All This Relaxation Is Stressing Me Out

Some Groupie Doll designs begin with an elaborate concept. Others begin with pizza.

The phrase “All this relaxation is stressing me out” came from an actual moment while the Artist was staying at a hotel in Honolulu. She was lounging on the balcony, eating pizza and surrounded by everything that was supposed to inspire complete relaxation: warm tropical air, palm trees, sunshine and an ocean view.

And yet, she found herself saying, “All this relaxation is stressing me out.”

It was such a perfectly contradictory statement that it eventually became a design.

The palm tree and fallen coconut give the piece the deliberately uncomplicated imagery of a tropical vacation, while the phrase tells an entirely different story. Paradise may be peaceful, but the mind doesn’t necessarily cooperate.

Turning the design into a beach towel and tote brings the idea full circle. They are objects made specifically for leisure, emblazoned with a confession about being incapable of fully surrendering to it.

Like much of the Groupie Doll world, the humor comes from something genuine. The phrase wasn’t invented later to fit the artwork. The artwork grew out of a real, slightly absurd moment that was memorable enough to become part of the Artist’s visual vocabulary.

A hotel balcony. Honolulu. An ocean view. Pizza.

Everything necessary for relaxation.

Apparently, that was the problem.