April 17, 2011

A video made by Bubi Canal of the art show I co-curated with David Mason and Brian Moylan.

Fab.com, the company I am co-founder and CCO of launched its first product this week: The Inspiration Wall, and online mood board for designers and design lovers. I'm addicted and it's been great fun watching our members post their inspirations. Above is a snapshot of some of my inspirations from the wall.

DWR gave me a free Emeco chair and asked me to write about it and a few other things. Above is my response.

Skeletor Saves, the art show I co-curated, was featured in the Approval Matrix of New York Magazine.

Be A Queen By Bradford Shellhammer

Don't believe the hype. No, really, don't. It's just the religion of the insecure. Sadly, many still practice it.

I am, of course, talking about all the negative hype concerning Lady Gaga's latest single "Born This Way." I like Lady Gaga. How could any self-respecting gay person not? She's the most vocal and most prominent gay rights advocate on the planet. She's created a career and a cult from one simple message: Be yourself, baby. And she practices what she preaches.

Gaga's artistic merits, of course, are debatable. She borrows heavily from Madge and Leigh Bowery and David Bowie and Grace Jones. Hell, she's borrowed heavily from every major gay icon and performance artist from the last 50 years. But Elvis did the same. So did Warhol. And Madonna.

Gaga's in good company.

Lady Gaga also makes pop music. In order to dissect her every move one must first acknowledge this simple, rather important fact. She's a pop singer. She's a performer. She's not a politician. She sings and dances and makes kids smile. She'll never be everyone's cup of tea. That's the beauty of the arts. They speak to some and not to others. We find the artists, the authors, the actors, the musicians we love and they entertain us and inspire us. But it is impossible to love everything! It is simply not human. But it is human to be kind, I think, and I often feel this has been forgotten lately. Being kind, showing respect -- where have these basic gestures gone?

I have been blogging for over 10 years. I have been a designer and an artist. I was the first voice of the blog Queerty and I am cofounder of Fab.com. I've been around gay people and I love gay people. I've made a career of being gay. And I understand the age-old traditions of "reading" and the need for self-depracating humor, snark, and "cuntiness." They do serve a purpose.

But there's a fine line between being a smart-ass and being a jackass. We've lost sense of that. In a pop culture world that celebrates violence and superficial, we've allowed ourselves to get mean. To attack. It is evident on reality TV shows that no longer celebrate the human spirit, but rather belittle it. It is evident in the political discourse of this country's leaders. It is evident on my Facebook wall, where one by one many friends of mine have ripped apart Lady Gaga's new anthem.

I am cool with people not liking it. I am bothered by the need to tear down something so uplifting. The lyrics to "Born This Way" are nothing new. They're uplifting, feel-good, empowering. Similar words have been spoken by Martin Luther King, Jr., Harvey Milk, Oprah Winfrey. What's she's saying is not new. But the generation she's speaking them to, singing them to, is new. Let's not forget that.

In the last 12 months we've seen numerous gay kids across the country kill themselves. We've witnessed some major civil rights setbacks and we've also won a few battles (like DADT repeal). We as gay people are far from full equality, but we can also see it in sight. Gay youth see the struggle and the hope more clearly then when I was in high school. I returned to my alma mater this year to speak to the school's gay/straight alliance. It was an emotional trip and as a result I've become friends with most of those kids. I have seen their worlds. I have heard their stories. And, unsurprisingly, they're all Lady Gaga fans. She's singing to them. She's telling them that they're born this way.

Go ahead and say she copied from Madonna. Say it's a generic dance record. Say she's over. Go ahead, tear her apart. Rip her down. But think about it: Think of the good she's doing, think of the kids she's empowering -- the ones she's giving hope to, the ones who dream of a better life. Think of them when you criticize. When you dismiss.

It's easy to be mean. It's also a trap and a cycle. I find it to be wasted energy and wasted emotion. Rather than using that acidic tongue on someone on our side, why not turn it on those fighting against our rights, not for them. Someone on the other team. Someone deserving of criticism.

Lady Gaga wears wigs and ridiculous costumes and belts dance floor stompers that millions of kids sing and dance to. She brings happiness into this world. We need more angles like her. We need more wigs. More dancing. And more positive influences on our youth, whether gay or straight.

The next time you belittle her, attack her music or her artistry remember you're also attacking an ally and a voice of a younger generation. Your words, whether quoted on a blog or a simple Facebook status update, have power. We're all born superstars after all.

Don't be a drag. Just be a queen. Nobility is our birthright. Let's start acting that way.

February 6, 2011

Inspired by the logos and fonts of 1980s soda ads/packaging for Tab and Dr. Pepper I conceptualized these two T-shirts for Fab playing off both logos.

January 17, 2011

An article on my return to Northeast Senior High school from the Maryland Gazette.

Newest Gay-Straight Alliance grows in popularity

Added this fall, Northeast's group is eighth among county high schools

By ALLISON BOURG, Staff Writer

Before a few dozen members of Northeast High's Gay/Straight Alliance, the girl spoke softly, explaining her dilemma to the other teenagers.

"I wanted to come out to my mom, but ... I don't know how to do it," she said. "(My family) is kind of religious."

Another girl said she's struggling with the same thing.

"Do you think hints would help? My grandparents are very religious and very strict," the teen told Bradford Shellhammer, a 1994 Northeast High graduate and a guest speaker at the meeting.

Shellhammer, a New York resident who came out at age 19, listened sympathetically before giving his advice.

"You'll know when you need to come out," he said. "If your family isn't supportive, well, you have a lot of people here in this room."

And there seem to be more all the time.

Adviser Monica Lynch said about 30 students have joined Northeast's Alliance since it formed at the beginning of the school year, and it's now the school's second-largest club, behind only the National Honor Society.

"Three new students showed up today," she said after the meeting in December.

For Shellhammer, it was like returning to an entirely different Northeast High School.

"It's like night and day," said the 34-year-old creator of Fab.com, an online resource for gay men. "This would not have happened back then."

'Kids feel safe here'

The growing popularity of local Gay/Straight Alliances seems to mirror society's changing values, said David Smith, principal at Broadneck High. Gay and bisexual students are simply more accepted today than they were 15 or 20 years ago, he said.

The first Alliance started in California in 1989, said Carolyn Laub, executive director of the national Gay/Straight Alliance Network. There are now more than 4,000 GSAs nationwide, though Laub said it's tough to say how many are in Maryland because the state doesn't have a formal network. The clubs usually are started by a student who's gay or bisexual and wants to create a support group.

"The climate in each individual school really varies," Laub said.

Eight of the 12 county public high schools have alliances, said Bob Mosier, spokesman for county schools. Another is in the works at Chesapeake High School.

Smith, Broadneck's principal for about 2½ years, said students there have been mostly tolerant. The school's alliance formed about seven years ago and was thought to be the first of its kind in county schools.

A few dozen students are active members, Smith said.

"It has been kind of low key," he said. "They don't go out on large sorts of campaigns ... it's a word of mouth kind of support."

Katie Smit, the adviser of Glen Burnie High's alliance for the last three years, said the majority of members join because they don't have a supportive home environment.

"I think most of the kids feel safe here," Smit said. "There are still some issues with students saying the word "gay" as a derogatory term, and we're trying to change that vocabulary."

Trailblazers

Sophomore Tristan Freeburger got the idea for Northeast's club after speaking with a few of his friends, some identifying as gay, others bisexual. The response from the school administration was positive, he said.

"I hope this opens people minds," said the 15-year-old, who came out when he was in eighth grade with the support of his family and a circle of friends.

Tristan's mom, Kim Poole, said she's not surprised that her son helped to found the club. A top student, he's always been a leader in school.

"I was slightly surprised when he came out, but he is such an awesome kid ... I wouldn't change a thing about him," Poole said. "Of course, you always worry about their safety, and how people will view them, but I can see that he's got good friends here. It seems like a safe haven."

Lynch said students have been largely accepting of the club, though a few posters have been ripped down.

"That's really been the focus of the negativity," she said. "What we're trying to accomplish is that people who are gay are people, too, and we're trying to give them a place to be themselves."

The majority of club members are straight, she said, and have joined to show support for their gay and bisexual classmates.

They're all trailblazers, Shellhammer told the group.

"Can you imagine what you're doing for gay kids in the future?" he said. "You're making it better for everyone else. For every poster that gets ripped down ... it is so worth the payoff."

Using images I took from my travels around the world we made custom iPhone 4 covers for the teams' phones.

January 12, 2011

Today at fab we launched Fab Cards, our fun and oh-my-god totally gay take on e-cards. Using catalog images of the 70s and 80s, the intentionally camp creations have been a labor of love for the Fab team this past month.

December 30, 2010

U-L-I-S from Bradford Shellhammer on Vimeo.

I came up with the concept for this funny video celebrating the launch of fab.com and the death of fabulis.

December 20, 2010

My art blog is here.

I challenged myself to make 100 small paintings by Christmas 2010. This required 2 months of speedy art making.

I took inspiration from Albers, Eames, Girard, and Matisse.

Using acrylic on Bristol I painted. Then I cut the painted papers into stripes, triangles, circles, rectangles, squares, and any other shape I fancied.

I then began arranging them on 5x7 white cards. They are numbered and signed.h This will lay the groundwork for more large scale acrylic paintings/collages in 2011.

They're simple. and meant to make people smile. Email me if you'd like to purchase one.

December 19, 2010

I conceptualized our cards this year using portraits from David Gómez recreated for holidays by Ralph McGinnis

December 4, 2010

The last of the fabulis gear was a hit: hoodies and t-shirts in great colors and bold graphics.

December 1, 2010

The hilarious satire website Christwire featured me in a round-up of fake books written by some bloggers. It's so funny! And I am in esteemed blogging/writer company including Joe Jervis and Frank Rich. They write:

As dangerous as the overall liberal agenda is, specific beliefs within this rainbow of radicalism can be even worse. Many times I have tried to highlight the perversity espoused by a particular group or person. By focusing on the minutiae, I hope to reveal the great danger that the subtle agents of cultural change pose to American values. Even so, my most carefully researched investigative pieces sometimes do not have the raw, emotional power of their slick propaganda.

Visual imagery can often convey the disgust and fear so important to those of us in the conservative movement in a far more immediate manner. For this reason, I have created a series of images based on the covers of 1950s pulp novels. They condense the dreams of our epoch's most infamous internet and media personalities into pithy, sincere expressions. In a way, I'm simply saying what's on the minds of the creative class. I am opening the door to their obsessions and predilections, their narcissism and their lust, the very things that they are too afraid to admit to themselves. If today's so-called artists and thinkers had the energy and wherewithal to actually write something in long form worthy of paper as opposed to their nagging Twitter updates or their blog tirades, this is what they'd write. The intention is not sympathetic, but satirical. It is meant to enlighten so that we can all start the healing process so necessary for America's return to primacy and righteousness.