*Draloo Inc. Is the Brainchild of artist/painter Michael Woolard.
I found out about Michael’s postcards through another friend Hipgnosis, when I was up visiting for the holidays. Hipgnosis had picked me up a set because he knew that I would like them. I stuck them up in a bag and forgot about them until last week when I was going through my duffle bag. I found the postcards. I remembered how much I had liked them and thought of what I really am trying to do with this blog. It is about informing people of who and what is out there. I decided I would start including a journalistic review. Michael is my first subject of interest. Michael is an extraordinary self-taught artist who has something to say. ART is his vehicle of movement. ART is his Mega-phone to the world.
S23: I would call you a revolutionary shock artist. You evoke a sense of “lets’s do Something” with your artwork. How would you describe yourself?
Draloo: I never thought of myself as a revolutionary shock artist. I am just a person who paints for fun.
S23: What X-actly are you trying to do with your paintings?
Draloo: Over a period of years I painted a series of paintings that reflect the political events affecting our nation. For instance: The moon in the painting “Plan Nine” has nothing to do with Islam. I had already painted the Hand and I needed some explanation for the light. A week after hurricane Katrina, I took the design from a New Orleans Police Department motor scooter. I then waited for the next element to percolate. In 2004’s “The Rapture”, the stop sign is a reference to our Vice President’s telling a US Senator to “Go fuck yourself”. I spent eight or nine months working on these things. The laborious and primitive method I employ gave me many hours of meditative peace. I am just trying to have a good time and let out what needs to come out. I suppose when I had the cards printed with the idea of selling them I became a commercial artist. Failing at that I became a non-commercial artist. I have been fairly successful at non-commercialism. I suppose their is something of performance art in the Internet presentation. I prefer to think of myself as a guy who occasionally paints and who did something extraordinary with some of his paintings.
S23: Why the connection with you and the project of the Scarien Nation?
Draloo: The Scariens are the creation of a friend from adolescence back in my hometown.The band and the theology have been around for twenty years or so.The cards came about because I had done a series of paintings over the
last several years that, when taken together, show the evolution of the political dissolution of our country under the neo-con cabal who have lead us to disaster. I found a printer and had a thousand of each of the first three paintings. I was impressed by the result so I had the 2006 painting when it was completed. I printed the Scarien Mural which
had been painted back in the mid-nineties. Since they were cheaper to print in bulk, I printed many more. Thinking that I could sell them through independent bookstores, I printed even more. I soon realized my folly. The images were simply too disturbing for merchants to display or even associate with their business
S23: Why give your art away?
Draloo: Because no one would sell them and few would buy. I have given away forty thousand (40K) cards yet I have sold only one hundred eighty five (185).The greater success is apparently in giving them away. I never dreamed of making money on this, my goal was to break even.I realized with in a few weeks that that was probably an impossibility. There was, of course, the large pile of postcards in the living room. The magic of the cards only happens when someone else holds them in their hands. What else was I to do? Throw them in the garbage?
S23: Again, Why give them away?
Draloo: Because I can. The Internet made it possible to reach into the ether, grab strangers by the collar and shove these things into their hands.
S23: As you self-imposed the question, “What is one to do with 500 pounds of postcards stacked in one’s living room?”
Draloo: I started mailing them to groups and individuals. The response was amusing so I sent more. Many people were aghast at my rudeness of sending them unsolicited material. I decided that it would be better to send them to individuals who actually wanted them and appreciated the paintings. The “Free Offer” was born and it has been successful in many ways except financial. I have put my cards in the hands of hundreds of people in the US and in many countries around the World. I had hoped to establish a self sustaining system of distribution but people have been unwilling to send even the postage needed to mail them the cards. I accepted that as a fact of life and continued because I was having fun.
S23: How many lbs of postcards do you think you have sent out?
Draloo: Four hundred pounds of postcards have been sent out there. I don’t know what people have done with them. More to the point, I don’t care what they do with them. Some people have framed them and hung them in homes
and offices. Some have mailed them to politicians. Some have stuck them in drawers to be discovered years from now and some have simply chucked them in the garbage. I am untrained in art. I taught myself. Inspired by Irving Stone’s
“Dear Theo”,I created my method of painting because I made a conscious decision to paint even though I have the drawing skill of a six year old. I am proud of these paintings and I have enjoyed smashing through the glass of the Internet and making art a tangible thing that strangers can hold in their hands. There are millions of Photoshop images in the ether. My stuff is unlike anything you are likely to find anywhere else. I am satisfied.
S23: Why do you send nine sets of cards?
Draloo: When I have shown these paintings to people there is an awkward and uncomfortable moment as they look at these disturbing images for the first time. When I find someone who likes these images and I send them more sets of cards than they need, I know that they will know that moment. It makes me laugh to think of that moment. I have made that moment happen thousands of times, in hundreds of places.
S23: Yeah, that moment….By the way, thanks for the big pile you sent me :). I plan to pass them out this weekend at an Earth Day celebration I will be attending in Kansas. I might send them as thank you notes to the replies that the politicians and congress send me about the issues I think are valid and they shrug off. I must be a rather disturbed individual because the post cards didn’t disturb me at all. I just wanted to get a hold of you. I think your message is loud and clear. When in boils down to it, we do have the freedom if we will only open our eyes and see it. I also agree that television is a brainwashing implement and it is our destruction of our mental Capacity. I always say use your television set for good movies. I rather use my computer.
I am so glad that I have had the opportunity to come across your work. I think you should keep on doing what you are doing. People will get the message. They are starting to wake up. I want to leave a post of Michael’s that I feel is rather inspiring.
Art is Freedom
By Michael Woolard
Art is Freedom. Neither comes without costs. Sometimes the cost of Freedom and the cost of art is in confronting your fear. When I painted these, I sought to satisfy only myself. I painted for the fun of painting. When I showed these paintings, uneasy dread was the usual response. If these paintings are an accurate representation of the circumstances and direction of our nation, then we have much to fight. Is our government collecting names and information to compile a list of the disloyal? Who would be so foolhardy as to put their name, address and the same of a friend on these cards and then put the cards in the public mail? Will buying these cards earn you a place on the List? Will mailing them gain you special attention from the authorities? Are we so fearful of our government and its thousand kinds of niggling bureaucratic torture that we are afraid of simple art? Maybe it is bad art but it doesn’t matter because you will never know unless you hold it in your hand. If a state of fear is where we stand as a people, then I think you should be proud to be on the List. It cost very little to mail a postcard, only twenty-four cents and the courage to drop it in the box. If your fear has cost you your freedom to think, then you need not fear losing anything else. You are already a Zombie.
