Opening Exhibition 08.07.09 • Noteworthy* Paper&Press

Decayed Screws

Originally uploaded by love not fear

I used muriatic acid to rust the screws. Once I got them to rust the way I wanted them, I coated them with an acrylic finish to prevent further rusting.

I tested them, and they are still strong enough to hold things together, the acid did not compromise their integrity.

I’ve abandoned the practice of poking holes in the metal with an awl.  I’ve found it’s much faster to drill the holes.

Muriatic acid, I’ve found, is much like the Wu Tang Clan — it ain’t nothin’ to mess with.

Leaving and the Left Prototype 2

Originally uploaded by love not fear

The Original Gimp was over at my house the other night as I was completing another prototype. At his suggestion, I made one without wood, but instead used metal. His reasoning for the switch is that wood is too warm, but metal is cold, and the pieces seem to have a cold theme. I don’t think the theme is cold. Rational, yes. Clinical, maybe. While all loves are different, looking back with a clear and rational head into past relationships to learn what worked and what didn’t is a positive way to both honor what went before while building towards a successful and long-lasting relationship.

The process lends itself to asking questions like, I wonder what she’s up to now? Asking the questions is fine, but making the call, dropping the email or doing a Google stalk is not and would probably be perceived as disruptive.

I’m still trying to figure out how to apply all of these ideas to the actual finished artwork. I’ve figured out that I want to use metal as the background, and I think I also want to use wire to attach the glass to the metal, as showing in the new prototype. A problem that I tackled while making this prototype is how to attach the glass sandwiches to each other. I want the binding method to be transparent — no glue showing. I tried doing this by spreading the Superglue evenly across the glass, but it still dried somewhat opaquely. I know that Superglue makes a glue specifically for glass, so I need to go pick me up some of that.

Todos

Get glass bonding Superglue
Get metal scraps
Cut metal scraps
Read new email and letters

Oh, right. That reminds me. I found a new folder of letters and also figured out how to import all of my archived .mbox emails into a local mail client.

Prototype Leaving and the Left 1

Originally uploaded by love not fear

I finished the prototype last night. I’ve never approached making art in this way — making a prototype. Typically I go with first draft=final draft. But this series is important enough to play around a bit and figure out what works and what doesn’t. I’ll explore below what I’ve learned logistically during the process thus far.

I generally like the way it turned out, but there are some obvious imperfections. I’m anxious to make another prototype to see how what I’ve learned from this one can be applied.

Visually it looks good. I know I need to do a few things:

• Spread the superglue evenly on the glass so that the sticking points are not visible
• Go back into the electronic communique and even out the way text is distributed
• Mix the colors more evenly before applying them to the glass — I wanted to see if the paint organically blended
• More sandwiching of glass

I’ll learn more about the process as I do it, I’m sure.

A few questions I’m asking myself need to be worked out.

Should I quarantine each person’s sentiments per piece? For this one, I mixed letters from two different individuals with the idea that these types of emotions are universal. I’m thinking that maybe it doesn’t work within the piece, and that I should isolate feelings from individual writers. Still include both love and loss in one piece, just keep it focused on one person per piece. That will mean making more than one piece per person.

The inclusion of paint comes from a suggestion that another artist gave me as I explained the idea to him, and I like the idea.

Sorting Letters and Prototype

Originally uploaded by love not fear

Last time you wrote you said that you thought collage was a nostalgic impulse. I think you’re wrong. Can we argue about this? Kurt Schwitters would laugh up his sleeve at you for saying that. His collages are like writing letters. Letters are collages. Educations are collages, too. –Jolene Iolas to Martin Sloane; Martin Sloane, Michael Redhill

So often, when I’m working on a project, layers of that project reveal themselves to me in other aspects of my life. Recently, I was introduced to the writer Michael Redhill. I’d heard an interview in which Redhill mentioned his fascination with Joseph Cornell, the artist who makes intricate boxes of objects. He said that he drew inspiration from Cornell in his book Martin Sloane, which I have just begun reading and am enjoying very much.

It’s making me think a little more cerebrally about the Leaving and the Left project I’ve undertaken recently. I posted some early sketches and notes about the project previously here, but I never flushed out the idea. I guess the idea won’t be fully flushed out until the project is completed, but I’ll explain a little more about the concept before tracing the process thus far and then sharing what I’m learning as I go.

My progress on the project has been slower than I’d hoped. Part of the reason for that is that I unintentionally made excuses as to why I could not move the project forward, namely that I didn’t want to be cutting up glass in my kitchen and risk having glass shards in my food, or on my floor for me to step on like some sort of modern Bukowski, going weekly to the doctor to have them removed from the bottoms of my feet.

Excuses are always barriers to progress, and I have begun eliminating them and will have a prototype completed by the end of the weekend. I already have one laid out. A quick todo list:

1. Create prototype
2. get wood scraps at Home Resource
3. cut wood for pieces : 20 pieces at 12″x12″ (allow extra pieces in case of screw-ups)
4. paint cut wood, allow to dry
5. get more glass from the frame shop
6. cut glass for each piece. Work on each piece individually, or no more than 2 pieces at one time

Each piece will likely have its own todo, but that’s a good start for now.

As far as the actual idea for the series, let’s backup a minute and I’ll share some insights that the process is teaching me. My own little art education.

Love relationships, and I’m speaking here about relationships comprised of romantic and/or sexual love, break down for a variety of causes for their crumbling. Granted, sometimes they don’t break down at all, which is good, but when they do break down, there can be a variety of reasons for their demise: a wrongdoing to one or another in the relationship, new information that informs the feelings of the relationship’s participants, lack of communication between partners, new honesty in the reasons for entering a relationship in the first place, clarity as to the goal of the relationship and realizing that one or both parties are on different paths, geographical distance that cannot be overcome. I’m simplifying a huge thing here, and am not trying to create an all-encompassing list, but you get the idea.

When a relationship ends, there are associated with its ending a variety of feelings: hurt, anger, resentment, relief, regret (again, not an all-encompassing list). But my thought as I have been thinking about the series is that the love shared between the two individuals does not just disappear. That which has been given cannot be taken back. Amidst the pain and heartache we often forget the good and valuable things that drew us together in the first place.

Where does that love go? How does it manifest itself in our lives moving forward? How can we grow from the love we shared, honor the hurt and pain of parting yet allow the love to become a part of us, enriching us and renewing us? How can we grow from both the love and the heartache? These are some of the questions that the series intends to explore. I cannot pretend that the completed pieces will answer all or any of the questions, but the discussions are important ones to have, and hopefully the viewer will be challenged to have these kinds of discussion with himself and others close to him.

Initially, I had intended to use snippets of old love letters, juxtaposed with after-the-breakup letters to illustrate that love and sadness can exist in the same space, although maybe in different time continuums. Acknowledging and honoring both disparate feelings is important. Attempting to replace love with hate isn’t truly possible or healthy. The concept may not be fully articulated here, and I’m still spinning it in my head, but it’s stuck around long enough that it’s worth exploring.

Some unexpected things are coming up as new themes while I continue working on this series. The big surprise was that I had almost all of the love letters, but none of the breakup letters. No “You hurt me, I hate you” letters. Nothing.

Then I started going through some old email archives. (I save everything. I’m going to be one of those old men with goat trails in his house, I swear). I noticed that I had some love letters sent electronically, but what surprised me was that there were quite a few residual after-the-breakup letters in the emails I was reading. This realization raises a question about technology and the coldness of words displayed as intangible pixels on a screen. Sure, they can be printed, but the former love/lover had not physically touched the printout. Her essence is not present. This creates distance between the leaving and the left. Is this intentional? Does it matter if it is or isn’t?

The process is a fascinating one for me, and I’m learning much about myself in the process.

I’ve been thinking about an art project of snippets of old letters under stacks of sandwiched glass mounted on wood. Details aren’t worked out yet, but here are some initial sketches of how the glass might be laid out, along with some notes. More as I progress on this. Doing data mining tonight.

when no one is talking and all is silent…
you can hear the crickets in the yard
rubbing their wings together to fill the uncomfortable silence…. [poem from an IM back in 2005]