Shawn Wolfe: Nauseously Optimistic art opening Seattle

The incredible Shawn Wolfe, who illustrated for bOING bOING and The Happy Mutant Handbook, has an exhibition at Wall of Sound in Seattle that opens this Friday.

Recent works by artist and designer Shawn Wolfe (that's me). Nauseously Optimistic features painted, photographic and sculptural works that sometimes evoke the artist's pre-millennial pre-catastrophe "Panic Now" campaign. Graphic creations take the form of rough-hewn signage drawing on the imagery and the daft/deft language of a mass-produced culture of crisis.

Show runs through August 30th.

Opening Reception
Friday, July 18 2008 (tomorrow)
7PM - 9PM

Wall of Sound
315 East Pine Street
Seattle, WA
tel. [phone]
[e-mail]

• [Shawn Wolfe]

  Thanks everyone, especially MISTERGEEBEE… I have enjoyed this pedantry.

• [Kunochan]

  I believe the artist means “nauseatedly optimistic.”

  “Nauseously Optimistic” would mean you go around nauseating people with your optimism. Then again, maybe that is what he means.

• [asdfkly]

  or nauseatingly optimistic

• [buddy66]

  You’re right, Kunochan, but it’s not going to do any good. People keep saying ‘nauseous’ for ‘nauseated’, and most of the poor things aren’t at all nauseous. We lost the battle for ‘hopefully’ and we’re going to lose this one too. That’s the way langwidge goes when you let just anyone speak it.

• [Micah]

  We may have lost “nauseous,” but we can keep fighting to save begging the question.

  English pedants unite!

• [gabu]

  I guess “nauseously optimistic” could mean any of the following: (a) I’m so optimistic that it has made me nauseous; (b) I’m so nauseous that it has made me optimistic (perhaps that I will be less nauseous in the future); or (c) I happen to be nauseous and optimistic simultaneously (although (c) really doesn’t get us there, because “nauseous” is being used as an adverb to modify “optimistic”).

  Yeah, that’s right.

• [buddy66]

  YES! “Begging the question”! Yes! To the death, comrade pedants, to the death!

• [zombieite]

  i am a lover of words, but i played a part in bringing “hopefully” down. it’s just so darn useful in its new meaning.

• [Mark Frauenfelder]

  I took it to mean he is so optimistic that he nauseates people.

• [libelle]

  I originally parsed it as meaning “nauseatingly optimistic.”

  But upon further reflection, perhaps it was simply a typo for “noxiously” :)

• [Takuan]

  I myself dispense with the optimism

• [buddy66]

  “I took it to mean he is so optimistic that he nauseates people.”

  Hey, that works! Jesus, yes, I’ve known a whole bunch of those bright-eyed types. . .I’m getting sick..

• [MisterGeeBee]

  I think it’s just a homophonic play on the oft-used (especially in answers to questions at new conferences) phrase “cautiously optimistic.”

• [LYNDON]

  Looking around, it seem “causing nausea” is actually the definition of choice for “nauseous” among old-school greyhairs, with “feeling nausea” the young upstart. Though there is other evidence; we can take our Websters and Oxfords to the wiktionary talk page and fight.

  The ambiguity makes the sentence really interesting. And considering the effect on pedants’ digestion it looks to me like a mad crazy piece of meta-semantics.

• [buddy66]

  And it keeps us from sounding like Jeeves and saying, perhaps, “One hopes” or “It is to be hoped.” Faced with the choice of sounding like an English butler or taking an easy way out, who can be blamed?

  Consider “whilst.” This is a word that would be better assigned as a three-handed card game for geriatrics or the name of a minor Scandinavian storm god, but no such luck; instead we either ignore it (as I do) or say it with a pained look, as if our feet hurt. Don’t blame yourself for the death of “hopefully;” it got run over by the freewheeling twentieth century.

• [buddy66]

  I saw Shawn’s work about 5 years ago in Portland, OR. It’s very witty and very good, but it’s heavily Pop-based. You’re not going to find any unicorns or big-eyed Lolitas, but you’ll see some stuff that will give you a kick. For an old signpainter like me, it was candy. If you’re there, do it.

  I still can’t believe I didn’t get the pun; for a word nerd, it’s embarrassing.

• [buddy66]

  No, ‘nauseated’ is the preference of the educated, and ‘nauseous’ is for those, young or old, who try to sound educated. You’re probably a guy who uses ‘issues’ for ‘problems.’ Let me guess… you’re also fond of ‘hopefully,’ but not as it is correctly used in the following sentence: ‘I hopefully await the day when ‘hopefully’ is again used correctly. Do you watch a lot of American telly?

  I’m too old to fight; just keep you and your young friends off my lawn.

• [anthony]

  Micah
  Let’s not forget
  literally
  and
  incredible

• [zuzu]

  Crap. I just realized I no speak good. :[ Thanks Buddy66.

  (I blame it all on my public school education… yeah… that’s it.)

  My fondness for informal logic demands that “begging the question” not be ruined.

  I’m also kind of a bitch about people’s use of “irregardless”. Woe on us if that word finally assimilates into the formalized lexicon.

• [buddy66]

  #15 MisterGeeBee,

  Of course! You got it. Man, sometimes Im so obtuse….