The Art of the Personal Project is a crucial element to let potential buyers see how you think creatively on your own. I am drawn to personal projects that have an interesting vision or that show something I have never seen before. In this new revised thread, I’ll include a link to each personal project with the artist statement so you can see more of the project. Please note: This thread is not affiliated with any company; I’m just featuring projects that I find. Please DO NOT send me your work. I do not take submissions.
Today’s featured artist: Michael Johnson
Two-Wheeled World
My project, “Two-Wheeled World,” serves several purposes–the first being, simply, my passion for the bicycle. There’s what it can do for us as individuals and for the environment. We ride for fun, for fitness, to get from here to there. We ride to free ourselves from the daily grind or to lift our social conscience. Sometimes we ride for no reason at all. We love how riding creates a cool breeze on a still morning and how, after a long day at work, hopping on a bike makes us feel like the day has only begun. We ride to make familiar places new again. We see things in a different way, experience our environment more positively. Riding a bicycle in a metropolitan environment is one of the greatest feelings of freedom one can have. It’s amazing even to be able to feel this free in a modern city.
Then there’s the community that makes two wheels their form of transportation. The second and main purpose of this series is to put real faces to those who choose the bicycle over other forms of transportation. I want viewers to take the term cyclist out of the equation and replace it with “people who ride bikes.” My goal was to put people first so policymakers, motorists and everyone else recognize that these are your mothers, sisters, friends, and neighbors. They’re using this great tool—a bicycle—and deserve to be safe and respected like everyone else.
I’ve featured people who use their bicycle for work, school, travel, play, to race, or who just want to feel like a kid again. People who are activists, artists, messengers, and commuters. My intention is for the project to humanize cyclists and hopefully make dangerous drivers use more caution, as well as show how much better off society would be if it were a two-wheeled world.
To see more of this project, click here.
APE contributor Suzanne Sease currently works as a consultant for photographers and illustrators around the world. She has been involved in the photography and illustration industry since the mid 80s. After establishing the art buying department at The Martin Agency, then working for Kaplan-Thaler, Capital One, Best Buy and numerous smaller agencies and companies, she decided to be a consultant in 1999. She has a new Twitter feed with helpful marketing information because she believes that marketing should be driven by brand and not by specialty. Follow her at @SuzanneSease.