Cigarettes The carving and painting of lighted cigarettes and crushed cigarette butts are an attempt by myself to create a replica through the simple exercise of acute mimicry observation. Having the experience of being exposed to cigarettes every day of my life, I have stored in my memory banks distinct details concerning color, texture and pattern and this helps me as I envision a lighted cigarette or a smoldering butt left somewhere unattended inviting disaster to strike. Driftwood
I was thinking about making a sculpture that would expose a rusty nail ready to share its tetanus spores to an unsuspecting bare foot. I responded to this thought by rethinking the tetanus thing and settle for a rusty nail through a piece of driftwood. As with the cigarettes, I used the method of acute mimicry observation to manipulate pinewood into weathered pieces of driftwood with an occasional nail still in it. Since the method I use in painting the wood is very similar to how a painter would paint a canvas; underpainting with local color, apply color glazes and use various painting techniques such as wet into wet, dry brush and scumbling, I see these pieces as paintings, two sided paintings, and I embellish this notion by hanging the pieces with eye screws and hanging wire, just like you would with a canvas. |
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