Sep 16 2015 @ 7:00PM
We’re excited to head into fall with 3 Strikes, taking place Sept.16th at 7PM (details here). We reached out to artist Sebastian Moya to create this striking image for the show. Here are his thoughts on the theme and his process:
When I heard the theme for this installment of No, You Tell It! my first thought was, of course, baseball. But a very close second were three strikes sentencing laws, whereby repeat offenders receive harsher sentences after their third offense. Such policies were enacted by 24 states in the mid-1990s as part of a “Tough on Crime” movement which led to our current rates of incarceration, the highest in the developed world.
At a time when public opinion is turning against these kinds of policies, this seemed like a timely subject. The use of sporting terminology in criminal justice seems trivializing, so I thought mixing the two, by covering a prison cell with baseball wallpaper, would be suitably absurd. Surrounding those that have “struck out” and landed in jail with antagonistic pitchers adds a more sinister note to the seemingly childish decoration though. On a more technical note, I’ve been meaning to learn to make repeat patterns and work more with vector art, so that definitely informed the illustration as well!
About the Artist: Sebastian Moya is a New York based cartoonist and librarian with a BA in Art and Linguistics from Swarthmore College and a Masters in Library Science from Pratt Institute. He has provided illustrations for Murmuration Theater, MGSCOMM, authors, and researchers. As a cataloger he has worked for Gap Inc., Clinique, the Guggenheim, and Smithsonian. His webcomic, comics.sebasm.com, updates weekly.
