Artist Steven Frost is devising his own set of merit badges. Forget the Boy Scouts’ promotion of civic virtues and handy skills, like first aid and, umm, archery. In their place, Frost offers a celebration of human foibles and personal fantasies, like the Looking for Yourself in Missed Connections Badge. Yet beneath wry titles and colorful exuberance, Frost’s works on paper and fabric have a sharper edge. What appear to be line drawings are actually sown with thread, and by using a medium traditionally thought of as feminine, Frost tacitly ridicules the Scouts’ notorious positions on gender and homosexuality. With that in mind, the Mapplethorpe Is My Daddy Badge comes across as a brash wink.
