My Project Proposal for 337's Art Truck

The Art Truck of Project 337 is essentially a roving art gallery, going where its beckoned by schools, galleries, museums and just about anyone with an interest in seeing some good art... and having it come to them for a change! The previous incarnation of the Truck was created by artists Dan Steinhilber (interior) and his wife, Maggie Michael (exterior). My dream for Art Truck as follows... Before installation ^... The barcodes on the side panels will be made of mirrored acrylic, shown here as light gray, and colored, translucent acrylic, either white or black. Both barcodes are created from the word "Equality" and are mirror images of each other, reflecting the notion of Opposition within the system (puns intended). It is important for me to show how looking at our opposition teaches us about them, ourselves and that each side reflects the other infinitely. This is especially true when the viewer in confronted with infinite images of himself with black and white stripes breaking up the plane. The idea is that each of us has internal oppositions that try to take us in different directions and fracture out unity. The questions must be asked, "What are some definitions of Equality? Are all things truly Equal? What does Equal mean in an ideological a practical sense? Sameness? Equivalent value? What is the world telling me about Equality right now? Is it good for all things to be the same?" The back wall design will be rendered in colored, mirrored acrylic. The white letters will be (as of now) made from opaque vinyl but it would be nice to make it out of custom-cut mirrored acrylic. I like the idea of viewers being reflected in words. As shown in the illustration above, this wall will be curved into a convex half circle. Its barcode is from "Unity" which brings together visually and ideologically, both sides of the equation. This country is founded and has flourished on the principal of united diversity. As shown in the exterior's famous opening lines, we are different in so many way yet united in our hope and dreams for a brighter future for all people. The poem begins and ends with the phrases from the outside of the Truck, linking interior with exterior, personal space with society at-large.

Because the Art Truck is an educational tool, I have written a brief children’s story addressing the idea of Equality, to expand the conversation begun in the artworks. Hard copies could travel with the truck as well as being sent out digitally with the other teaching materials. Students would illustrate the story in their classrooms as assignments before or after the Art Truck arrives. We could document their images, choose the best and publish the first 337 book as an art contest. It would be a great way to support a younger generation of Utah artists.

The following is a brief summary - not a finished product:

“A Lesson from U”

Each letter in the alphabet is alive with its own thoughts, feelings and abilities. This is the story of how the letter U changed the world forever for the better…

One day, U was feeling sad. She noticed how so many other letters got more attention than she did. It seemed that wherever she looked, there was another O or an E or an A. “They are in every single word!,” she thought to herself. Especially that E - she was all over the place, bouncing around between different words and picking up various intonations, being soft or hard or sometimes totally silent. E seemed to have so many uses that everyone wanted her to be part of their group. U felt, on the other hand, that she hardly ever got picked to play with the other letters.

As she sat there stewing to herself, her good friend Y came to sit beside her. (As they discuss U’s feelings, Y teaches her to ask questions about her situation to find possible solutions. Through imagination, logic and most importantly- questioning- U strikes on a very exciting idea: Equality isn’t about every letter being the same. It’s the differences that make each letter special in its own way.)

“If we were all E’s, we wouldn’t be able to communicate as well as we can now. Everything would be “Eee” this or “Eeeeeee” that and that’s tough to imagine,” U said with a chuckle.

“That’s true, U,” said Y proudly with a smile of her own.

“So it’s actually a good thing that we’re all different?” U was starting to feel empowered. She felt happy because she was finding her purpose in life. She was beginning to see that her voice was important to the world.

“You’re absolutely right and I’m so happy for you. This is a very important discovery you’re making! Imagine if every letter could be as excited for their special place in the world as you are right now. It wouldn’t matter what other letters thought of them, they could be happy no matter what.”

After thanking Y for all her help, U immediately began talking to the other letters around her and do you know what happened? The other letters got so excited that they told all their friends and before long every letter knew that they were special in many, many ways. They were all so excited that they started to make new and better words. These new words were able to communicate even better these wonderful ideas that were sprouting up like flowers.

Then something amazing happened. Something that none of the letters could have predicted: these new words started opening up new ideas and frontiers of knowledge that weren’t even thought of before. And these thoughts created new words and new words made new thoughts and so on and so on and so on into infinity…

…So always remember that no matter your shape or sound or popularity, you are beautiful and have a great work to do.

Wave of the Future

See post below...

Light and Technology, A Neo-Impressionist in the 21st Century

I am beginning a new body of video work taken with my cell phone. The pixilation and visual breakup tie into a 21st Century Neo-Impressionist motif that I find very intriguing. My working question is to link together light and technology. The opposition and similarties inherent to each create a ringing metaphoric synergy: Creation/destruction, life/death, freedom/slavery, intelligence/ignorance. I enjoy using my phone as the tool because it is the most immediate way of capturing the moments I see all around me every day. The pixilation is important to me for several reasons:

• They the medium of technology is used here in the same way that some artists keep grain in their films and brush marks in their paintings. By revealing the medium, the viewer is attached to the contexts and conotations inherent to it.
• The breakdown in the creation, I quite enjoy. The work is simultaneously created and broken down, coming into and out of form, as all life is - constantly in flux... and fleeting in its beauty.
• These discrepancies also point to the dissolution of memory. We fill in the blanks, mis-remember details while vividly recalling others.
• The generalizing of the specific form creates a more essential, architypal form; one released from a particular time and place.

I also enjoy the opposition of natural light (from the primary source in the recordings) and the artificial light coming through the computer screen or from a digital projector. A lot of these works deal with that interaction of man with nature. Where is our place as protector of the planet? Are we responsible with the light we have been given? Does our technology betray our consciousness?

All things are One...

^ First, some inspiration... The Sombrero Galaxy. Photo taken from the Hubble telescope. Click for larger, more breath-taking view. The twin red galaxies at the bottom are another fun aspect to this picture. ^ Studio View, Queens, New York, April, 2009. You can see on the wall the print out for my barcode piece installed that month (see post below "I Am Me"). The crazy thing about this circle is that it actually disappears if you stare at it. After about 8 seconds, your peripheral vision begins to eat away at it until it's completely vanished while everything else is exactly the same. Quite a fun, little trip... ^ About this same time, I was working with different circles. This one, "Secondaries" was painted with acrylic on wood board. The colors are derived from chakras and are my attempt to reconcile the discrepancies between where I was in life and where I wanted to be in life. The best kind of art, I feel, aims for an ideal of some kind. One issue I have with many post-modernist art is that it is nothing but critique. The light of ideal illuminates the seedy underbelly of "real life". Awareness is necessary but what then? What about the light of healing, of solving problems, of unifying to work together towards a mutally beneficial solution? What is art without any light to guide? ^ Another phone shot of a "sketch" in vinyl tape. NYC, April, 2009. ^ My own version of the color wheel based on Primaries and Secondaries. NYC, March, 2009. ^ Trying to make paintings without paint... and using light- an continuing saga for me. Photography from my graduate school in Edinburgh, Scotland, 2005. ^ Not a circle per se but based on cycles. This piece is about the idea of breathing as a form of unconditional giving and receiving. It also corresponds to our hearts squeezing life-giving blood through our bodies by opening and contracting its several valves. This is a very spiritual piece for me and I enjoy it more each time I see it. Edinburgh, Scotland, 2005. ^ Now we're getting more esoteric with these circles/cycles. I love the circular narrative this piece has. It's derived from the idea that just as every question has the seed of its answer, so to does every answer hold the seed to the next question. That's important because it is the quality of our questioning that determines the answers and therefore, knowledge, we can acquire. Not knowing can be a very good thing if it drives you search for the answer and keep searching once you've found it. It is a truism that the more one knows the more one realizes he knows nothing much at all. "Slippery seeing" is what I like to call it... and it's dangerous business. Created in preparation for my solo show at the Central Utah Art Center, Ephraim, Utah, October, 2006. Big thanks to Adam Bateman for that one! ^ "These Words Are True" was part of my graduate thesis show in Edinburgh, Scotland, June, 2006. This rotating door is main entrance to the Evolution House which was empty in 2006 but now houses part of Edinburgh College of Art. To get this piece up, I had go all the way to the President's Office to get approval. We had to track him down across the pond as he was in New York City for Douglas Gordon's (a former ECA student) opening at the MoMA. I thought of this phrase as rotating on the door's Y axis but also coming out of and back into its own (visual) X axis. The repetition of the phrase is also cyclical. Like a mantra, the repetition of the phrase begins to open new meanings and associations, calling into question the validity of the statement and cross-referencing with previous input. I also like the physical interaction with the work, especially the act of pushing on it and it giving way. "Knock and the door shall be opened unto you."

"I Am Me"

^This barcode was using my personal details: birth month/day/year/hour/minute and then matched to my height. It's made of reflective tape which forms a beautiful triangle between the audience in the abstracted image of myself as artist through the mediation of the artwork. Of course, that's the way art functions when it's not part of an independent system beyond the perspective of the artist (such as tribal arts where the "art" isn't communicating a certain artist's point of view so much as it is a trigger for stories, traditions and spiritual ceremonies). This work focuses the mechanics between artist, art and audience in such a clear way that it seems almost diagrammatic. I enjoy its simplicity as well as the associations it brings up. What do you think? Think Gallery 4, New York City, NY, April, 2009. A big "thank you" to Cora Lambert who invited me and went to bat with the owners, my brother, Rob Stinson who made a special trip down from Boston to make sure the piece got finished and, of course, everyone who came to see it. I miss you all in NYC!

Islamic sacred architecture. Jack Shainman Gallery, Chelsea, New York City, January, 2008. ^ Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, May, 2008. ^ Found chairs. My apartment in Queens, New York City, May, 2008. ^

The very first color swatch "painting", arranged in alphabetical order from A-Z by the chip's given names ("Alabaster", "Blue Jeans", "Swahili Sunrise").

This is where it all began...

"Arbeit Macht Frei" translates from German as "Work Makes Free". This phrase hangs above the gates leading into Auschwitz work (not concentration) camp. When painted, the variated bars will be rendered in flesh tones to bring out a greater human references. If paying higher taxes is patriotic (VP Joe Biden's words) than the slavery required to pay what will be extortion-rate taxes must be freedom...

This image sums up a lot of what I'm thinking about lately- a lot of what this series of work is about. Essentially, the barcodes I'm using represent any and all control devices that are strangling the life out of our personal and global liberties.