Bike Emblem Scavenger Hunt
Angelika Fuellemann
On a sunny day last February, I noticed an interesting old bike on one of the bustling avenues in the East Village. It had an old leather bike seat and bright teal frame. I looked at the front of the bike and discovered a lovely, circular cut metal emblem with a cursive “Columbia” written diagonally across its middle. Hmmm, I hadn’t seen that name in a long time. Then I checked the bike next to it. It was an old Raleigh, with its signature emblem of a peacock’s head affixed to the bike’s front stem. Thus the great bike emblem scavenger hunt was born. While walking around the city, I kept my eyes peeled and snapped photos. Recently, I’ve begun drawing them in my notebook.
The notebook is from the SVA MFA Interaction Design Open House I attended in 2014.
I draw with pen on a small graph-paper notebook, one emblem per page. I have tried a couple of different pens, but Pilot G-2 has the best ink flow while not saturating the paper. Drawing in pen allows me to quickly achieve a finished quality, and forces me to capture the personality of the drawing by not being overly precise. I can be a bit of a perfectionist, and this experience has been a great way to relax and let go. I try to draw at least two emblems a day. I’ve snapped photos of about 50 and I’m up to 25 drawings.
Throughout New York City, old bikes are valued, if only because they are less likely to be stolen. This has created a living museum of older bikes. In this day and age, it warms my heart to see these old bikes still rolling and braving the streets. It is the type of resourcefulness that preserved the 1950s era of American cars in Cuba. Old bikes have lovely textures, mechanics, metal, and painted emblems from back in the day before plastics and synthetic fibers became widely used. Objects were of value and repaired rather than temporary and readily discarded.