#art guards

[fishboy]

Art Guard 365 is an author from the year 2067 who, while conducting deep research on his favorite obscure classic rock band, discovered the lost year they posted a daily watercolor portrait with accompanied story in a futile attempt to raise awareness of their greatest album to date. There were stories of painters, dancers, musicians, performance and sandwich artists, costume designers, carpenters, cosplayers and hundreds more in this lost digital archive of chipboard paintings. He had struck a goldmine. He quickly read them all, and when he reached the end, took a long nap. While he was asleep, a vision of the band’s front man appeared. He asked the front man what it felt like after a year of painting and writing. “It felt like three years passed me by in the span of one.” “what does that mean?” “I was getting little sleep because of my baby daughter, the daily news was relentless, I was driving long hours to and from work, but I felt like if I didn’t make it to a year I’d be failing myself so I kept pushing.” 365 woke up, went to the bathroom, and never spoke of this dream to anyone. If you visit his house and look on his shelf you’ll find a vinyl copy of Art Guards next to a hardbound copy of all the Art Guard paintings compiled and published by 365 himself. If you ask, he’ll tell you it sold around a hundred copies and urge you to grab a couple from the garage on your way out. >>>>> Thats it for this series of paintings! Thanks for reading guys! I’ll have a little more to say on this project later. Live dates with AJJ start next week! -Eric

[fishboy]

Art Guard 358 committed to filming himself do jumping jacks everyday for a year starting with one and adding an additional jump everyday. It started out easy but once he passed ten months and started doing three hundred jacks a day, he started to lose motivation. Thankfully he’s almost to the finish line and has decided to play all 365 videos at once side by side in an installation he’ll call: My Jumping Jack Year. Not a great name, but he’s too tired to think of a better one. 

[fishboy]

At eight years old, Art Guard 327 is the youngest licensed used car salesman in modern recorded history. Sure, there is a certain art to selling an auto in a one on one commission setting, but to be fair, he’s not really that good of a salesman.  Most of the folks you talk to in the tri-cities area will say that 327′s true works of art are his self produced commercials in which he wears an oversized suit and pretends to be a much older man who was “zapped by a shrinking ray.” The 21 part series is a hit staple with tri-cities day time cable watchers and has even seen national attention thanks to the web. You may recognize the catch phrase which became an instant viral hit last fall: “It’s a man’s world, but they shrunk me and my prices!”

[fishboy]

Art Guard 309 is a mixed media visual artist whose influences include painter Edgar Degas, director John Ford, actor Peter Faulk and rapper Slick Rick, all of which operated to peak perfection only using one eye. Her personal theory is that if she trains herself to only practice art using her left eye (her right is typically cover with her bangs) not only will she be paying tribute to her heroes, but when it it comes time to produce a serious piece, she’ll pin back the bang and use both eyes giving herself double the strength and visual ability. Similar to how olympic athletes train in cities with thinner air, 309 is positive this method is a bullseye. 

[fishboy]

UPDATE 4-21-2017 (WHAT ME WORRY?): We made it to 200 Art Guards! I thought about giving up several times during the past fifty days to work on prepping the album release but was encouraged to stick it out, and so here we are. I’ve been working on a good amount of things other than holding a baby, working a job, and writing stories for little pieces of painted chipboard. Here’s are a couple.

First, I wrapped a detailed 12" insert for the vinyl which tells the whole album story in a 9 x 9 grid of comic panels printed on two sided salmon card stock. After that I started working on ways to format that comic into a several page mini-comic that would come with the CD version. This evolved into a larger 55 page 5" book that includes lyrics. I'm going to sell that with a hand painted and screened chipboard sleeve but I don't have all the elements finished to photograph. I approved the book to start production this morning, so it's all coming soon! I'm going to send a batch to college radio stations for this album, so please let me know if you are a DJ!

Also, I’ve been booking shows for the west coast tour. The first batch of dates is up at yofisboy.com/shows which includes a release show at Dan’s Silverleaf where we’re going to try to display and sell off all of the Art Guards (I haven’t figured out these details yet!) Once all the CD’s are finished and books arrive I will also post up every Art Guard (so far) for sale and figure out some kind of package deal as well (again, still figuring out the details.) Last time for An Elephant and had all this pre-order stuff ready 9 months ahead of time! Now I’ll be lucky if I get nine days! Fortunately, I have help with Lauren Records where you can pre-order the vinyl now. 

Speaking of the tour, I still need to figure out a show in Idaho a show in West Texas or NM, and one between here and Denver. email me with ideas if you got them. 

 Thanks for supporting all this stuff we put out!  I could ramble on forever but rarely get a second to sit down and type. More things are in store for this year. Talk to you guys soon.

-Eric

[fishboy]

Art Guard 204 is a board game creator who is currently trying to find inspiration for his next masterpiece by carrying a blank board with him around the city. So far, his only ideas involve overflowing garbage cans and and stray cats. >>>>> Art Guards by Fishboy arrives May 19!

[fishboy]

Art Guards turned two yesterday! It’s been a surreal joy watching it spread around the world and creep into different ears slowly growing like a house plant. More often than not, when artists let go of their work, they blindly throw it into the world and see what happens. I try and write/record things with legs that will stand the test of time, and I think/hope I pulled it off with this one. Either way, two years has come and it’s still my favorite. To celebrate, Lauren Records is putting these blue vinyl copies on sale for the rest of the week! Oh yeah, I’m one song away from completing writing the next album! Ok!-Eric

[fishboy]

Two songs from our session with Radio UTD have been posted! Feel free to use the green screen and paste us into your home town!