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Editors:John MulvanyShea LittleDebra BrozSean Gaulager

Creative Advisors: Sean GaulagerSean RippleKevin Foote

Art Direction & Design:Shea Little

Promotion:Sean Gaulager

Advertising:Stephanie Braddock

Production Manager:Katherine Kunze

Production Assistant:Rebecca Marino

Contributors:Clarke CurtisSuzanne KoettJoshua SaundersMouths bySean RippleJustin CoxJames HuizarKatherine KunzeRichard FetchickThax DouglasJohn Mulvany6th Grade Art Students of the Khabele SchoolMichael MerckJana SwecMark JohnsonJosh DihleCherie WeaverDebra BrozBen PickleShea LittleSean GaulagerAmber ShieldsJulie JohnsonAustin NelsenKatie Rose PipkinLance McMahanJon Windham

Cantanker Call for Art: Issue 11Catalog & Exhibition Jurors:Cook & Ruud

Selected work will be featured in Cantanker’s full-color annual art catalog, Issue 11 and in a group exhibition in fall 2010.

Submission Deadline: TBA. Check website for details

About the Jurors:Cook & Ruud is a think tank and production team comprised of Rachel Cook and Claire Ruud. We seek to investigate new models for the production and presenta-tion of contemporary art. Drawing on traditional models such as the for-profit gal-lery, the nonprofit space and the artist-run cooperative, our goal is to develop new models for supporting art work amidst a shifting cultural and economic landscape.

Submission Guidelines:· Works can be executed in any media, traditional or digital/new media. · All works must be submitted digitally in high-resolution jpg files (300 dpi or larger).· Video work must be submitted for the jurying process as still images.· Work submitted may be in any size and will be appropriately scaled to fit the catalog.· Only recent or newly created work will be considered.· Submissions must be made online at www.cantanker.com. Please note that submissions cannot be mailed.· Work submitted must be available for the group show · All artists are welcome to submit except those who are members of the Cantanker staff.

Entry Requirements:· $10 for a single submission, $20 for 3 submissions.· There is no upper limit on submissions.· Artists should provide a brief statement about their work. (150 words or less).

Jury Process & Dates· Submissions will be juried by Cook & Ruud.· Accepted submissions will be printed in full color in Issue 11 of Cantanker with full credit given to the artist.· Selected artists will be contacted by the Cantanker editorial staff with details regarding Issue 11 group show in Fall 2010.· Selected artists are responsible for all artwork shipping and/or delivery expenses. Cantanker will NOT provide return shipping.

For questions not addressed in this form: email editor@cantanker.com

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printed in Austin, Texas by: 360 Press Solutions. www.360presssolutions.com

EDITORIAL

I’m going to start this out and end it in the same way:

I’ve been misinformed.

I’ve been misinformed by the media, by people in the rural Missouri where I grew up, by teachers at schools I attended, by friends and family members I know and once knew and society in general. How was I misin-formed? There are, of course, specific instances where I realized I’d been misinformed, but I’ve learned that the most damaging type of misinformation has come from me. As I’ve processed years of ideologies, actions and reactions to the world I created my own ideas about how things are and how they should be. This amalgam of pieced together experiences, facts, hearsay, rumor, fiction and presupposition can create a toxic mess when you start to learn, as I am, that there is not necessarily a pattern to follow: you can only predict so much and life, the longer you live it, seems to be more of a surprise than anything else. I wake up in the morning sometimes and think: how did I end up here- in this place, this life that wasn’t ever anything like I imagined?

It’s easy to be a zealot about your beliefs – to proclaim the truth as you know it. Easy, but oftentimes, stupid. Knowledge is changeable – what was true once won’t always be true. If you’re going to stand on a soapbox make proclamations about the world sooner or later there will be a contradiction, a mistake, a change that turns your truth into an untruth.

In this issue of Cantanker Clarke Curtis’ Inadequate In-habitants create mysterious conversations through infor-mation that is seen and not said. Justin Cox and James Huizar created posters based off grammatically incorrect Tea Party protest signs and pasted them throughout Austin. Joshua Saunders’ juxtapositions of vintage im-ages confuse information about source and purpose of original material. Saunders’ works, coupled with texts

created by Austin Nelsen create an even more confu-sion about the source material and artist intentions. We also explore misinformation on the internet through the constant updating of Cantanker’s Wikipedia page and Thax Douglas’ experience with death on Facebook. In John Mulvany’s telephone project, the classic children’s game is taken to a new level through artist collaboration. In this issue we also feature a photo essay by Suzanne Koett, a linguistic project by Richard Fetchick and theat-rical texts by Ben Pickle.

So I’ll close with this: when I started this life, no one properly explained to me how all this stuff was supposed to work. I’ve been misinformed!!!

Enjoy the issue-

Debra Broz speaking for John Mulvany, Shea Little and Sean Gaulager whether they agree or not.

CONTENTS

Inadequate Inhabitants Interacting by Clarke Curtis

Photo Essay by Suzanne Koett

Joshua Saunders Interpretedartwork by Joshua Saunderswords by Austin Nelson

Mouthsby Julie Johnson & Lance McMahan

Cantanker Wikidirected by Sean Gaulager

Can I Get a What What?directed by Sean Rippleposters by Justin Cox & James Huizar photos by Katherine Kunze

Texas Queeps (The Texas Linguistic Relativity Test) by Richard Fetchick

RIP Thax Douglasdirected by Kevin Foote

Telephone Projectdirected by John Mulvany

Volcanoes Don’t Just Happen, Safe Robot Labor, Caterwaul Tum-tumwords by Ben Pickle

Cultureal Landscaping, 1996Acrylic, construction paper, found photographs, on wood panel8.5 x14 Ft.

Created from found photographs, magazines, and original dismembered art, Cultureal Landscaping, is in form what it represents. The scene is created from figurative pieces of American culture and landscape, past and pres-ent, clashing and complementing each other. The figures observing and ignoring their surroundings, midst the trees and the land, they struggle over ownership and how it defines and affects those who exist there.

Re-member to make him feel special, 2003Latex, cardboard, twine, paint pen4 x 4 x 2.8 in

Emphasizing the divide of physicality and desire, consumer impulse and sexual impulse, Re-member to make him feel special plays on the instant and temporary gratifications of a spontaneous splurge. The work highlights an attempt through a purchase or action, to define and acquire meaning of the self and its relationship to objects, ter-restrial or inanimate.

Together Forever & There’s One In Every Crowd, 1993Acrylic, photocopy of photographs, wood veneer, cherry pie filling24 x 24 in

This acclaimed diptych examines the ultimate remorse or lack there of, of actions based on jealousy and revenge as well as the public perception of events based on preconceived notions of heroes and villains. Using cherry pie filling as a material in the piece, the artist highlights the sweet and no so sweet side of revenge taken to extremes.

Full Circles, 2002Tea stained paper, felt, pen17 x 22 in

Full Circles represents the repetitive and often colorful nature of bureaucracy. Colored felt pieces assembled in a Fibonacci sequence to censor words deemed important by the original author, now provide a sense of controlled calam-ity to a document otherwise meant to bring order, despite the historical and political outcome.

I can’t seem to find your name on the list, 1999Mixed Media, Charcoal, Pencil, Acrylic

Acting on preconceived and self-inflicted codes of representation, We find the figures in this painting bound culturally, commercially or physically to a destination unnerv-ingly welcoming. Often we find our selves in similar socially uncomfortable settings, striving to find similarities in ourselves and our surroundings, choosing between fight or flight, or just faking it, I cant seem to find your name on the list evokes the intention of finding comfort specifically when out of place.

Cantanker started with puke...

How will it end?

Can I Get a What What?

The boldness with which we proclaim our ill-informed ideas and opinions to others is a sort of social lubricant akin to booze or cash. Loaded with faulty knowledge, we share and judge im-perfectly until some bigger kid busts us for being incorrect or off in some fundamental way… this is a world-turning phenomenon and to the extent that society gets by on such silliness, we should be grateful. While talk is cheap, this doesn’t mean one should completely abandon a humbler sense in favor of nothing but the brazen… I mean everyone needs to spell check from time to time, right? Inspired by a flickr link that has archived some of the Tea Party movement’s more liberal spellings of political sentiment, illustrator/designer Justin Cox and artist James Huizar, recreated posters, keeping these improperly spelled statements fully in tact. For more instances of liberal use of language, visit the following link:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/pargon/sets/72157623594187379/

Project Director, Sean Ripple

Repeel Congress by Justin Cox

Tax by James Huizar

Thax Douglas is dead Faking one’s death was a common thread of specu-lation among certain friends of mine through the years. I remember having a long discussion about the logistics, what doctors and officials to pay off,etc, with Algebra Suicide’s Lydia Tomkiw 20 years ago. Or if you were famous, how to launder your royalties so you could live in obscure comfort.

In Chicago I was friends with a circle of “anti-comics” via one of my best friends whose stage name was Bone Tang or “Boner” for short. During one late eve-ning the fake death idea arose again. We made great plans but I didn’t follow through-after all. The Chicago music press treated me as if I didn’t exist so why would they care one way or the other?

I’d told Boner I was going up to visit my Dad in Wis-consin but unbeknownst to him I put it off a week. I went to Chinatown where I’d found a couple of delicious cheap places and had some bone marrow lo-mein and a coconut tart. Then I went to the fabu-lous Music Box theater to see a Norwegian Zombie comedy called Dead Snow, ignoring the Pitchfork festival which was starting that day.

When I got home at midnight there were about a dozen messages on the answering machine, some of them my best friends, asking in sombre gloomy voices when the funeral would be – when I called Don Juan back I was told to check out my facebook page.

Only 2 people had my facebook password, Salaman-der and Boner. Being tech-stupid I needed their help to post photos and such on my page. One of the two had posted this succinct little note:

“This is Thax’s Dad. Thax died this morning about 10am. I know he loved his many friends in Chicago and I ask that your pray for him this evening.”

The post was followed by about 80 comments of mourning or truth-questioning. Not knowing I was dead I had posted my most recent poem on myspace at about 12:30pm. Many of the facebook commenters latched onto this and some of my “anti-comic” pals had suggested comical ways I might have died - this wasn’t a hoax but an in-joke! But it was too late.

At the Pitchfork festival the Tortoise’s John Herndon graciously dedicated their set to my memory and through the magic of iphones my speculated death suddenly became a sensation among the Pitchfork at-tendees. A pile of music writers who would not, while I was alive, give me the time of day, began blogging about my death. I had the supreme honor of being on the Wikipedia recent deaths page for an hour until a journalist called my Dad who said as far as he knew I was not. My Dad, who has a sense of humor had left me a message saying, “Just calling to see if you’re dead son”.

If this had been an actual hoax I would have done it differently. I would have let the press think I was dead for a couple of weeks so there would be some obituaries in print. Maybe I would have waited more than 2 weeks to see if national or international tributes or the conception of a legend would start embryoizing. However since I was not in control of the situation I was unable to do that. What happened tho was that the Chicago press was shown up, something which of course they will never forgive me for, telling each other that I planned the whole thing all along.

All I can say is the whole affair was a delightful giant finger balloon to wave in Chicago’s ugly face. To quote the title of a Richard Kern film, “You Killed Me First!”

Telephonea project in miscommunication directed by John Mulvany

In the children’s game telephone, the first player whispers a phrase or sentence into the ear of their neighbor. The neighbor then repeats what they think they heard into the ear of the next person and so on until the last person announces the phrase to the group. Of course the fun comes from the inevitable changes that occur as the sentence makes its way around the room.

The game, sometimes known in other cul-tures as Gossip, Chinese Whispers, and Broken Telephone is cited as a metaphor for how rumors and gossip are spread and for the general unreliability of human recollection.

We invited the 6th grade art class at the Khabele School in Austin to play the game and used the resulting transcript as the starting point for an artist’s project.

Six artists: Jana Swec, Michael Merck, Mark Johnson, Josh Dihle, Cherie Weaver and Debra Broz were invited to respond to each phrase by completing a collabora-tive artwork. The first artist was given the original phrase and started the piece. The artwork was then passed on to the next artist along with an altered version of the original phrase. None of the artists were made aware of the origins of the phrase they were given.

I w i l l c r u s h y o u w i t h s a i d A c h i l l e s H e e l .

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I p r o b e y o u a n d I h i d e y o u .

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