By an extremely lucky twist of fate, this commemorative homebrew (brewed with Third Assistant Stillwachs on location in Vallejo) is being hand delivered to Matt Cain himself tomorrow. Extreme thanks to Mike Strange. How cool is that!
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Valencia to Vermont, my installation of 24th Street screenprints on wood, is now hanging in the office of Supervisor David Campos in City Hall.
It is an honor to see my work on the same hallowed walls that enclosed the likes of Harvey Milk, Dianne Feinstein and George Moscone, preventing them from falling out of the building and helping them determine where rooms ended. This is all the more exciting for me because Mr. Campos does admirable work representing the Mission and Bernal Heights on the progressive wing of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors –these cityscapes document our mutual district by intersection. What a cool opportunity!
Thanks to Sheila and David for making this possible. Thanks to EB for helping with a tricky install and the camera work.
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I have been working on preparing my prints on cardboard series for an upcoming installation. Mostly this involves fabricating lots of box frames out of hardwood flooring planks, but I also started thinking about ways to transform a few of the pieces into small dioramas. It’s been fun to think of ways for the art to interact with stuff.
In general I’m interested in exploring the possibilities of the limited edition in printmaking. Traditionally, printmakers (and often sculptors) generate a limited edition of anywhere from two to a few thousand identical prints, typically in one session, designating each piece with a serial number and then destroying the master plate so that no more prints can be struck.
To me this is one of the most compelling aspects of printing in the age of mechanical reproduction. The edition draws attention to a separation between the expressive and technical components of art making that is unique to printmaking. Printers spend most of their time pulling prints, which usually feels like an entirely different thing than being creative. The inspiration diverges from the perspiration–they can be entirely different activities.
Part and parcel to the workmanlike aspect of manufacturing prints is the intriguing burden that technology places on the contemporary printmaker: in an era when reproducing multiples of anything is frivolously easy, the art maker is compelled to not only generate multiples by hand–the art maker needs an interesting enough reason for multiples to exist.
With that said, here are two of my frivolous ideas for transform a few of my multiples into playful dioramas. I think the installation will feature 14 regular prints and 4 or 5 different altered prints.
1. Three Cones print cast in amber. Embedded with prehistoric bugs, the surface is hopelessly glossy so the photos suck.
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2. SF Botanical Garden print with dino. I found this plastic toy on a walk a few years back. It seemed strange that it was unpainted, maybe some kind of prototype? My best guess of the species is Suchomimus or perchance Baryonyx. Joe Pisch, can you confirm? Anyway, this is a rare case in which hoarding weird shit I find on the beach paid off.
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I never actually posted the final painting of Camp Director Claire, made by the devoted tweens of the San Francisco Boys Chorus, and stretched on four 50-inch wood slats. So here it is. Our masterpiece features a screenprinted background, gilded rays, and a main image made of about 2 gallons of housepaint.
