At one time, I worked for a woman who made wholesale jewelry.  When I first met her, she gave me a pair of earrings, completely to my surprise.  I later learned that it is her trademark gesture to give the lower price point jewelry that she makes to her friends and people she meets.  Her gesture definitely jump-started our friendship.  It always impressed me and I wished that I could give my art to others in the same way.  However, I make glass sculptures that cost a great deal to make. It has always been financially unwise for me to give my art away.  Therefore, I was really excited when I came up with the idea to make a sticker of one of my abstract figure drawings.  With their minimal cost, I am now able to give away my artwork and make others feel special; the same way that my friend does with her jewelry.

The work of Shepard Fairey, a well-known graffiti and propaganda artist, has always intrigued me. Fairey uses the image of Andre the Giant, a well-known figure in the history of professional wrestling, on stickers, posters, patches, and many other forms of promotional media.  These images have been distributed in mass quantities and placed on various objects that can be easily seen by the public.  Fairey’s Obey Campaign had an international impact and his website shows images of his stickers that have been stuck all over the world.  Fairey says the distribution of his icon is about his identity or image becoming a phenomenon and is not rooted in the promotion of a political cause or product and the icon does not actually mean anything.  This makes people more aware of the stickers because they become curious about it.  After researching his work, I began to consider my own idea of an icon and what would happen if I gave it away to almost everyone I met.

I made an icon that is a conglomeration of the figures I draw and the ideas that I express with my drawings. It represents most of the characteristics of my drawings in one image.  My stickers are of a moderate size, about two inches by three inches.  I wanted them to be roughly the size of a business card, because business cards are a way that people distinguish their identity. The stickers are made of very high quality vinyl and are black and white; the image is white and the background is black.   Being weather resistant, they do not crack or fade in the sun and rain.

When I am actively administering The Sticker Project, I give my stickers to people I know, people I meet, and especially people who do something nice.  My goal is to actively give them away until I have distributed ten thousand.  I have already given away roughly five thousand stickers.  When I first began this project I tried to develop a protocol of specifically when the stickers would be given, however, I learned that much like my other work the process had to be intuitive.  The stickers are given when the time is right and the interaction will be positive.  Through the experiences of giving, I have learned that if the sticker is given too soon its capacity of acting as an innocent gift is deflated.   It is essential that I give the sticker at a moment when it will be perceived as a positive action in order for it to assume the role of a gift.  When someone receives a gift, it is human nature and a historically proven idea that they feel a bond with the giver.  When a gift is given with no ego, there is an inevitable return because it enters the cycle of life.  When the return occurs, the best way to continue the cycle is to again pass it on.  In the case of my stickers, the physical gift is the sticker, but the intrinsic value is in the act of giving it away and the positive notion that it perpetuates.

Often when I travel, I meet people who live in different places and they take the stickers back to where they are from.  In the United States they have gone to Ohio, Washington, Oregon, California, Louisiana, Georgia, Illinois, Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Florida, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Colorado, Texas, Missouri, Michigan, New Mexico, Vermont, Virginia, and probably many other destinations that I am unaware of.  The stickers have also been given to people who live in countries other than the United States such as Canada, Australia, Singapore, Peru, Thailand, Kenya, Trinidad, Japan, England, Mexico, and Norway.

I have made a vow to myself to never illegally post my stickers.  My personal interest in the project is about the interaction of giving the sticker as a gift; what people do with them and where they put them is a by-product.  However, since the beginning of the project, my stickers have been sighted in a variety of places.  They are visible on cars, signs and lampposts in Columbus, Ohio and other parts of the United States.  They have also been seen in England, Australia and Canada.  A friend of mine decided to use the image of my sticker for a tattoo on her back.  It is the focal point of a large tattoo that covers her entire back.  She calls it her protection symbol.

For free stickers send me an e-mail with your address.