The D. Gabriel Company:
Unparalleled Provisions for Truly Unprecedented Times
04/12/20
by The D. Gabriel Company
Here at the D. Gabriel Company we pride ourselves on adapting our business model to fit constantly changing times. With this issue of our quarterly catalog, we bring you an exciting new line of products designed around your quarantine lifestyle! While our competitors offer “things that make your life the way you wish it was,” here at D. Gabriel we have a different approach. We offer products that enhance your current lifestyle. We at D. Gabriel are assuming that your lives are somehow terrifyingly uncertain and terrifically dull right now and put together a special edition of our catalog for these truly unprecedented times. So please, take a moment and peruse the fresh offerings that we have for you. You never know what you might find to make the next few days, weeks, months, or even years of isolation more enjoyable!
To place an order please email us at d.gabriel.company@gmail.com with your order, address, and venmo handle. We will request a payment through venmo and after you pay via the venmo app the order will be shipped. As many of our products are limited editions and/or have extensive lead times, no sale is final until you have paid for the order. If you want to pay in some other way, please mention it in your original email. We are also available for no contact pick up in Pilsen.
Ancient Protection
Edgemere, Maryland. April 2020.
A full moon in April. Somewhere in the tidewater an animal that outlasted the dinosaurs crawls to shore. Despite it being Aries season… it’s a cancerian form that scuttles up! Soon the shore is overrun with Limulus polyphemus, better known to you and I as the Atlantic horseshoe crab. Every year they come in droves during full moons to lay eggs (up to 64,000 per female) in the intertidal region of the Atlantic coast from Florida to Maine. These crabs have been making this journey from the depths of the ocean to the shore ever since surviving Earth’s first major extinction event, the Ordovician–Silurian extinction, over 450 million years ago.
Then from the West—men in white lab coats! The men are here to take up these living fossils and bleed them of the only real gift bestowed upon them by their Creator: their blood. For you see, horseshoe crab—by all accounts dull, slow, peaceful, and simple creatures—have one true super power. Within their blue blood lies one of evolution’s greatest accomplishments. This jewel in evolution’s crown is a protein upon which modern medicine rests: Limulus Amebocyte Lysate. This protein physically clumps around any pathogens that make it through the horseshoe crab’s thick exoskeleton. Every medicine that comes in contact with human blood, whether it is an insulin shot or experimental vaccine, is tested with an extract of horseshoe crab blood. This litmus test (or is it limulus test?) allows biomedical technology companies to prove the purity of their wares. Should any batch be contaminated, the LAL protein from the horseshoe crab blood would render their injectable elixir into an unusable goop. That's right folks, any potential vaccine for any possible global pandemic will first be tested with horseshoe crab blood.
Here we have on offer for you a terra-cotta amulet of a horseshoe crab, that most timely of living fossils. While you certainly can’t bleed this crab for protective blood, it is guaranteed to look wonderful next to that potted succulent on your desk. It will be the conversation piece for your next zoom meeting. We have this exquisite work available as a part of an unlimited edition. Each is finished in terra sigiliata, an ancient Roman method of burnishing ceramics that leaves a lustrous bare clay surface. Figurines of this sort, hand molded out of terra-cotta and lovingly buffed to a satin finish, were common gifts during Roman times. Ours, measuring approximately 6” inches tip to tail, is the perfect protective amulet for you or a loved one during this truly unprecedented time.
Each piece is $40.00 shipping included and a portion of all proceeds from this purchase will be donated to Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, because Earth’s oceans will still be around long after us. The Atlantic Horseshoe Crab population is listed as vulnerable, yet they are still being commercially harvested for their blood. We are proud to partner with the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, a truly distinctive organization that maintains a fleet of ocean-going vessels and uses innovative direction-action tactics to interrupt illegal fishing and whaling operations on the high seas.
Simply Art: A Basic Necessity
Belleview, Washington. July 1994.
An entrepreneurial young man by the name of Jeff Bezos sets out to start a company with the mission of selling everything from A to Z. While he did establish a veritable internet retail empire, he realized early on his plan to sell everything was doomed. Somewhere between “arsenic” and “Artaud” lay “art”. Believe it or not, Bezos struggled to find a way to monetize direct-to-consumer original artworks. Eventually, he gave up and moved onto more important issues like eliminating local book sellers, streaming video, and becoming generally indispensable to modern life, especially during quarantine.
Luckily, we are here to fix Bezos’s sin of omission. We have to offer just about the only thing that Amazon cannot bring to your door in these unprecedented times—an original work of art! Despite exploiting labor from Chinese manufacturing facilities to warehouses in our own backyards, Amazon is still somehow unable to find a steady supply of original art works. Our original work of art is a limited edition frottage print. Coming from the french “to rub,” the word “frottage” describes an ancient printing technique in which the artist rubs dry medium on paper that is placed over a texture. This frottage print is taken from the bottom of the artist’s cast iron dutch oven whereupon the AmazonBasics logo is cast. I’d wager that even Bezos didn’t expect that his empire would extend to casting his brand logo in iron on the bottom of surprisingly affordable and unsurprisingly mediocre cookware back in 1994!
The first edition is rubbed, or “frotted” as the French say, in genuine Crayola crayon upon commercial participation-certificate-style paper salvaged from shuttered Chicago public schools. The first edition was produced on March 30, 2020; the day of a general strike by Amazon workers. Crayon color is variable within the first edition. We have available 17 of an initial edition of 25 prints each signed and numbered. Should demand prove sufficient, the artist will print a second edition.
Each print is only $10.00 shipped in a standard envelope (it will come tri-folded). 100% of proceeds will be donated. Half will be given to the Gloria La Riva/ Leonard Peltier presidential campaign with the Party for Socialism and Liberation half will be given to the IWW labor organizing fund. Capitalism is sick with this virus and it is time we deliver the coup de grâce. Only two things unite the whole human race: global pandemics and the internationale. So comrades, come rally for this is the time and place!
A Mask to be Remembered By
Worldwide. April 2020.
It is the wee days of 2020 and the mask is ascendent. The mask is N-95. The mask is NIOSH approved. The mask is in short supply. The mask is donated. The mask is improvised. The mask is origami. The mask is fashion. The mask is artisanal.
In this time of crisis economics and panic buying we are thrilled to offer you a fresh new take on said mask. Each is lovingly handcrafted out of genuine leather and real elastic. The leather comes from a deep archive of dead stock finishes and hard-to-find colors that our manufacturer has exclusive access too. Make no mistake dear customer, this mask is something that no other mask out there is—it is a souvenir.
The word souvenir comes from the French, “je me souviens,” meaning “I remember.” If you are looking for top notch protection during this crisis, look elsewhere! (And by elsewhere I mean abroad—try Cuba, Vietnam, or China!) But, if you are looking for a truly unprecedented memento of truly unprecedented times then look no further! Our fully wearable and 100% improvised masks are rendered in heritage materials such as unbreathable virgin leathers and verified corded elastic. Our commitment to craft and quality means we refuse to compromise our wares by using “CDC approved” and “disposable” materials. Disposing of your “souvenir” would negate its “je ne sais quoi”... “Ce non?”!
We are lucky to offer these masks at $30.00 each, inclusive of shipping. We have a wide array of leather colors and finishes available. We have many solid colors, some patterns, and some textured and exotic leathers available. If you have special preferences or requests, please note them in the order form and we will try to accommodate. We are also currently working on expanding our line of masks, so should you have suggestions or requests for custom commissions, please contact us directly. Half of all proceeds from mask sales will go to support Kaleigh Moynihan’s GoFundMe raising money for her to produce and donate masks to Chicago area healthcare workers.
A Reminder to Stop Looking at Your Reflection in the Bubble
Houston, Texas. 7 AM, September 21 1971.
A star is born! David Vetter, better known to the world as “Bubble Boy,” was born in a sterile room at Texas Children’s Hospital. Mere seconds after his birth he was whisked inside an isolator bubble where he would remain for the next 12 years of his short life. David Vetter was born with Severe Combined Immunodeficiency. SCID is a hereditary disease characterized by the lack of a functioning immune system. Consequently, the young Mr. Vetter had to spend his entire life in a positive-pressure plastic bubble with a sanitizing airlock chamber for provisions. (Sound familiar!?) He was cradled, bottled, diapered, hugged, spanked, and loved via thick rubber gloves that perforated the perimeters of this habitat.
He was by all accounts a well adjusted boy, of “above average intelligence,” and winsome to boot. His was a cause célèbre: the media documented his every move, NASA designed a suit for him, and congress allocated funding for the relatively rare (and entirely preventable, considering abortion) disease SCID. Meanwhile, a new pandemic was brewing. While international attention was on the charismatic young David, faggots and junkies were capital-A acquiring the exact same prognosis with nary a peep nor dollar from the government. David Vetter’s disease, SCID, has taken under 3,000 lives. COVID-19 has taken just over 100,000 worldwide at press time. HIV/AIDS has killed over 35 million documented patients. Despite us “flattening the curve” and the availability of effective treatment, it continues to kill in excess of 1 million annually. Had the government and general population paid as much attention to marginalized populations as they did to David Vetter, we might be telling a different story about that pandemic.
Here we have on offer a special edition screen print unique to this “Quarantine Times” issue of our catalog. It is an excerpt from a larger series of images drawn from the life and times of David Vetter. Here we see him in his surgery bubble surrounded by medical personnel shortly before his death. His was the ultimate life of “social distancing,” mediated not by masks and “takeout only,” but by an 8’ x 10’ bubble and rubber gloves through which all touch was given and received. This print is motivational—if he could live his whole life in a bubble, you can stay home for the foreseeable future.
But, this print is also an admonition to look beyond our own quarantine bubbles in these unprecedented times. This crisis is tearing our society apart at its already weakened seams: capitalism is crumbling, minorities are dying at rates vastly outpacing whites, and this year’s hurricane season and northern hemisphere heat waves will only compound tragedy. We are all radically altering our lives to slow the spread of this pandemic. After this pandemic is over, we would do well to bring the same solidarity and vigor to ensuring that the world remains a habitable place for generations to come.
Published with Chicago print studio, Hoof Print, each print is 24” x 16” and rendered in “hospital pink” ink and gloss overprint varnish on black paper. This special edition of 10 screen prints is only available through this “Quarantine Times” issue of our catalog. Each is signed and numbered and costs $100.00, shipped in a tube. The proceeds from the sales will be split 3 ways between the artist, Hoof Print, and the World Health Organization’s COVID-19 Solidarity Response fund.
New York-born (1990-2008), California formed (2008-10), and Chicago by choice (2010-20), The D. Gabriel Company is a Chicago-based small manufacturer. Though D. Gabriel has deep local roots, we are international in scope and have worked with international luxury houses ranging from s+s project to naomiFINEARTS. Here at D. Gabriel it is our mission to procure unparalleled materials and to craft them into unprecedented works.
Website: www.davidnasca.com
Instagram: @davnasca
The D. Gabriel Company/ David Nasca worked on this piece with Stella Brown, the Quarantine Times Sunday editor. Each week, Stella selects a Chicago artist to share a commissioned creative response to the pandemic.
