Many of you know that last year I took part in the Urban Smart Projects signal box project in Hobart (my design is on TSB 9103 on the corner of Murray and Davey Sts if you happen to be passing by and would like to check in on foursquare). Late last year I decided to throw my hat into the ring again with a design for the box on the corner of Bathurst and Murray Streets outside what is now known as Highfield House. After quite a bit of research I decided that I wanted to focus on the building’s former life as a hotel because a lot of the locals I chatted to hadn’t realised it had been on the site prior to the current building.
I came up with a design I called Last Drinks.

At the start of the week I got word from the project that the Hobart City Council had rejected my design as they are concerned that it promotes the consumption of alcohol. Now I’ve got to say a couple of things right from the outset:

1. This is not my project and I respect the right for the organisers and the Council to veto a design based on any criteria that they choose.
2. This outcome came as no huge surprise to me – I knew that there was a risk of the design being rejected when I submitted it, but had hoped that it might get through regardless and wanted to give it a go.

I’m not angry about the decision, but I am disappointed, even though I knew there was a chance this might happen. Knowing that the alcohol might be a concern I deliberately tried to make the image fairly innocuous. Have a look at it – it’s just a friendly publican standing in front of a bar with some beers next to his loyal and slightly dopey dog. Ironically my original concept for the box was this one:

Ironic because at face value it depicts the face of a little girl, but my motivation was to portray a child that had been left outside the pub while her dad was inside drinking. I ditched this concept because I didn’t think it was positive enough for the project, but in some ways depending on how I’d written the justification for the design (and if I’d cheered her up a smidge) I might have had a better chance of getting it approved because it actually doesn’t look too controversial.

I’m also a bit confused by the idea that my design might have promoted the consumption of alcohol. Do they really think that or is it just risk management going a little bit overboard? I’ve looked at the image dozens of times over the last few days and I’m still not convinced that anyone might look at it on the street and feel compelled to go and have a beer. Madder still is that I can’t paint a scene that depicts a piece of Hobart history because it contains images of a pub and some beer, but this same council is more than happy to approve the display of various advertisements for beer companies on billboards around town. I could be wrong, but I think their intention may be to promote the consumption of alcohol. Yes, I know that if the council approves my design they might be deemed to be the promoters of the booze, but it seems silly that they’re happy for that to be the outcome as long as it’s not them that’s the promoter directly.

I think this episode also raises the question of truth in art. It reminds me a lot of criticism that I read of the TV show Mad Men because it regularly portrays characters drinking and smoking in a workplace. I’m very firmly in the camp that if it could have happened in real life in that era (which it probably would have) I want to see it included as an accurate depiction of what happened in that time. I also happen to think we’re coming at this from the wrong direction – is the problem what the art is depicting or is the problem that we’ve morphed into a society where many people don’t want to take personal responsibility for their actions, can’t make a choice without having their hands held by a nanny, or can’t see that they have just as much free will to make a good choice in life as a bad choice. If a TV show somehow makes a person decide to smoke a cigarette, I think the problem is less about the TV show and more about the sheep-like tendencies we are witnessing in society more and more.

But the crux of it is, if a pub existed on this site, why should we be so scared to depict that? Do we want a town that is honest and proud of its heritage and happy to acknowledge that a mature society recognises that it is the sum of all the good and the bad that has gone before? Strong enough to acknowledge past events without necessarily having to live by them? I certainly do.

One of the guidelines for the Hobart part of this project was that the current round of artworks come up with something other than the stock standard Tasmanian iconography that is riddled with Thylacines (hand up, I’m guilty of this as well). I read that request and saw it as an opportunity to offer up something different for people to look at that might make them stop and wonder what happened in this place. The Hobart City Council has expressed a desire to breathe some life into this city, most recently through the commissioning of the Gehl Report, but I’m not sure that the city will ever change if something as innocuous as my design is deemed to be too big a risk as a piece of public art.

The project organisers gave me the option to speak to the Council’s Cultural Heritage Officer so that I might learn about other aspects of the site’s history and focus on one of them instead in a new design. I considered that option, but even though I respect the Council’s right to select work however they see fit, I am choosing to defend my design by not submitting a replacement and have withdrawn from the project. This post isn’t intended to be a criticism of how the project is run or the outcomes they achieve. I think it’s fantastic that the signal boxes have added some colour and interest to the Hobart landscape. I just didn’t want to let it pass without expressing my disappointment. Having said all of that, I fully understand that if I want to participate in community art projects, organisers are under no obligation to let me produce my work just because I think there shouldn’t be an issue with it.

All part of my life-long learning. What do you think?

If ever there was a blog title that was guaranteed to collect record amounts of spam traffic, this would be it. But love is in the air in The Kennel because the Dog happened to notice that Valentine’s Day is just around the corner. February 14th to be precise, which I know is a few weeks off, but if you want to give the love of your life a Same Dog Valentine’s Day card it’s a mail order task for you so you have to be organised.

I got so caught up in the spirit of things that I’ve just added a brand new design to the collection featuring none other than Robert the Rat. Rob’s a classy kinda guy who know’s the way to a lady rat’s heart. He thinks if you really love the significant other in your life, you’d prove it by giving them a card featuring the suavest Rattus rattus in town.

But if you’re not a fan of Robert’s moves, there’s a few other designs that might score you some points on the big day – just click that shiny pink button that’s sitting there.

BUY LOVE ON FOLDED CARDBOARD HERE!

My first foray into the world of semi-motivational posters and prints!

OK, so I know it’s just semantics, but I struggle a tad with the phrase Anything is possible. Because it’s not. I’m all for positive thinking, just within reasonable limits. Which apparently didn’t stop me from imagining that someone could turn a front loading washing machine into a space ship and launch it into the inky black sky.

This sudsy piece of design available as Posters, Framed Prints, Greeting Cards and Postcards.

BUY THIS SEMI-MOTIVATIONAL PRINT!

At the beginning of the year I took part in the Traffic Signal Box project and painted a box on the corner of Murray and Davey Sts in Hobart. It was a fantastic experience, but after it was done (30 plus hours on Hobart’s hottest January days) I swore that I’d never do it again. Which must be why a few weeks ago I found myself applying to paint another box. I chose TSB9119 which is on the corner of Murray and Bathurst Streets outside Highfield House. A bit of research revealed that there used to be a hotel on the site called the Highfield Hall Hotel, so I decided that I wanted to do a design that reflected that era somehow. After a heap of false starts and hampered by the fact that this is my busiest time of the year both Same Dog and day job wise, my deadline for submission arrived today. It seems I still work fairly well when a deadline is looming (and with a hangover ironically) and have managed to come up with something that I like and will hopefully be achievable on site. The result is a design called Last Drinks and I’d love to know what you think of it.

For the trainspottery types amongst you there’s also a coded Easter Egg hidden in the design. I don’t have a prize for the first person to pick it, but let me know if you happen to work it out.

UPDATE: Just in case anyone was trying to work out what the Easter Egg in the design is I thought I’d better put you out of your misery – if you read the beer glasses from left to right, the levels in the glasses correspond to letters of the alphabet and spell out SAMEDOG. Not many people that see the finished design will ever know, but I thought it was a quirky way to ‘sign’ my work.

Highfield Hall Hotel image sourced from National Archives of Australia

Last Drinks

Highfield Hall Hotel

The new location.

Last year's effort.

OK, first up there’s a rule with this post: don’t bother reading it unless you’re going to say the title of the post out loud (very loud) Pigs In Space style from the Muppets. If you don’t know what I’m referring to I’m more than happy to lose you as a customer.

A few weeks ago I was doing my washing in the dodgy old unit that masquerades as a washing machine in my laundry. I went out to check on it because it’s one of those good machines that likes to go off balance more times than not and stop the wash in mid cycle. It was just starting to crank up the spin cycle and it was making an almighty noise, which for whatever reason made me think of a space ship launching. And so Front Loader in Space was born.

Available in sudsy sizes for Grownups and spinny versions for rugrats HERE.

BUY THIS DOCTOR GOODNESS!

I’m quite partial to a bit of crowd sourcing, but I don’t imagine hundreds of dedicated Same Dog fans feverishly working on my requests for ideas, so I tend to think of it more as huddle sourcing (although I’m reasonably sure that some of my huddles contain one or less people). I put the word out on Twitter that I needed some good words to go along with my newest babies. My Twitter crowd is usually pretty good at this sort of stuff once I’ve sorted through the inevitable vulgarity that my feed likes to throw my way when I ask these questions – mostly entertaining, rarely fit for publication. On this occasion my Twitter buddies didn’t come up with the goods, but the huddle expanded a tad and friends of Twitter friends came to my rescue. And because I’m a firm believer that everyone deserves their 1.3 seconds of fame I’d like to acknowledge my creative contributors here.

First up is the person who provided the caption for Left Nut who came up with I would give my left nut to wish you a Merry Christmas. Perfect really – a lovely degree of ambiguity and a subtlety not often found in Same Dog captions. For this fine piece of copywriting I am grateful to none other than Dave G. from Maine. As I have never met Dave G, and with the internet being the internet, I have no idea if there actually is a Dave G or if he hails from Maine. But whoever you are Dave G, thank you.

My second robot card was known as Santa Bot right from the outset, but a name for a character on a card does not a caption maketh. Enter a sixteen year old by the name of Jackson Hills. History will show that I tried for five days to come up with a caption to go with Santa Bot. History will show that my Twitter feed tried for one day to come up with a caption for Santa Bot. History will show that young Jackson came up with a caption in roughly five minutes. I’m pretty sure that four of those five minutes were spent sharpening his pencil. And it’s not just a good caption, but a brilliant caption that I was almost upset to read because it was so bloody good. As I write this, Santa Bot has rocketed into position as the card most viewed online this season. Technically Santa Bot is a good illustration in my range, but without some catchy words this card wouldn’t have been released. Thanks for your words Mr Hills.

Hope you have as much fun with these as I have putting them together. If my calculations are correct this is the 15th year I have published Christmas cards. The first ones were very primitive and labour intensive (I might post about them another day), but gradually the design and production has improved to the quality that they’re at today. Sing out if you’ve got any questions.

Update: Moment seized; I’ve just e-mailed to ask how much the lessons are, will see where it ends up.