Mushrooms, Trains and Activation So Covid happened, and I find myself severed from my community of tattoo collectors and friends around Barry. I felt adrift and dived into my family and painting as a way to anchor myself during these uncertain times and then the call to action came!
One of my incredible mentors, Amanda Sage with her cohort of engineers, had fired up her vision train! Taking advantage of modern Zoom technology, the Vision Train is a 24/7 online global art studio brimming with vibrant artists the world over and it's currently well into it's 6th month of service!
As well as providing a safe space to share our work, trade knowledge and share banging playlists, there were a number of phenomenal downloads including conversations with Joe Bob Merritt, an Eco architect visionary, and the fascinating hindsight-futurist, Lucian Tarnowski. Both of these characters, as well as Amanda and several other train trippers were immensely inspiring to use art for action, to become a node of positivity for the good of my community.
There's a common idea held among many of us on 'the Train'; That we are privileged to have such amazing tools in our hands and an understanding of our place in our local nets of connection, and that this carries a responsibility to pass it on. In that way, visionary thinking will make it into our communities and we bolster each other to help develop our various projects.
As a tattoo artist working in a run down part of town, in my beloved ancestral home of Barry, I get to see all walks of life. These interactions and relationships mean the world to me so let's build on that!
The pipeline dream is to build All Hands on Deck into a training provider, delivering qualifications and resources for local artists. With a team of staff teaching various crafts, Key skills facilitators, Mental health supporters and business advisors, we'd be a team of like minded visionaries who want to pass the torch on to the next generation.
So where to begin?
Well as it happens, during this mental shift, 'the Train', with the help of esteemed Mycologist Paul Stamets and the contemporary Visionary Leaders, Alex and Allyson Grey, charged us with a mission to paint a mushroom! Now you can visit my artist page at www.joescustomtattoo.com to see and hear about my personal connection with visionary fungi but aside from that we were taught about many of the amazing medicinal properties of mushrooms and it was our job to help dispel 'mycophobia'- to begin ushering in a new age of symbiosis with this incredible family of organisms.
After several months, our paintings were completed and you can visit them here at an unprecedented Virtual Reality exhibition, the first of it's kind embraced by the visionary community.
Mushroom Magic
It blows me away to have my work alongside the Greys, Amanda, Autumn Skye Morrison, Alex Polanco, Robert Venosa, Martina Hoffman, Chris Dyer, Jonathan Solter, literally some of the most inspiring and successful visionaries of our time. But back to All Hands on Deck!
We were encouraged to use the proceeds from our paintings to enable a good cause so the sale of my painting Amanita Hysterical will be used as seed money to kick start our community art project! By investing this seed money into an environmentally spot-on range of tees, we could double up and nearly have enough for our first real goal, a large format Giclee printer. This would be the first large manufacturing tool that would enable my local community of artists to print high quality and archival artwork.
I've recently moved into a new shop and made space to house this equipment and to run small classes on how to scan artwork so that the community can use it at will and then we'll continue to up-cycle the money into new equipment and training to build a suite and a skillset to produce a whole range of creative products or artefacts. Then, depending on how the community solidifies and demands, I'm open to progessing through higher-education for a few years, so that I have all the support and skills I need to bring the Training Provider to reality!
I'm activated and prepared to build this as slow and steady as it needs. All I need to do is look around at my thriving business, home and family to know that regular persistence pays off in the long run and that this is a threshold moment. Subscribe to keep in the know about our growth, support the vision by having a look through our store and pester us if you want to come and join the party!
This is a call to action to all artists that want to become a node of creative thinking and positivity, we want to be here for you and support you as you find your way! It's an incredible service to get paid to create art and through our message we can lift those around us 🖤
All Hands on Deck!
PS: Here's a time-lapse of my painting using the layered painting technique that I learned from Amanda!
It was excellent fun to make, I had to edit the video so much where I'd often be laughing at my laptop but I'm glad it captured the fun and joyful spirit of it's creation 😂 If you are interested in purchasing Amanita Hysterical and being a key catalyst for this noble project, fill in the contact form and drop us a line! I'm open to running a payment plan if required and it will come signed with a certificate of authenticity for those who want to view this momentous artwork as an investment.