Interview with Dave Sizemore

Around September 15th, 2009 a new website was born. Frankly, the birth of new websites is not all that exciting except this one emanates from the insanely imaginative and complexly talented head of David Sizemore (official site: DavidSizemoreDesign). Entitled H1N1forEveryone, the site details the swine flu pandemic through Dave’s imaginative and complex images, some of these culled from pop culture while others are birthed directly from Dave’s grey matter.
An interview follows between myself and Dave dealing with his thoughts on the rise and influence of H1N1, his work process, technology’s impact on human interaction and the involvement of art and life.

Q.1: Dave, could you start by giving a brief introduction of yourself (who you are, where you work, are you married and educational background?)

A.1. Hello, my name is David Sizemore. Grew up in New Jersey, moved out to Ohio to go to university for graphic design. Met an amazing girl, graduated, married her, and we moved to North Carolina. I live there now, doing design work full-time.

Q.2:H1N1 is not really something that is particularly funny but your artwork seems to attempt to point at the funnier side of the H1N1 scare. What inspired you to start doing this?

A.2. H1N1 is terrifying. What I’m doing is cathartic. I read way more news than is healthy for me, and I obsess over all the contradictory information out there. Is the threat blown out of proportion? According this article in the New York Times, it is. Are we all going to die? According to this doctor’s blog, yes, slowly and painfully. There is just so much out there. Is it better to get
the vaccine? Should New York require all of its medical personnel to have the vaccine if they want to say employed? Is there a way for me to do anything to protect myself sans a self-inflicted quarantine?
This past Sunday I was working in the nursery at my church, and a lady came through and dropped off a kid with mucus running from his bright-red face down his arms to the palms of his hands. He was wandering around, touching everything, squeezing out a string of rough coughs every forty-five seconds. But instead of flipping out on this stressed-out mom for exposing all these children to whatever her kid had, I made a picture lambasting her and posted it on the internet. It’s just a quasi-healthy way of dealing with the panic I feel every time I hear someone cough at the office/supermarket/car next to me at the stoplight.

Q.3: On one of your first mask images, the text ‘Everyone Panic Now’ is seen printed on the front of the mask. Are you a fan of Douglas Adams?

A.3. I am a fan of all the Douglas Adams I have read, which isn’t much. I’ve just read a bunch of the Hitchhiker’s Guides, ending with Thanks For All The Fish. I probably haven’t read them since high school, though. British humorists are fantastic. So yes, I am a fan, but that ‘everyone panic now’ wasn’t directly, or at least consciously, inspired by him.
I’d say that my phrase was more inspired by Glenn Beck’s Doom Room. He freaks me out. I don’t agree with his view of politics (life, really), which makes it easier for me to write him off as a kook, but I can relate to his fear and paranoia and overinflated sense of self-worth. We all can, to some extent. But that’s where that phrase came from, mostly.

Q.4: One of my particularly favorite images is your use of BRA (Be Ready Always). Do you think the use of this type of mask will really catch on?

A.4. Isn’t that great? I love that someone spent the time and energy to develop a bra that will actually work as a proper medical mask. No, I don’t see it catching on. I can’t imagine a major undergarment company working with the people who own this patent to develop a comfortable version of the product, which I think would be its biggest hurdle. Then you’d have to convince people it was worth the extra money to own these bras exclusively, since they would only be useful in an emergency if you already had it on. Then you’d have to convince the lady next to you to take off her bra and let you stick it over your face, which is quite hard to do.

Q.5: The obvious question then is have you tried this and under what possible circumstances?

A.5: Of course. It’s a great pick-up line. I used it back in 1968 during the Hong Kong flu. That’s how I met my wife.

Q.6: Your adaption/use of American Gothic is somewhat eerie (even more than the original). Do you see yourself doing more of this type of work in future-perhaps Mona Lisa or Picasso’s Three Musicians?

A.6: That image is so creepy because the woman is gone. There is a guy with a surgical mask on and his wife missing. It’s a familiar image sans an integral piece, which is off-putting. Is the woman dead? Is she refusing to participate in her husband’s paranoid fantasy? I actually have a version of this with my wife in there, but it doesn’t look good because I couldn’t get her hair right. In frustration I took her out, and then the piece worked, so I was done. Voila, secret revealed.
I don’t plan on using other famous images. Frankly, I get tired of images from pop culture being recycled endlessly. It might happen, though. I wasn’t planning on using American Gothic, Iwas just trying to make an image using my wife and it evolved into something else. Something without her, actually. So, no Mona Lisa.

Q.7: The title of your site H1N1foreveryone could be considered offensive to some people who have encountered the flu. Have you had swine flu? Where do you stand about the danger of swine flu?

A.7: It is offensive, a bit. I would imagine it would be quite offensive to anyone who has lost someone to the flu in the past year. Being offensive is not my aim, and hopefully most people will understand that. But it’s the Internet, so I’m sure someone will eventually take offense. C’est la vie.
I have not had the swine flu. I was ill last week, but I displayed none of the respiratory symptoms and only missed a day of work. So I’m sure it was something else. But I stand on the flu being super-duper dangerous. People have died. Death is dangerous. But so far more people die annually from the regular flu, so that’s pretty dangerous, too. What isn’t dangerous?

Q.8: Do you think that as viruses, such as the avian flue or H1N1, continue to spread do you think companies will begin to invest in designer-made masks?

A.8: I’d imagine a few designer masks, but there will probably be more home-customized masks. Celebrities will have designer masks for when they have to come out to mingle with the ordinary people. They’ll be more expensive, safer, and have little logos embroidered on the mask’s silk in gold thread. There will be lots of folks who draw smiley faces on their masks, but that will come to an end after CNN does an investigative report that finds the ink in sharpies degrades the structural integrity of a mask’s protective field.

Q.9: Do you have a designer mask?

A.9: I don’t actually own a mask at all. If I did I would draw a Tom Selleck mustache on it.

Q.10: I very much enjoyed your rendition of Michael Jackson and the Thriller zombies. Do you plan to do a celebrity line of mask-based art?

A.10: I love that one! Michael Jackson was never on my musical radar until he died. Then he was all over the radio for a while, and I discovered that I actually liked his music. Started doing a little research, which wasn’t hard in the aftermath of his passing, and found all this picture of him and his kids in masks. I knew he had worn some for a while, but absolutely loved the pictures of his kids. It’s a perfect way to deal with the paparazzi. So I had to do one for him, and then with the zombies from the Thriller video cross pollinated with the DVD cover for 28 Days Later; it all just wove together so nicely. And I said I didn’t like recycled pop-culture references.

Q.11:Who are your influences? Whom do you find has really pushed you to succeed in this particular area of epidemic-based art?

A.11: Ha. My influences for this? This stuff I’ve been doing doesn’t look like anything that I like. I really like illustration work that has strong, dark lines, very graphic work. Michael Sieben, Travis Millard, Mike Giant, Von Glitschka. But the work I do on my H1N1 blog is all done on the computer on lunch breaks - if I started out from sketches, it would take a lot longer and I’d be pushing out one a week. So this looks very different than what inspires me. They are my inspiration, I’m not sure exactly what has influenced this work. Maybe Eric Tan, a little. His work is amazing.
As far as pushing goes, I’d have to say paranoia. Coffee-fueled paranoia.

Q.12: What inspires you to do a particular image? Is something on the news or, as you mentioned previously, simply paranoia playing?

A.12:.Mostly news. Or an event that happens specifically to me. Renting the Watchmen DVD led to posting a Watchman themed mask. Voila. Thats normally how it works. Or I’ll get worked up over something and need to release some of that pressure. I’d like post something about vaccines soon - I’ve been reading a lot about them recently, and it makes me very upset to hear so many people deciding not be vaccinated.
Go ahead and check your Facebook page - I guarantee someone has posted a link to some article about how the government is trying to turn children into autistic communists via vaccine, or how the flu shot is 95% mercury and 4% rat poison. And these are sane, rational people! How the Internet turns otherwise normal people into raving lunatics is beyond me. So instead of ranting, and contributing to the idiocy, I try to come up with some silly pictures. It’s just more healthy for me, dealing with things this way.

Q.13: Do you listen to any particular music while working on these?

A.13: I listen to exclusively to Genghis Tron’s “Things Don’t Look Good“, setting it to just repeat over and over. Normally I don’t equate music with inspiration. Certain packaging or posters for bands might be inspiring, but that’s different from their actual music. Example: Pearl Jam always puts out quality gig posters, but I don’t particularly enjoy their music. They’ve influenced me, but I don’t listen to them. I like music, but I’m not sure any sonic vibrations influence my work.

Q. 14: I recently read World War Z by Max Brooks and one of the things your images reminds me of is the no-contact type of thinking between those who are ill and those are not. The occurence of H1N1 seems to give some credence to zombie films whereby avoiding the infected the uninfected stay safe. Of course with H1N1 nobody is lopping heads off. Leprosy comes to mind as well. As you build these images and contemplate new ones does the zombie film culture/sub-culture influence your thinking at all? Have you drawn a similar parallel?

A.14: Zombie-ism definitely influenced some of my images. The part of zombie lore that I relate to the most is the sense of helplessness that the average human has in a zombified culture. There’s an inevitableness to a zombie situation. Normal people become zombies. That’s just what happens. There’s going to be three or four people running around doing quasi-heroic things, but that’s not you and me. We’re going to be trying to eat their brains. And that sort of inevitability comes into play with how I think about H1N1.Of course, that scenario is very much a zombie-movie scenario. I imagine - I have not read it - that World War Z is quite different. A book can deal with all sorts of global repercussions and the cool political aspects that would not translate as well, or as easily, in a movie.

Q.15: Do you think the occurence of H1N1 will have any lasting mental effects, even more than then physical sickeness on us as Americans? In a society that is increasingly more withdrawn, because of the ease of home access to media, do you think that something like this ‘pandemic’ will help to isolate people further?

A.15: Perhaps. You can Netflix your movies and buy your books on Half.com and work from your home, but you still see other humans. The isolation is there, but it has not yet eradicated human contact. That contact might not be meaningful to you, but it’s still there. Feelings of isolation don’t actually make you isolated! You simply cannot isolate yourself enough to create real barriers without radically changing your lifestyle, which few people are likely to do. We want ease as well as protection. But this aspect of isolation is why we have malls. We want shopping without having to be exposed to crime. So instead of taking a train into the city and walking the streets, we drive to a Segway-patrolled parking garage where we take an video-monitored elevator to our floor. Yes, it’s also convenient, but again, we weigh ease and safety as equal.
I foresee less a change in people’s patterns and more changes in what they consider acceptable amounts of protection. I don’t think people will stop going to malls - I think they will require that the mall hire medical personnel to perform screenings before they let people attend a movie. Seriously. As long as private businesses do it and not the government, I would imagine very few people complaining.

Q.16: Related to the previous question-Do you think there may be any other effects in terms of social interaction or human thinking?

A.16: Perhaps a greater willingness to exchange information between countries. Mexico seemed to be pretty transparent when this all started, and we were hearing a lot about safety precautions all over the world, even in some countries that don’t necessarily have a reputation being open with their media coverage. I haven’t been alive long enough to know if that’s normal, but it seemed like governments were okay with letting news organizations let other countries know what they were doing, which was neat. Maybe in the future we’ll have better communication between governments as horrible plagues sweep the globe. That would be nice.
I think social interaction is currently changing drastically, but I think that has more to do with technology than particular events. An example would be Twitter and the Iranian elections - that was a global event that changed how people view media and social interaction, but it seems like Twitter benefitted more from the convergence than Iran. I see the news of the use of technology being more important than the actual event(s) are for a period of time in the near future. If that makes sense. That sounds pretty crazy.

I guess that’s it. Also, I have to make sure that I warn anyone who has made it all the way through this that they should really avoid Genghis Tron, the Watchman DVD, zombie movies, and Twitter. I think they are all really crappy. But if you like any of those things, that doesn’t make you a crappy person. Some of those things are okay sometimes. Different people like different things.

On Tuesday Nov. 17 I had the distinct pleasure of seeing/hearing Elie Wiesel (b.1928) lecture at Wilkes University. Wiesel’s lecture was part of an ongoing series entitled the Outstanding Leader’s Forum. Other speakers have included Madeline Albright, Colin Powell and Rudy Giuliani . Wiesel is a Holocaust survivor (Auschwitz, Buchenwald) and a Nobel Laureate. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986 for his humanitarian and activist work. He has over 50 novels to his credit with a new work of fiction entitled A Mad Desire to Dance due out in Feb. 2010. His best work is probably Night which details his experiences in the concentration camps.
Wiesel spoke sitting down at a wooden table that was situated on a tan Oriental rug. He spoke into the microphone on the table often waving his hands about on either sides of the mic to help make his point. It appeared that he also had a sheaf/sheet(s) of notes that he carried onstage and then placed on the the table to his right hand side but he did not refer to them at any time during the evening.
It is difficult to gauge the impact of these type(s) of events where there is a large bunch/group of fairly diverse people coming together by the purchasing a ticket to see/hear one individual speak, followed by clapping and departure. One wonders how effective this approach is or what the actual purpose, for those attending, of such an event is.
Seeing Wiesel was awesome. However, I posit, b/c of easy access to media that has enabled the history to be the present longer, it is very easy to lose the appreciation of the group encounter of an individual. This does fall into Scruton’s category of “the purposeless encounter of/with an unconsumable object”. There is/was no consumeristic benefit for the audience in listening Wiesel, in fact we paid to listen to him. No t-shirts were sold, no bumper stickers were available though programs were given out. The only artifact that carries from this particular encounter is my four pages of notes and my memory. (Since the notes are not a transcription they are artifacts themselves being greatly removed from their original context and in my fairly terrible handwriting, esp. in the situation of trying to keep up w/ Wiesel w/o a pause button.)
So why do we as people have the interest in going to see individuals like Wiesel? Do we go for inspiration, for the cult of celebrity, so that we are seen by others? Does it matter why anyone else goes or does it matter only if I go? Is it Wiesel’s accomplishments which are many and laudatory, his erudition and knowledge what attracts us (or any audience) to him. To borrow form Benjamin, is there still belief that the physical speaker carries an aura that is not possible perceive outside of the moment of its occurrence? B/c we have read his books?
The other question then is what are/were we hoping to receive/achieve? Is it the ability to tell grandchildren/children “I saw/heard Wiesel” (historiography). I can click here and see multiple instances of Wiesel speaking.
Wiesel recounted that some time after the camps he was asked how he managed to keep his sanity. He said “It is learning. I teach because I want(ed) to learn. The privilege of the human is to learn from creation both about the created being and the C/creator. Learning never stops.” It is tempting then to argue that going to see Wiesel is to continue the learning process by encountering another human being (an ‘other’). It is tempting then to tack on as well the fact that this is someone who had survived one of the most horrific experiences of humanity’s recent history and has redeemed/transformed that experience to story and work with other people. This is a powerful thing and demands respect. However perhaps it is enough just that Wiesel represents an instance of ‘the other’.
Wiesel spoke on the importance of learning and passion and the necessity for the combination of both, calling for their continuation in the active survival of compassionate humanity. Approximately halfway through his lecture, Wiesel stated that “…the enemy has more imagination then the victim. He (the victim) did not imagine Auschwitz, but the enemy did. B/c we did not imagine it, we were not ready.” In order to to be able to imagine something like Auschwitz we need to be able to think another’s thoughts against our own. Scruton also suggests that “We have knowledge of the facts and knowledge of the means but no knowledge of the ends.” Perhaps this is because we have lack the imagination and thus the means of asking the question of “What is…?”This requires intelligence/intuition which can only result from the committed learner, continuing to invest in the exploration of questions not for solipsistic ends but for the sharing of that experience even if that experience is only through an sixty minute lecture or is expanded out to 50 novels.

“Do we ask the right questions? That is the question.” ~Elie Wiesel

Listening to Nature-Derrick Jensen
I found myself in a consistently dialectical relationship with Jensen’s writing. On the one hand I’ve read his book ‘Walking on Water’, dealing with education, twice in the past year as I’ve started teaching for the first time and found it immeasurably helpful. I’ve also read Endgame Vol. 1 The Problem of Civilization and my mind has been seriously tweaked since then. This isn’t a bad thing except that I have some difficulty identifying exactly how his suggestions/actions might play out if enacted, though I think this is true of most revolutionary-type thinking, whether or not that thinking is realized in action.
This morning I got up at 5am, showered, dressed in warm clothes and with my bow in the back seat drove 20 minutes out into the rural area north of Binghamton. At 5:45 I, and the owner of the land, was walking through a moonlit field while the stars were pin-pricks of white light demonstrating out their constellations. As we created the first hill looking over our left shoulders at the opposite hills the sunrise showed itself in a solid orange band fading into the brilliantly subdued blue of the early morning sky. The grass and leaves were white with frost as the temperature was close to 17 degrees (Celsuis). Climbing into my stand at the top of the hill I watched the sun continue to push out from the opposing hills spreading its light over the stars but leaving the moon to hang opaquely almsot directly over my treestand. About 15 minutes after getting into the stand, four doe slowly worked their way about 35 yards beneath their hooves crunching loudly through the undergrowth. Not 10 minutes after their passing a large buck moved through the woods after them and presenting an excellent shot at 20 yards. I drew, released the arrow and completely missed, failing to take into account the angle of the hill. The deer bolted downhill approximatley 15 yards stood for several minutes and then trotted uneasily down the hill. Rather perturbed with myself I sat and watched the dawn take over the day. The bird song crept up in volume and the little red squirrels performed noteworthy feats of acrobatic skill about the fallen trunks.  A piliated woodpecker did his search for grubs about the surrounding trees. The buck was the last deer I saw. But the morning was worth it becuase of the ability to enjoy the other animals and their activity within the woods. Would getting the deer have been awesome? Absolutely. Venison is delicious and versatile as a meat but killing the animal does not make the hunting experience awesome. Rather it is the interaction wtih the outdoors, to sit and watch and listen as a semi-invisible watcher and discover what I did not know and was not aware of before becuase of my activity and motion. I believe that this enjoyment of nature is a direct gift of God to us and because of that gift we should do a better job of managing our interactions with nature. To this end I believe Jensen is correct.
As a capstone, I would quote Dr. Fred Putnam. This quote hangs in my office as a reminder and goad.
“I dream of a school in which visitors cannot distinguish faculty from students, because all are equally engaged in learning from whatever text lies open before them, whether that text be a great tree under which they sit, a specimen observed through a microscope, a piece of music, the host and rank of heaven, or galaxies of letters in constellations of words on a page.”

The NYRB recently published this article by Andrew Delbanco. I’ve not read either of these two books so I’ll avoid what Steiner detests and not post thoughts on someone else’s thoughts based on their reading. Simploy to say that this article is an interesting read and I would like to read both of these works.
Would appreciate any comment back from anyone who has read these.

The Making of Americans: Democracy and Our Schools, by E.D. Hirsch Jr., and Why School? Reclaiming Education for All of Us, by Mike Rose

You should immediately head over to H1N1ForEveryOne! This is a site of artwork inspired by, and dedicated to, the mystique, style and allure of H1N1. This timely and provocative work was created and posted by none other than the illustrious and handsome David Sizemore-check out his new website as well. The images on this clever and witty site definitely puts the ‘fun’ into H1N1.
David is originally from NJ, went to Cedarville where he graduated with a BS in Exceptional Graphic Design (EGD) and currently lives and works in NC with his lovely wife Kari.
Please stay tuned here for an interview to be posted to this site at a later date.

Found out this morning that Elie Wisel will be speaking at Wilkes University on Nov. 17. Definitively an opportunity of a lifetime to hear this man. He is a Holocaust survivor and continued advocate of human rights as well as being an accomplished author and teacher.  He is also a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize.
Details here.

This is a really interesting article dealing with the issue of the control of technology. Because people are acting in an unsafe way (texting/emailing) within their cars, this article states that the technology of the phone needs to control the individual’s use of it. Yhe phone will not work in particular situations so as to prevent the individual from harming themselves or others. This is remarkably backwards. It, the situation, also questions the viability of the truth that development of technology is a progression forward, an evolutionary movement upward. The article makes the very poignant statement that “…drivers value convenience more than safety…” What this situation brings into sharp relief is our distance from our community(ies). Driving already puts the driver into a plastic/metal/glass bubble and texting/emailing and to a certain extent talking on the phone puts that individual into a second bubble, if you will, within the first further removing them from initial bubble as well as knowledge/concern for the other bubbles about them. It’s only when these bubbles come into forcibly interact (i.e. crash) that there is awareness of interaction. The issue here is not of control of technology but of our own ability to control ourselves. The fact of this article even being written indicates that the convenience of being able to text, some might even say ‘the right to text’, is more important than limiting oneself to not texting while driving. As a civilization (D. Jensen) we/I/they are seemingly, universally unable to keep a very small, device, that we can deactivate at will with the touch of a button, from constantly, even imperiously, commanding our attention whenever it vibrates/beeps/rings/plays your favorite obnoxious song.