• Nicole Lavelle Archive
  • About / Contact
  • CV

• 2021
  • I Can't Do This But I'm Doing It Anyway

• 2013
  • The Green River Newspaper
  • Free Pears
  • Tiro Tiro
  • Synonym
  • Skateboard!
  • Art and Social Practice Books
  • Spirit of Windsor
  • Share Document
  • Detroit Conservancy
  • Rabbit Island Benefit
  • Summer Summit Lettering
  • Good Stuff
  • Siiiiiick
  • Casual Sweetheart
  • A Tattoo Of
  • High Five Zine
  • Cool Points

• 2012
  • w-o-r-d-u-p.biz
  • Open Engagement 2012
  • Open Engagement Anthology
  • GOOD Ideas for Cities
  • SLOW NO DUST
  • YOU ARE LIKE
  • #platform
  • Someone Made This T-Shirt
  • Porch Prints
  • Support
  • I'm Talking About Detours
  • Call Me Maybe
  • Four Corners Philadelphia
  • This, Here
  • Thanksgiving Garbage Art
  • designonthedottedline.org
  • A Tattoo Of

• 2011
  • Notecard Postcard
  • Bracket Vol. 3: Education
  • Plants of San Francisco
  • Frontier Fellowship
  • Homemade
  • Epicenter Newsprint
  • Green River Thrift Store Pop Up
  • Geyser Walk
  • Road Maps
  • TINY LADY ONE DOLLAR
  • TINY LADY ONE DOLLAR Posters
  • TINY LADY ONE DOLLAR ZINE
  • 10-22-38 Astoria
  • "The Excitement is Building!"
  • Inside/Outside
  • Wicker Baskets, Molasses,
  • Walking Tour of Historic Downtown
  • Found Parks
  • Poler Postcards
  • Five Things That Are About The Same Size
  • Points of Interest
  • Alabamboo
  • Put A Fire Under It
  • Too Much
  • My Aim is True
  • Open Engagement 2011
  • Everyone Has Something To Gain
  • Two Fold
  • Sincerely Interested
  • North South Portland
  • MORE WALK MORE TALK
  • Walking: North South Portland
  • Listening: North South Portland
  • Histories: North South Portland

• 2010
  • Rural and Proud
  • The Science of Happiness
  • Hypothetical Development Organization
  • America, Slowly.
  • WWWWWMT (ongoing)
  • A Pocket-Sized Constitution
  • Uncle Sam
  • Open Heart
  • Reading Frenzy (DO!)
  • Hometown Lecture Series
  • Portland Mercury Bike Issue
  • Portland Mercury Southeast Neighborhood Guide
  • Portland Mercury Birthday
  • GOOD Neighborhood Flag
  • WEST
  • WEST Zine
  • State of Jefferson T-Shirts
  • WWEEK Cheap Eats Covers
  • Art Talk AM

• 2009
  • An Environmental Experiment
  • We Need To Know Where We Have Been...
  • Where We Don't Live
  • An Ode To Summer In The West
  • Little Artifacts

• 2008
  • State Of Jefferson

• Other
  • Teaching
  • Writing
  • Sincerely Interested

I authored this phrase and it has been VERY FUN to watch it morph across the internet in the last ten years.

In 2011 I made a piece of hand-lettered artwork, black India ink on big green French paper, that read: "I CAN'T DO THIS BUT I'M DOING IT ANYWAY." I felt that way while on a cross-country bicycle ride in the summer of 2011. When I got home to Portland that fall, I made a body of text-based works for the walls of the Stumptown Coffee on Southeast Division Street. It was simple, it was fun.

The work was eventually featured in a Chronicle Books anthology of feel-good artwork called Everything is Going to Be Ok. Or maybe it was in the sequel, You Are So Loved. I don't remember. BuyOlympia eventually made a t-shirt, and later a tank top, after we discovered the phrase had been embraced by the crossfit community.

In the decade (!?!!) since then I've see the phrase pop up online. People sell prints and t-shirts. It's an inspirational Instagram square. It is sold as a stock image!!!! Though I know it's frustrating for people to have their work lifted by the corporate machine (Uniqlo! You are the worst!), I admit that I am envious of my illustrator friends who discover bootlegs of their work in Taiwanese markets. The best instance is the bootleg version of the Gemma Correll comic using the phrase. LAYERS!

What do you call these things? Internet Phrase? Pinterest Slogan? Internet Fortune Cookie? I don't know but I made one.

As cute as the original thing was, I think this is the actual work.