foundations
Some have been with me for decades, others for far less, but these are the books that have shaped my creative thinking over however long it’s been now that I’ve been doing whatever this is that I've been doing.
metal_0092
One of K’s students who digs my work asked her if I would make him a seal so - after way too much figuring out and overthinking - I chopped up some old scissors and made this washer-balancing little guy.
Calicornication: Postcards of Giant Produce (1909)
via Public Domain Review:
Produced by the prolific San Francisco–based publisher Edward H. Mitchell, each card features a single rail car rolling through lush farmland. Aboard are gargantuan, luminous fruits and vegetables: dimpled navel oranges, a dusky bunch of grapes, and mottled walnuts. Placed end-to-end, the cards would make a colorful train crossing California’s fertile valleys. Unlike other, more action-packed “tall-tale” cards — filled with farmers, fisherman, and children for scale — Mitchell’s series is restrained. Sharply illuminated, the colossal cargo lean toward artwork rather than gag. “A Carload of Mammoth Apples”, green-yellow and gleaming, could have been plucked from Rene Magritte’s The Son of Man.
the (as yet) unmade
In the throes of limbo on two metal projects so here’s a list of things I’ve yet to make that I want to make:
a series / gaggle of weird little zines
a graphic novella (with or without a collaborator, though i'd prefer the former)
a narrative short film
a novella
a large metal dinosaur
a damn good track / ep that eschews my institutionalized music composition reflexes for the same visceral and improvisational central to my totally clueless – and intentionally ignorant – metalworking practice.
Do I have any of these in me still? I'd like to believe I do (99.99% that large metal dinosaur is happening this summer), but time will tell.
