2008 Beijing / Olympic Mascots
I relate to this artist's dilemma: people who are not artists sometimes try to direct the creative process, which ultimately binds the artist, and some terrible-looking art is the result.

Here's Another Olympic Sport: Skewering the Mascots

Excerpts:

China's Five Characters Spur Confusion;
'Could Have Been Much Better,' Says Creator
By GEOFFREY A. FOWLER
July 23, 2008; Page A1

BEIJING -- If the Beijing Olympics' five cuddly mascots go down in history as a dud, their creator wants no part of the blame.

Above: the 2008 Beijing Olympic Mascots, the Fuwa

After China's Olympics organizers gave him the assignment, folk artist Han Meilin initially sketched out five children representing the traditional Chinese elements of fire, wood, water, gold and earth. Then the bureaucrats got involved. "There had to be a panda, even though you'd think the public would have had enough of them," says the 72-year-old artist.

Games officials faxed one request after another to his studio for other national images, such as a kite, a sturgeon and ancient cave drawings. So Mr. Han gave them Carmen Miranda-style oversized hats to help hold all the symbolism.

As part of the quest to find something for everyone in a country of 1.3 billion, he drew some 1,000 different models, including a dragon and an anthropomorphic rattle drum.

Ultimately, five cartoon figures (an Olympic record) emerged, representing a fish, a panda, a Tibetan antelope, a swallow and the Olympic flame. Their two-syllable names, when lined up correctly, combine to spell out "Beijing welcomes you" in Chinese.

....But while the Fuwa are ubiquitous, that doesn't mean they're universally liked. A nationwide survey taken by Nielsen Co. in late June found that 60% of Chinese liked the characters, while 40% were indifferent or disliked them -- a high negative response in a society that prizes consensus.

After a string of natural disasters, some Chinese have lately taken to calling them Wuwa, Chinese for "witch dolls," and online Fuwa criticism frequently has been censored.

All suggest the Fuwa risk joining a long tradition of Olympics mascots gone wrong. The idea of having a cute official mascot began innocently enough with Waldi the Dachshund in Munich in 1972. (Before that, pins for the 1968 winter games in Grenoble, France had featured "Schuss," a man on skis.)

By the time the confusing Whatzit? was introduced for the centennial Games in Atlanta in 1996, making fun of the official mascot had become another Olympic sport.

....Critics also have complained it isn't clear whether the Fuwa are animals, children, or aliens. (The characters are officially referred to as children who "also embody the natural characteristics of four of China's most popular animals.")

When they were unveiled to American audiences during the halftime show at a 2006 NFL Game, Joe Bryant, a blogger at Footballguys.com wasn't impressed. "Why do the Olympic mascots have to look like some mutant Pokemon / Telletubbie thing," he wrote. "What's wrong with a bull dog or a cougar or a sweat shop worker for a mascot?"

....Mr. Han, the artist sometimes called "China's Picasso" in a fashion that fits both his artistic skills and grumpy demeanor, says the Fuwa "could have been much better" had they not been so saddled with stuff.

Their creation, he says, got off on the wrong foot when officials opened a national competition for designs. Although he was on the judging committee, Mr. Han didn't like any of the winners.

"Can you believe it? Those are the drafts that they sent through and asked me to modify," he says, pointing to monkey, dragon and tiger designs that he keeps stacked away on a shelf in his workshop. "I'm an artist. It is humiliating," he says.

He tried to drop the assignment, but the officials pressured him to stay on.

While his assistants worked with the winning contest designs, Mr. Han covertly developed his own vision, featuring five children. "I liked children instead of animals, because the love of children is the greatest love," he says. Five is a lucky number, he says, and it matches the five Olympic rings and five elements.

Although his idea for five mascots eventually won out, Games organizers didn't understand the vision behind what Mr. Han still calls "my children," he says. "They asked me to make changes again and again," he says. "Everybody tried to have a hand in the process."

He has the sympathy of Atlanta's John Ryan, the artist behind Whatzit?, the much-derided mascot from the 1996 Games. "This is the war of art and commerce," says Mr. Ryan. Atlanta organizers saddled his blue creature with oversized sneakers, which they thought might be useful for product-tie ins. "When you confront the powers that be, there is no respect for the artist. They all kind of jump on it to have their way."

....the Fuwa have most recently been beset by an online rumor that associates each one with a recent Chinese national disaster: Jingjing the panda, for example, represents Sichuan's earthquake, while Huanhuan the flame represent the Olympic torch relay beset by protests. Nini the swallow, whose hat features wings, has been associated with a plague of locusts that began heading from Inner Mongolia toward Beijing last month.

Asked about the curse, Mr. Han just sighs with exhaustion.

He suffered two heart attacks creating the creatures, and just days before the Games begin doesn't like to talk about the Fuwa. At a large museum dedicated to his work that opened last month in Beijing, there's not a Fuwa to be found.

His relations with the Olympic committee are frosty. "I was supposed to be paid one yuan for making the Fuwa, but haven't yet even gotten that."