 
THE YAMABUSHI MANIFESTO
The shogun of light ultimate hero worship
renegade bulletproof ninja
prays for peace with
high flying drop kick espionage
YAMABUSHI DESIGN is a design first collaborative. We specialize in a new form of art called "super collage" printed for mass consumption on alternative apparel. the reason YAMABUSHI exists is to promote art and culture for our times. Visual hip-hop sampling from our collective subconscious. Creating cultural codes and our own pictoral, neo tribal hieroglyphic wearable prayers created to specify events, influences, hopes, prayers and dreams. Ardmore Blazer backgrounds, 70's zodiac octopus zook fast accurate finesse secret signs being part of history the elusive riddles behind the mirror using a leopard's spots to blink through reality. Riding the lightning with an emerald saddle. Mystic man incantations culture-codes. Information pipelines, mysterious visual riddles. Our images are derived primarily from the 70's. They have a unique yellowness, old school mystique. It was a golden age with the imprint of the 60's firmly stamped on popular culture. Many concepts never before promoted were broadcast en masse. Stylistic psychedilicness. The look that has the magic of childhood. Where imagination and reality could merge into one. To take discarded art and breathe new life into it. Give it a completely reborn contextual meaning. There is also the mystical aspect the need for the talisman, the charm, the visual activation prayer. Combined medicine times medicine. To garner the aide of our mystic allies. spirit helpers, manifested guardian angels, show all the ingredients of the collage gumbo. The avatars and their power sources manifested visually, is another concept explored here within the Mastermind Manifesto.
Campaign therapy and General Mamba's triumphant return COBRA R.I.O.T.S. Breakout everywhere. The elixir alchemic and the Domination Kings. Another overriding theme is Longevity and its visual interpretation manipulating Ju Ju. Delivering crucial pockets of information.
"Shugento-Mountain Power Cultivation"
Shadow powered by bright inner light. The White Lotus and other Ghetto Quantum Leaps, cargo plane decoy load living for chills up the spine.
"I put the blame squarely on my back and it propels me forward."
Super Collage is the synthetic correlation of cross cultural icons and avatars. Aesthetically subjugated to correspond and relate, relaying specific coded enigmas to a sympathetic subculture. The artists spend time formulating the visual elixir, consumed with a myriad of possible reference points.
Invoking the reason of the design to establish a new touch stone rally point. Immediate ideas will be extracted and assimilated to form a composite grouping of like ideas. Collage is visually sampling similar to the art form hip-hop where the music is generated by exploiting and refining pre-existing musical data. Infusing it to create a new musical identity.
Super Collage is similar in that by assembling old visual data into a new visual language where context is played like a trump card. Collage in general is inherently a very immediate medium with multiple approaches. We use it to conduct spiritual warfare against the doom propaganda of America. Against the white washed brainwash and their information laundering. Falling downward drunk on the vine.
"Shoki - the Demon Queller, art should be sexy to the eyes"
To create our own mythology with a system of saints to activate. To showcase the magic that underlies the mundane, to create our own visual language.
Holy fireworks celebrate to the divine; everyone gets Tarzan in a headlock. There is a reason Jupiter is king of the planets, constant flux.
YAMABUSHI is an attempt to show the world through the eyes of the love and devotion to the most high. It also represents the renegade maverick tactition on long range patrol high in the mountains, isolated but still exerting a sphere of control.
The art of transmission. Art for Art's sake or Art for survival? Transmit on a highly specialized wavelength. Art as a form of healing therapy to exorcise the demons. Sometimes it's just the artist trying to make sense of the world and appear clever in the process. The process is all about the process, enlivened by the spirit to go further. Be resilient and endure and onward goes this thing of ours.
Back to the top
INTRODUCTION
YAMABUSHI started as a channeled idea that was so intense that I could not deny it. It was my future hopes, it was the everything idea. I was living in Baltimore going to art school trying to figure out what to do. I was vibing hard on the right direction. I had done sculptures, installations, oil painting, collage and drawing. Collage seemed like a new developing language for me. It was an immediate medium, a way of getting out themes much faster than rendering them classically. So I decided on more ideas faster, distribution assimilated. It all fell in my lap after lots of soul searching. Boom move to Asheville aka the mountains start a clothing line called YAMABUSHI, bring awareness of the Shinobi forefathers, precursor ninja.
Continuing the themes that were already current in my work. I meditated on solutions to the myriad issues that are relevant today. A method to pollinate ideas that respond to these issues. Much like a DJ plays what the people need to hear. As an artist I try to show people what they need to see. Try something new, move from the shitty city to the mountains. Like a rat leaving a sinking ship I always thought. We had tried to make shirts before back in Winston with Ardmore's finest. But the materials had been way not archival. So we solved this technically. Positive propaganda to help heal and awe. Motherfuckers needed to think more. I grew up as a skater, a punk, always a fucking outlaw. Do-It-Yourself by any means necessary that was the only way. Authority lies like it's going out of style, find out for yourself. Make art about that shit. Everyone must educate themselves knowledge is power and all that seen.
The "Ghetto Quantum Leap" effect - defined the process of original throwback old school, taking it there. Back to good old days type of shit. You have to apply everything in a Renaissance man context. The culture of that era had the magic of the 60's and the self exploration and decadence of the 70's and the rampant consumerism and marketing of the 80's. Collect vibe transmit repeat and repeat perfect, improve tone, you have to sharpen all aspects until it cuts like the sharpest samurai sword, to the heart of the nitty gritty seen.
Anyway back to Asheville time, the new frontier. Take time, learn what patience is, again, again and again. Take time to make that shit right. Then you start to see it evolve. You talk about personal shit. But you try to rep it universal. Get everyone on board. Being a visual crate-digger, looking for that just right ingredient. High signing visually, soul mirror, soul armor make underoos hero gear. Be a super hero, power up when everybody looks at what you're wearing , then does a double take whats all the ingredients in the gumbo. What's that all about. Try to capture the eccentricities of the age. We the media babies the first video game children, the first to be over stimulated. To interpret the random input and search for visual definition. As well as instill the magic of the past into the power of the present. To show the sum of the whole in the process of activation, that moment in time. Soul Armorer Saturday night shirts. Asheville has been home of years of alchemic cultivation and distribution. The lone mountain outpost, the closest thing to the west coast in the east. Good motherfucking people here, I mean that dammit. Propagate the positive force the demand. And so it goes Ardmore + Asheville intertwined old school new school. We have spirits to acknowledge, past allegiances held dear, utmost respect for the divine due seen, sharing and communication are key and universal. We only want more of that at YAMABUSHI. We are a family based business. Ardmore Blazers Federation sponsors us proudly. We are trying to make a difference. We thank you for your support, all praises due the most high seen.
Back to the top
THE SYMBOL
Back to the top |
