What A Strange And Wonderful Nightmare We Have Encountered

Drink... If you just drink the bad things will go away.


The local natives perform their strange ritual dance.


With a man who came to party... and party he did.


Least Changed and Best Dressed... Who would have guessed.

We Have No Time To Leave... We Must Find Time

The jacket is finished... not to sure how I feel about it yet though. I think after tonight I'll have more of an interest in it.





Picked up a bottle at the store and ran into some ol'cronnies that I'll be seeing tonight. Guess everyone was stocking up before the party tonight.
_
MAILING TRANSFERRAL
NOVEMBER 26, 2005
—————
BARKER - Artifacts From Sacramento I (Stuffed Envelope)
KANKA - Artifacts From Sacramento II (Stuffed Envelope)
NEWMAN - Artifacts From Sacramento III (Stuffed Envelope)

We Both Know Of The Illegal Suggestions By Our White Masked Sinner Friends

This afternoon I venturfed out into the small town of Cleveland in search of a black suit jacket that I could use to create my 'Reunion Jacket'. I hit the local Goodwill and not only did they have a black jacket but it fit me perfectly.
I ran over to a local fabric store, picked up some fabric pencils, headed back to the house and began my work.
First I marked the back of the jacket with a 12" x 15" grid. This was needed to keep the 183 buttons lined in order. Next I pored the pins on the floor and put them back in their numbered order. Once this was done I began to apply the pins to the jacket.



The next pahse is to apply the 200+ pins that are pictures of my class. I'm not totally sure in what sort of fashion AI want to apply them in, so I'm going to do some prepatory sketches to figure that part out.

Let's Schedule A Meeting With The Earliest Fishes Piper

I have so many buttons I don't know what to do with them I tell you!! Spent the entire evening making buttons for the jacket. Damn I tell you thats no small task. The large image buttons took the most time because I had to be careful to keep them in order. Each buttons is numbered so as not to get them out of order. Originally there were 195 pins @ 13" x 15" — I have now removed a row to slightly thin the image. 12" x 15" = 180 total. there are a total of 216 individual portraits. 396 pins total — a little less than I hoped... ohh well.



All that needs to be made now are the buttons that I'll give away to people. I'm going to create those today and assemble them before Saturday night. The other thing I need to do is design a grided pattern so I can keep the pins lined up in neat rows. The large image needs to be side-by-side to be sure the image will appear. I didn't choose the best picture in terms of contrasts, however as of last night I realized something about the nature of the work and what it references from back in my high school days. The idea of an image that is put together by the eyes from a set of broken parts is very much like a painting I did back in 1994 — the Average Bureaucrats Visions Of jesus Christ. The concept eveloved from a love for Salvador Dali's work... he had done a simalar designed piece. My painting had a central image that was broken up into a series of circular plains. On close inspection these circles revealed no information as to the concept of the whole image, but once you stepped away from the piece and allowed your eyes to stop focusing on the individual parts and take in the parts as a whole the image of Michelangelo's baby Christ would appear. It was a great looking painting at the time. But looking back at it today, the excecution of the work is poor compared to my current standards, but it is still an important piece for me.
This jackets main image is a throw back to the idea of the small creating the whole. People will see the large image from a distance and the closer they get the more it will disolve away.

You Only Have To Come Out Of Your Hole

"The harder you concentrate, the more the things that are really in your head start coming out." — Lucian Freud

"The best way to change is to stop doing the same old shit." — Damien Hirst



—
Last evening I worked on 2 different projects. First I punched out all the images for the 'Reunion Jacket'. The 'Reunion Jacket' is made up of 422 unique 1" buttons. I'll be making a button from each high school senior yearbook picture from my class of 95'. There are 227 in all. Each is a centered headshot in black dress or tuxedo top... all black & white. Then I've taken my own portrait and blown it up so that it consumes an area that is 13" x 15" — 195 buttons. This portion will be applied to the center-back of a black suit jacket to reveal the enlarged portrait. The other 227 buttons will mingle thoughout the rest of the jackets body... moving from back to front and engrossing as much surface area the jacket has to provide. I'm not absolutly sure of the reason why I'm creating this work, but I think it will make itself known as I build the work and finally wear it for it's one night only performance on Saturday, November 22. It's sure to turn a few heads. I'm also going to bring along a grab bag of buttons to give away to people at this 10 year reunion party.
Secondly I continued work on the large Blue Jughead triptych. The work is built in three sections, though unlike traditional triptyches, these works are not hindged to the center piece and I have no plans to connect at this point in the process. I do think however, that I will be adding some sort of lighting rig the all three pieces. I'm not sure whether I'll be doing the same type of lighting I did on 'Dance Dance Dance' or something more subtle. The one thing I am disliking in powering my works is the unsightly electrical cord that hangs from the work and gets plugged into the wall. GROSS LOOKING!! There are several methods that can be employeed to get rid of this distraction, of course, I just haven't considered them at this point in the process.
—
This evening I will begin production of the 'Reunion' buttons, as my package containing my 2,000 button parts finally arrived this morning via FedEx. They were supposed to be here last friday — typical.