Felix
Gray
's
Archive
Nametag Your It
2015-2016
35 nametags
my oldest
conceptual work
Type of Writer
"Hello, I'm a typewriter. I'm complex, and have a lot of small parts working together.
What should I put down in ink?"
The first day of my Junior year, I was asked to wear a nametag at school. Not quite a real school, it was a homeschooling resource, providing once-a-week educational classes and access to athletics and the arts.
I'd been attending these weekly classes (30 a year) from Kindergarten on, so I was sort of well-known. I
laughed at the request, and drew a quick sketch during first period and slapped it on my arm, hoping any-
one needing to be introduced would just say hello!
The next week I drew a new one throughout the day, as the adults were still encouraging kids to wear nametags, for the new kids' sakes. At the time, I was obsessed with my name, so of course I obliged; only I
decided to describe myself with pictures and codes and clues and riddles. Week by week, my favorite con-
ceptual work grew, and more and more people asked me what my name was.
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 junior year, my feelings towards self expression and the confines of growing
up under scrutinizing eyes. The work itself plays with the idea that all labels are applied and not inherent,
but only some of them leave glue on your clothing.
FLOw
Newtonian
"In watercolor class we talked 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"
"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 a senior, she's 'Tina' [Belcher]
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 on yellow post it
"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."
Sleeve Scraper
During my last year of university, I made my instagram account username "NAMETAGYOURIT" to spook people into thinking I'd either been hacked or had started a game of online insta-tag
Really I just wanted people to realize I'd been a conceptual artist for five long years by that point. But also, I believe that if you've
got an IT, you should probably call it... whatever you like
