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Unfit to serve
4F as defined by Random House:
1. A U.S. Selective Service classification designating a person considered
physically, psychologically, or morally unfit for military duty.
2. A person so classified.
In order to serve in the Civil War, a man had to still have his four front teeth. The idea was that he could hold a gun in one hand and the bag of ammo in the other, using his four front teeth to open the ammunition. If a man did not meet this requirement he was considered “unfit to serve” in the U.S. military and given the military designation of the same meaning: 4F.
About 100 years after the Civil War, Alan Lerner was drafted during the Vietnam War. Being a pacifist, he served as a conscientious objector working in a hospital x-ray unit. Due to health problems he was reclassified 4F - unfit to continue his alternative service (despite having all of his teeth). The concept of “unfit” would serve for him as a metaphor for many of his generation, of existing outside the mainstream, sharing a “hippie freak” collective feeling of “outsider”. At the same time, co-founder Aviva Alter, lived as a student and artist in a group of friends with their own definition of alienation from the mainstream.
4F Design was founded and is operated by artists – Alan Lerner and Alter – who want to add their unique contribution to the growing counter culture/anti-mainstream market.
4F Design as defined by themselves
 Alan Lerner and Aviva Alter have been in the business of making things for over 30 years, having gone through a few decades of object design and fashion. About a year ago, having gone through a few decades of object design and fashion, they started to think about building a new business, one that would be exciting challenging and fun. The artwork that Aviva and Alan separately make attempts to define and or question human nature and experience (not always fun). They needed to balance the content and motivation of their artwork with the philosophy of their new business.
After a 25 year career in ceramics, both Aviva and Alan felt they wanted to change the materials they had been using.. Alan started screen-printing and found a medium that could be both expressive and experimental, while Aviva found the same in stitching and cloth.
Aviva needed a new sturdy and funky handbag and knew Alan could definately use
one. She began looking at all kinds of faux fur used military blankets and miscellaneous
materials started cutting and sewing and the 4Faux bag was created..
Alan turned his sights to tee shirts; after finding that they were first worn as an accessory by Naval personal to cover chest hair, obviously an impediment to major naval battles. Alan started to design tee shirts for us non military citizens, as we all soldier on through our days of work and play.
4F Design’s goal is to make one of a kind and limited design pieces. Imagery sources range from dada art, to architectural ornament, myopic and despotic illustrations of the animal kingdom as it is impacted by our culture of conflict and hubris. 4 F places much thought into where their materials come from, how well they function, how durable they are and how comfortable they feel.
Gallery: The art of 4F Design
Aviva Alter
Artist Statement
My work is about posing questions and statements that define human nature and experience, questions that have no certain answer. Each of us navigates through life both physically and mentally looking for meaning on our journey and towards our eventual end.
The materials I use are familiar to me in that they have been worn by or fashioned after people I know or have known. These people are those that I have strong attachments through love, hate and that which ties us together. I use a lot of military garments and blankets when I work (life has always seemed a bit of a battle to me). I use both hand and machine stitching. The hand ties me to my work and the machine brings speed and extra strength to the material when I need it.
By using military gear I have found a correlation to the bigger conflicts that affect not only my small place in the world but the battles that rage between nations and religions, and the false belief that there is a single answer.
Alan Lerner
Artist Statement
“I wish I could blame it on the choreography, but it’s not a musical. I just had a clumsy moment.” Delta
Burke
Much of my work involves delving into words, their meaning, and the change in meaning that accompanies surgical manipulation and the application of societal sensitivity to this process. To slice or edit a word can cause discovery of multiple interpretations; these interpretations can totally alter the intention of the user.
Words can be used as a smokescreen to render them impotent, with an implication of responsibility. One definition of “responsibility” is “the state or fact of being accountable or to blame for something”. In this word usage, it is interesting to note the use of this concept of responsibility, and how a public can be manipulated through various claims of ownership when blame or responsibility is applied to a society and it’s governing. “There is a luxury in self reproach. When we blame ourselves, we feel no one else has a right to blame us.”. Oscar Wilde
In practice in leading a society, it’s fairly easy to see how blame with consequences is usually assigned to others and how blame without consequences is often applied to one’s self. Horrible events can be rendered mute by the executive who claims responsibility, yet goes no further to accept consequences. This all becomes theater in how the public mood can be changed from reacting with horror to adulation.
In my prints, themes of context and constraints are applied to natural systems and sometimes humorous illustrations of these non-natural constraints or cultural forces can involve the application of symbols of these clashes. My sculpture deals with political themes involving war and the environment in a conceptual method using visual cues that involve subversion of conventional wisdoms in a deadpan voice.
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