Demo pop art diaries 5: A Chance to Make Success an Absolute certainty

Warhol said:  “Being good in business is the most fascinating kind of art. Making money is art and working is art and good business is the best art.”

Whilst I feel it is incongruous to say that making money of itself could ever be classed as artistic, it stretches no part of our being, challenges nothing and the pursuit of it in contrast to the pursuit of art rarely results in anything of lasting beauty. I can completely see that for Warhol the link must have seemed irresistible and almost impossible to ignore, as after all the end result is not always in the heat of the moment easy to separate from the means of production. Surely, what Warhol was reflecting on was the ultimate  success of a great work ethic. He was revelling in the accomplishments of a man on top of his game both artistically and as a brilliant self styled publicist with remarkable acumen but also the artistic ability to back it up.
   
A briefer than usual meeting with Loz Taylor this week sees us discussing the near and distant future of the Demo Pop Art family of designs.  Taylor is exceptionally up beat today having discovered on line, several American based companies who form an internet collective that will take an idea/design and bid to be the most reasonable company within the collective to put it into production. 

To this end we discuss firstly Taylor’s desire to put into production the “Dogs of war” chess set which he is keen to have manufactured to the very highest quality standard and we talk about various materials that could be used and possible costing, but Taylor quickly diverts the flow of our conversation to a project which concerns his powerful and evocative image “New York City Beat“. The project will see the image printed directly onto fabric that will then be transformed into a floor cushion.  The possibility of using this collective which includes company’s such as Ponoko and 1000K Garages to print his images directly onto various materials is exciting because due to the image being produced digitally it is always available “on demand” and can be reproduced easily at any time and in any quantity without added expense therefore there is no minimum order required. Supply can match demand precisely and the quality can be maintained at optimum levels.

The image itself is like a visual word association answer, if someone said New York to you what would be your instant response? It perfectly personifies what most would answer, American football, the big apple, the statue of liberty, even the centre square is  designed to evoke images of Central Park and at the very heart the letters NYCB New York City Beat.  All these images do indeed appertain to the beating heart of one of the world’s greatest cities, a city that although still young and evolving culturally is still a place to which millions are drawn almost pilgrim like each year because in part of that very youth and vibrancy. I feel and Taylor nods in agreement (no doubt too polite to tell me he has already thought of it) that the image would make a perfect T shirt for New York as an alternative to the current white T which simply expounds I heart NY.  This image has something more to say than just eliciting a pavlovian response, it is something for the New Yorker to wear with pride showing the world what his city is about and for the tourist to display upon an equally inflated chest when returning home.

Riot Riot we want a Riot

Another image that Taylor is keen to progress to production is that of “Positive Race Riot” Keen followers will know that he wishes to create a cylindrical type lamp shade based around the piece.

This work is about to go on display in Chapel Ash, Wolverhampton, as part of an art collective called Junction, where local artists are putting between 1 and 3 works forward to be displayed in restaurants, pubs and shop windows etc, to promote local art. Positive Race Riot has never been displayed before and Taylor is very keen for it to be aired.  He smiles mischievously at me and tells me that a friend of his has recently described PRR as “A three way cross between Stubbs, Warhol and the Whacky Races!, due I suppose to the way the different coloured competitors are bunched up in anticipation at the starting line. We laugh at the impending chaos that this always suggested in one of the very favourite cartoons of our youth.

In DPAD 4 we mentioned that Taylor was “drilling down” into the rich vein of potential that is the greyhound jacket colours. Taylor tells me that he has still not exhausted this potential and to that end he explains a new project.  He is designing a set of poker playing cards, poker suggests to us gambling which as we know is a subject dear to Taylor’s heart and he has once again pulled a great design out of the bag! Far from playing his cards close to his chest, Taylor shows me the design there and then: 

 The rear of the card as we see will be the greyhound jacket colours and will feature the word poker.  The face of the cards will be in four colours; red and black of course but the second black and red suits will be in two other greyhound colours, with possibly the aces depicting greyhound winners on podiums. Taylor sees this item as an important part of the demo pop art family or range and envisages that it will sell for a modest cost for example £10. He feels it vitally important that the cost of the products produced like the art itself should “go across all borders” with playing cards at £10 T shirts at ,say £20 contrasting with the “Dogs of War” chess set at a possible £1,200, thereby producing pieces for everyone and every pocket. All part of the Taylor ethos of supplying affordable quality without aesthetic or artistic compromise.

Taylor Pimps his Ride! Future not shaky for Demo Pop furry dice
Another lower cost “entry level” item Taylor wants to re invent is the humble set of furry car dice! The dice, which feature prominently in the cartoon Taylor commissioned to advertise Demo Pop Art will of course have an appropriate “make over”, with the numbers one to six replacing the dots shown in the cartoon below. 

“Time for some Business Art”
Talking to Taylor today I think that the term that best describes him is a man with the bit between his teeth, he tells me that he believes it is “time for some business art.” Although his images, as we have discussed previously, are all available as LIP’s (limited issue prints) Taylor has come to realise in recent months that many of his designs can be “transposed” onto a variety of 3D objects such as footstools, chess sets, playing cards etc.

Taylor hopes, as do I, that all his efforts will soon bear fruit, and that the Demo Pop Art family will come into its own when he displays them over a 3 day period (Friday, Saturday and Sunday) in early December at Shoreditch Town Hall. The East London Design Show will see Taylor occupying a corner stand, which he has already booked in the hope of impressing buyers of good taste with both his Limited Issue Prints and also examples of his 3D merchandise.

To close today’s piece, I am going to quote Taylor in an effort to underline to all, his strength of belief and self motivation. For in Taylor, no matter the talk of money and success, we have an individual for whom it is truly still ‘all about the art’…

“I am going to keep on hurting you with one strong idea after another until you believe in me as an ARTIST!”…. Loz Taylor.

Chance may impact on Certainty, and Fate may influence Reality, but other things in life aside from his success shall be left to a roll of the dice….. Richard Gibbons.