Felix
Gray
Nametag Your It
2016-2017
35 nametags
I have a complex relationship to the act of naming something, half of me wants to abandon all labels, and the other half wants to give myself a new name every other day.
In high school I started this project, where every week of my senior year, on the day I attended a homeschool coop, I created a name tag. Either a word or joke or small sketch, anything that I fancied that day. For fun and to play with my identity in little ways, seeing how my peers responded.
With that my work in conceptual art had begun, each name tag becoming a self portrait in its own regard, a collection of clues to the person I am.
Many of the name tags were lost throughout the days' wear, and I didn't document about half of them.
But these photos record my senior year, my feelings towards self expression and the confines of growing up under scrutinizing eyes. The art plays with the idea that all labels are applied and not inherent, but only some of them leave glue on your clothing.
"In watercolor class we talked more about flow, the process of water moving from high wetness to low wetness. It's essential to understand if you want to paint. To get a consistent perspective, it helps to close one eye. Flo happens to be one of my favorite names"
"Hello, I'm a typewriter. I'm complex, and have a lot of small parts working together.
What should I put down in ink?
FLOW
Newtonian
Type of Writer
I am scientific and full of potential energy. I don't slow down easily, unless acted upon by an outside force. If you just take a snapshot, it might be hard to tell which way I'm going."
"Hi I'm 'Gene' [Belcher], my wife is visiting from college, she's 'Tina.' Those characters are siblings but my wife and I are an odd couple and we love making each other laugh."
"I am torn apart. Pieces shaped into something, only resembling what was there before. I am something hopeful, something backwards, something blue and orange and gray.
"I've been getting a lot of emails from colleges. They say come to us, you can do anything here, be anyone! You've achieved so much! Do it more! They are lying, partly, I had achieved a lot."
"There's just so much to do right here."
station, expectation, limitation, inflation, extermination, qualification, personification, communication, information, segregation, abomination, denomination, acclimation, conjugation, subjugation, conversation, hyperventilation, inflammation, cancellation, constellation, degradation, characterization, standardization
"I keep them to sell... I've none of my own. I'm a hatter."
"You said memories become stories when we forget them... maybe some of them become songs."
"All the words I can think of that end in ation. Should tell you enough about me"
"I am a bird slowly walking, pecking at the ground, no thought to my feathers."
*recreation
*not in that order
Turkey
Sleeve Scraper
"I'm long and tall, my head's in the clouds. I have any number of things going on inside me at once, behind walls or windows. My lights are on and off, luckily the moon is near enough. I inhabit the space I deserve, and I feel the wind against my face, knowing it could knock me down any day. But until then I'll stand."