I love telling success stories about my former SVA students. I now have the opportunity to boast about Michael De Feo. His book, “Michael De Feo: Flowers“, was just released by Abrams Books.

Michael De Feo’s dedication and singularity in the use of his iconic flower image has taken him on a creative adventure of self-discovery in a very public arena.

Michael paints flowers on walls and other public spaces. He has also appropriated advertisements, transforming them, much like billboard liberators, taggers, and graffiti artists do, to dramatically change one message to another. His choice to violate these public spaces with his decorative flowers has great irony. It’s non-threatening. One could paint bullet holes. Michael paints flowers. Bullet holes are obvious. You don’t have to think much about the message. But a flower…

The greater irony is that Michael’s work has now been appropriated by the advertisers whose campaigns he altered because of the positive attention he brings to their work. From my perspective, Michael has created a new meaning to the phrase “flower power.”

Peter Markus, former classmate from the 60s at the School of Visual Arts, a talented artist, satirist and cartoonist, and a very dear friend, passed away on Wednesday, November 18, 2015. He was 70 years old. Peter was a frequent co-conspirator, working with me on numerous projects, usually behind-the-scenes, using his significant design talents to create graphic images of all sorts.

This is an image he created in 2000 purportedly for his own memorial as part of my Final Curtain media hoax, in which we promoted a cemetery theme park for creative people who wished to celebrate their own demise with satirical markers and mausoleums:

Peter broke his back in a motorcycle accident in the sixties, but it never stopped his indomitable creative spirit. He’ll be sorely missed.

Here are a couple of archive photos of Peter from the 70s:

Joey Skaggs is one of one hundred artists/alumni selected to exhibit his work in honor of Richard Wilde’s 40th anniversary as Chair of the Advertising and Graphic Design Department at the School of Visual Arts in New York. The exhibition opens on October 9 and runs through November 7, 2009 at Visual Arts Gallery, 601 West 26 Street, 15th floor, New York City. Hours are 10am-6pm Monday through Saturday.

Exhibition at the School of Visual Arts Showcases Iconic Advertising and Graphic Design
Artdaily.org
October 4, 2009

New York, NY.- School of Visual Arts (SVA) presents “The Wilde Years: Four Decades of Shaping Visual Culture,” an exhibition that celebrates designers, art directors and other creative professionals who have graduated from the BFA Advertising and Graphic Design Department at SVA. Organized in recognition of Department Chair Richard Wilde”™s 40th anniversary at the College, the show will feature iconic and culturally significant works by select alumni from all four decades of Wilde”™s tenure. The exhibition will be on view at the Visual Arts Gallery, 601 West 26 Street 15th floor, New York City, from October 9 – November 7, 2009. (more…)