booneness is oneness
The One was already there.
Creative Lineage
Artist-originated Boone wordform lineage · booneo began in 2009 · ONE recognized within boone; NEO recognized as ONE rearranged within booneo · booneo developed through hand-made and digital forms with Max Smith / Red Gremlin Design and Bevil Byam · booneness is oneness emerged later after the loss of booneo.com · Digital final with Bevil Byam · Printed by Omega Tees, 2020
The First Breath
It began on a frosted windshield in 2009.
I wrote:
boone
Then I added another o:
booneo.
Inside boone, I saw:
one.
And inside booneo:
neo — the same letters as one, rearranged.
As I wrote, I breathed onto the glass.
Later the windshield cleared and the word seemed gone.
But another breath across that place brought it back.
booneo
I carried the word into cloth.
The first shirt began as a hand-cut stencil:
BOONEO.
Later came lowercase booneo, be one, overlapping O’s, the vesica form, and other visual development.
The design moved through my hands, Microsoft Paint, and later collaboration with Max Smith of Red Gremlin Design and Bevil Byam.
For years, booneo lived on shirts, on Boone streets, in shops, and in conversations.
Beyond the Shirt
The word also began opening beyond apparel.
I described booneo as the brand and “Be One in Boone” as a campaign.
The idea moved toward community, public space, and a simple recognition:
in Boone for the world.
The Second Breath
Years later, I let booneo.com lapse.
When I returned, the domain had been acquired by someone else.
I remember taking a breath.
And another phrase came:
booneness is oneness.
It did not feel like a new beginning.
It felt like the same recognition taking another form.
First:
one inside boone.
Then:
oneness inside booneness.
Beyond the Surface
The deepest part of the story, for me, is still the breath.
The first time, breath made the word visible again on the windshield.
The second time, breath preceded another form of the same recognition.
The breath did not put the One inside Boone.
It revealed what was already there.
And that is how I now hold the relation between the local and the universal.
Boone remains Boone.
The particular remains particular.
Oneness does not require the local to dissolve.
The mountain town can remain itself—its roads, winters, people, beauty, and contradictions.
And within that particular place, something larger can still be recognized.
The One was already there.
The Becoming
Bevil Byam helped bring booneness is oneness to its digital final.
In 2020, the design returned to cloth through Omega Tees in Boone.
More than a decade after the windshield, the recognition became wearable again.
The Remembrance
A windshield.
boone.
booneo.
ONE.
NEO.
A breath.
A word returning.
Years later, another breath.
Another form.
booneness is oneness.
The One was already there.
Reflect OurSelves