Yes, the title of my new Tumblr site is a play on leisure material. I'll be updating it regularly with illustrations and other design-related projects, from posters and prints to random doodles.
Perhaps an odd title, but now that I'm working full-time it seemed appropriate. Given that I'm doing most of my work by hand, without relying too much on design software, I thought it would also be important to highlight my process. And, of course, there's the fact that the labour involved in producing my work has a material foundation. I thought it might be helpful to post an explanation, originally written during my first attempts to put the site together a couple of weeks ago. I realize it's a bit precious, so I decided not to bother with it. However it still articulates what I was thinking with regard to the title.
Material Leisure showcases my ongoing work without the pretence cohesion or, for that matter, coherence.
Material Leisure addresses the concrete relation between material conditions (i.e., the working day) and the leisure activities that assist in their reproduction. Leisure, in this sense, is a material phenomenon that emerges from the social and economic limitations we confront on a daily basis. Our habitual escape from labour’s routine is aided by various cultural forms, modes of entertainment, and therapies. Such commodities manifest the labour process and are, in this way, no less material than tools and activities used to create them.
Material Leisure is the vehicle that assembles the products of my leisure time for the leisure time of another.
