While he’s Spokane’s best-known fine artist, Harold Balazs’s finest contribution to society may very well be “Transcend the Bullshit,” his mantra-turned-typographical treatment that has become synonymous with the artist’s life and work. Today, it can be found on all kinds of merchandise at our very own Boo Radley’s. In fact, I’m a proud owner of one of the T-shirts as well as a fine belt buckle—the latter a recent gift from my staff.
My oldest daughter Haley decided to put a new twist on Harold’s notion, perhaps recognizing that transcendence from all the bullshit surrounding us is aspirational at best, and that we’re more often than not doomed to wallow in it. Like Velcro, it seems some form of BS is always holding us back. So with deep (and I mean deep) humility, I submit that there are now two ways to ponder our own existence: one to give us hope, the other to keep us grounded.
Harold’s is on the left; Haley’s is on the right:
