Sunday, February 13, 2011

The AntiValentine Gallery

OKAY. I took a bunch of pictures of various Anti-Valentines created by friends and family over a time period spanning from about 2002 to 2007.   And now you can see some of them.

The idea behind an Anti-Valentine is to use irony as a tool to point out how our society forces us to couple.  The very first AntiValentine I made, sometime around 1987, was a spade-shaped sugar cookie with icing spelling out, "Be My Socially Expected Obsession."  

So here they are, a sample of when Craft pauses to portray when Romance says, "You aren't a real adult until you've proven your true love by buying expensive, fashionable gifts.  Because, goodness knows, the unhappiest, most unfulfilled, delinquent and socially damaged people are single."  

I think the best Anti-Valentines in this collection have a narrative and use images from popular magazines.  Some times we strayed into just plain mean (sorry).

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sheesh -- and here I always thought that Valentine's Day was simply to get us to spend money. I thought people coupled or not on their own time. My mind is not as deep as yours, Mask. Love, Pomona

John said...

Deep? I thought I was lovably funny.

Or at least sarcastic in a Laurie Anderson kind of way.