76 Balls being destroyed in secret, artists needed to represent the horror!
This is an open invitation to artists who love the 76 Ball.
As you may know, Texas oil giant ConocoPhillips has purchased Union 76, and has been quietly pulling down the beautiful orange and blue 76 Balls and replacing them with ugly flat signs in red and blue. The ball’s original designer, Ray Pedersen, is behind our petition and boycott campaign to Save The 76 Ball, as are nearly 1000 petition signers. Our campaign has received coverage on the BBC, LA Business Journal, Brandweek, OC Weekly and KIRO radio Seattle.
ConocoPhillips refuses to talk with the media about this issue, so you can bet they won’t respond when we ask them to confirm or deny the rumors that the removed 76 Balls are being SMASHED INTO TINY PIECES. Since they are so secretive, I feel it’s up to the artists of the world to show what’s happening through the magic of pen, ink, Photoshop, etc. This is your chance to show what the powers that be don’t want us to see–just like Goya, Gericault and Picasso!
If you’d care to contribute an image to the campaign, I would love to share it with the world on our website http://www.savethe76ball.local, along with a bio and link to your website. We got 51,000 hits over the past month, and I’m continuing to alert the media, so this could be a cool way to show your work off to gearheads and design fiends.
Please pass this on to anyone you think might be interested. Any help or suggestions you can offer would be greatly appreciated.
best regards,
Kim Cooper
Editrix, Scram Magazine
and chief troublemaker, Save The 76 Ball
http://www.savethe76ball.local
June 19, 2006 @ 5:49 am
Thank you greatly for reading this. I’m that commc’l. artist, studio-artist, & Christian soc. work volunteer, stuck in rural, Appalachian Alabama almost all his life (and longing to get out). I’m the one who had given a little more background history (perhaps too much more!) on Union Oil’s famous “76” logo—prior to 1967-’68. This E-mail should take less space!
My first query here is about Raymond Loewy & Associates; somewhere, I read that they had designed one of the facelifts of the “76” numerals. Possibly that it was Loewy Assoc. who either made the orange background an “Orange Disc for the West,“ in 1947-1950…or that it was they who first glued the numerals on spherical balls for individual retail-outlets even before the 1962 facelift. And I’ve seen photos of those; this Web-site features one of ’em, in 1951, underneath the Calif. Petroleum Building of the time. (Were those corporate-owned, “flagship” stations?) Can any petition-signers shine the truth on this rumor?
Incidentally—for those petition-signers who have never heard of Raymond Loewy: Almost every consumer-product you & I have used–and many a corporate trademark you’ve known since toddler years–has something of Mr. Loewy in it, ever since 1929. Shell Oil, U.S. Postal Service memorabilia, & Jersey Standard/Humble Oil collectors (regarding Exxon, that is!)…country-store tin-collectors who favor Nabisco antiques…collectors of 1961 Fords (incl. 1961 Mercurys & rare, 1960 Edsels), along with Studebaker Club members…can ALL tell you about Loewy’s contributions to the ways that 20th-Century USA “looked.” For more, much more information…visit a Web-site which memorializes him!
Second query: You have asked artists to contribute to this fine “blog-site.” And how I want to! However, I don’t know how to “download” photos or artwork into an existing Web-site. And speaking of Web-sites: you had asked us to “link ‘Save the 76 Balls’ campaign, to your own Web-site.” Sadly, I don’t have one (despite my years & years of being a professional in a hobby from toddler-years on up). I’ve just been too busy to practice (yet!) with some all-new, Website Creator software from last Christmas. (Plus…I don’t know if I can afford the monthly fees of having a Web-site…as does Scram’s fine cartoonist, Derek Yaniger. Man–check out his Web-site!) Can any petition-signer tell me how one can add photos & illustrations to her/his comments? Especially look forward to advice, tips from Mrs. Cooper & Mr. Marsek themselves.
Have planned (for eight years!) my very first comic-strip…intended for antiques-collectors’ magazines…and have indeed thought-up an idea around the “76 meatball.” Also have painted a series of watercolors of “classic,” full-service stations (truckstops, tourist-cabins, auto/truck agencies, &c.) ever since 1989. These I print into color-photocopies (but hand-signed, and on business-card-stock). And my first Union Oil watercolor–of a white, Art Deco outlet, whose neon “76” towers high above its “Stop-Wear” canopies and its orange-skinned “Minute-Men”–that watercolor is well underway!
The style of those “minute-men” requires me to sketch this one in the style of 1930s’ animation used in that Teenage Robot telecast. You petition-signers who are Viacom employees & retirees: Wait ’till you see which Nicktoons employees drive-up in their “Paramount News” & “Columbia/CBS Radios/Phonographs” trucks!
Sadly, I’m currently swamped with four projects: (1.) the Fayette Arts/Crafts/Music Festival, in late August. (2.) Three entries for the T-Shirt/Con-book Contest,” for the “Memphis Furmeet” (on Labor-Day weekend). (3.)Five small watercolors of an Allentown, Penn. collector’s five street-rods. (In exchange for his “Orange Disc”: a “GULF” disc, in mint-condition brass, from a late-1930s’ Bennett pump.) Finally:a logotype plus mascot, for a New Jersey photo-developer (and fellow eBayer).
Therefore—I plan to E-mail you as many, Unocal-relevant photos (and watercolors from my series) as I can. While a few will be from my own collection (esp. a six-foot “PURE” disc, among my plastic signs & faces)…one collector has a giant, “76 contact lens” just two miles west of us, towards the Miss. state-line. (More about Unocal & “76” marketing in Southeast, since 1992…and return of Pure Oil since 1993…in a later E-mail.) In 2004, we also spotted an abandoned, “PURE” country-store on a state-road within South Alabama’s Black-Belt.
You petition-signers, west of the Rockies, should photograph your abandoned country-stores & tourist-camps, if you spot any signs out-front. Whether they were from Utoco (Ind. Standard/Amoco), Shell, Richfield, Carter (NJ Standard/Humble/Exxon), Husky, Beacon/Ultramar, General Petro./Mobil, Signal, or whoever. Both Check the Oil! and Petroleum Collectors’ Monthly will get a real kick out of ’em. Of course…if it has an old, plastic or neon “76” out front…you KNOW whom to E-mail it to…!
Whew!THANK YOU again for putting up with me! Thank you for answering my “photo-submissions” & art-submissions” question, also. No home-based entrepreneur has as much time to “blog” into “chat-rooms” as often as you may think. (Even one with a state I.D. card in lieu of a driver’s license…one who wants MUCH more time to enter “chat rooms”!) But—since ConocoPhillips is certainly nationwide—I will see if I can somehow attach that “Save the 76 Balls” graphic to others whom I E-mail to. I hope to tell fellow eBayers (those with any wall-mounted, “76 contact-lenses”) about your Web-site. Please remember: E-mail me if you’ve seen ANY flat (yet embossed), wall-mounted, “Union 76” disc for sale; even a plastic face without bulbs or metal-frame. Please E-mail their name and address, also (telephone numbers aren’t private enough on Internet). Until your replies to my two questions, I remain:
Yours in the Struggle!
Michael Shepherd Studio
Romans 3: 20-31
jcross@watvc.com (Also: shepcartoon@hotmail.com