Finally! A side project that married my fascination with Catholic relics and the modern grift of the Republican party.
Catholic Relics
Having grown up Catholic, every ancient rite and old tradition seemed avidly interesting to me. None of those, from the incense, exquisite art and wondrous churches held a candle to the idea of Catholic relics. The true Cross, thorns from the crown, blood, skulls, bones, mummified hands, tableclothes, tears, even Christ’s foreskin all are part of the Catholic obsession with relics. Even entire movie franchises have been based off the search for these relics.
Of course, there’s the grandaddy of them all – the Shroud of Turin. Supposedly the death shroud that covered Jesus after his crucifixion, the Shroud always held a higher place among the relics. It’s proximity to Jesus places it at the top of the charts. Of course, it was debunked using carbon dating as a 13th Century fake back in the 80’s. Like the Shroud, so many Catholic relics popped up in the Middle Ages when grifters realized the potential of the market at hand.
There’s no missing Catholic relics, they are everywhere across the world. You don’t have to look that hard to find the same bones of the same saint strewn about a continent. If all the splinters of the True Cross were re-assembled, and with the endless number of thorns from Christ’s crown, he literally must’ve been a giant among men.
Faith and Belief
There’s nothing wrong with faith and belief. There is something seriously wrong with preying off those things.
Fast forward to today and take a look around.
Modern Grifters
Nobody does it like these motherfuckers:
I don’t have the energy to type out just how shallow and repulsive these hucksters are, or dwell on Trump’s lifetime of grift. Even after leaving office, trump has carried on strong, debuting his NFT’s, banging the drum of his dumb election fraud thing, and is checking the boxes on his next run. Fox News made the MyPillow guy, a dumb, local late night pillow salesman into an esteemed national pundit. It seemed like the more shameless and brazen the lie, the more money in the coffers. I’m 100% confident somebody from Fox could sell conservatives pictures of Piss Christ if they simply told them buying pictures of it would trigger a liberal.
So at a time when ultra conservatives have pulled at the heartstrings of every evangelical and moderately undecided voter in the land to unleash their toxic agenda on the country, I had a project in mind in my studio. Even now, idiots are begging to bring back the Latin Mass. So when my two interests dovetailed perfectly i came up with the crassest statement I could make on today’s era of con games and preying on believers:
The Shroud of Turin Beach Towel
So like two great tastes that go together, I put my fascination of Catholic Relics with Republican Grift together. I worked on a bunch of oversized and custom silkscreens. I finally printed and packaged an entirely marketable product: The Shroud of Turin Beach Towel!
Full sized screenprinted Shroud of Turin on a beach towel, with all four sides of the packaging embalzoned with Republican slogans of their ongoing grift.
Here’s a link to buy your own!