. She's a stranger. Maybe she's a total super bitch. From what I saw on the olympics, just from watching her shoot, I'm 99 percent sure she's awesome. Maybe people really are that transparent. I like to think so. She makes for a very enjoyable drawing, anyway.

Silly Monkeys- new stencil print

New stencil print!

Another Christmas Offering

Another holiday card...

The holidays are stressful for Santa too...

Of course, you can give me money here

Merry Christmas!

Put a Fox on It

In Portland, they put a bird on it, but in Denver, we put a fox on it. Apparently. A friend of mine said he went to a craft fair and foxes were everywhere. Considering Fantastic Mr Fox, Akira Kurosawa's Dreams, and how bad ass foxes are generally, I'm surprised its taken this long for hipsters to start putting them on everything.

But that makes it no easier to admit I have fallen into this cliche with my new t-shirt design:

But foxes are still just as cool, so maybe I can be too. After I put this up on Etsy I almost immediately found myself in a favorites list of what appears to be everything fox-related here. I have to say that the fox stuff is cool, but man is there crap load of it! I even found this shirt of a bird AND a fox. That's a hip one two punch! Also it's whimsical and artsy? Triple threat! And the promo pic is half Primus costume and half shame for one's face!?!?! We're talking about a portrait of this moment in culture.... But my fox is better than all that. I've been wearing a 2XL even though I'm a medium, and it really takes the hipster edge off of the look. It also in a way goes super-hip if I start looking like grimes. Anyway, don't buy one from my Etsy store, or everyone will think you're a hipster doofus.

next time

-J

Welcome! A Holiday Miracle!

Welcome to the official blog of JR, aka JamesRDesign, aka cooljamesx1, aka DJ etc., where I want to share what I think of as the things that flow out of me like water to wear down the stone hearts in the world. I'm talking about art, but less controversially termed design. But really it must be nameless-- it is, most accurately, only activity. When I am quiet, the activity flows out.

"Boredom is very important. Boredom is the root of any good idea" -Francisco Clemente

And so the tao te ching tells us as well:

"Do you have the patience to wait
till your mud settles and the water is clear?
Can you remain unmoving
till the right action arises by itself?"

In light of the holidays I'll get thing started with my recently completed holiday card stencil:

Guess which of your favorite sunday school characters are represented! Don't buy a signed set from my Etsy store ( www.etsy.com/shop/jamesrdesign ) or you'll burn in an imaginary jail forever. As if death isn't scary enough. And that's what Christmas is all about!

 j/k Christmas is a chance to remind people that you care about how cool they think you are.

next time,

-James