We Believe

Today I started a drawing that was inspired by a common road side sign. I've seen this sign and others like it before, and I've created imagery based on them before. The signs are essentially in front of churches and schematically depict an open prayer book. The "schema" of the image is that that open book serves as a kind of picture frame for a quote from the bible. I like the idea of using it as a visual frame withh all the attendant baggage that comes with the image of a holy book.
Today's drawing involves more text than image. Here's the text: "We believe on the Lord Jesis Christ". This was copied from a local sign and I like how the word "on" is used...kind of incorrect and unsettling. I purposely misspelled Jesus to make the text a little more unsettling.

Thaad

I've completed about five drawings in the "Prison Paper" series so far. For the last couple of days I've been working on "THAAD". I'm not sure what that stands for, but it's a missile of some sort. My imagery consists of a phone reciever with the word THAAD eminating from it. The missile seems like it is being deflected by the utterance.

Prison Papers

This new work came about through the happenstance of finding blank sheets of prison record forms while helping a friend clean out the offices of a printing company. The forms are sizeable at 17” x 28” and printed on 100% cotton Hampshire Bond and I found them well suited for creating ink drawings. I chose as my theme “missiles of the world”. I probably first used a missile as imagery in my work around 1996. This was in reaction to bombing that our country did in Iraq during the first Gulf War. I remember feeling a kind of shock at the reality that American weaponry was being employed and it seemed as though this was the first time since Vietnam.

Since that time this specific imagery has been sporadic in my work until now. I’m not sure exactly why missiles now, except that since 9-11 I have generally been creating anti-military art. I found a website which catalogs every missile created in the world. On this website each missile is rendered as a simple schematic line drawing and accompanied by all its specs. As I randomly searched through this database I became understandably overwhelmed at the shear volume and technology behind these weapons and the glib nature of each design’s name such as walleye, bull pup and shillelagh. It became my mission to some how depict various missiles in the context of these prison forms.
image: "Nike Zeus" 17" x 28" (detail view) ink and gouache on paper 2005