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The Global Market

57 individual currency symbols, composite gold leaf and graphite on 6" square canvases. Dimensions pictured, about 42"x54".

After creating Currencies in the Four Letter Words series, I wondered what the individual symbols might look like. As a culture we are likely aware of the symbols for the British Pound, the Euro, and maybe the Japanese Yen, but what does the Korean Won look like, or the Russian Rubble? You can find them above.

The materials, once again, recall the alchemical relationship between gold and lead in the middle ages. The use of gold leaf also recalls the classical tradition using gold leaf to represent the light behind icons.

I h8 DC. Broken Water Main on NY Ave edition.

A water main broke somewhere between Florida Ave NE and Montana Ave NE on New York Avenue NE, this afternoon or this evening, bottle necking traffic from three lanes into one lane. I did not know this as I made my commute from American University to Prince George Community College at 3:50, which typically routes me MA - RI - Q - FL - NY - 50 - Belt - ...

The stretch between Gallaudet and the break is about 1 mile, and I drove that stretch in 2hrs 15 minutes, spending 15 minutes in the jug handle connecting FLA and NY Aves.

Initially, like any calm individual thinking it was just rush hour traffic, I called my grandmother. Realizing I moved less than 1/10th of a mile in half an hour, I hung up and decided I should pay attention; somewhere ahead of me a bus load of blind nuns must have careened into a bus load of quadriplegic school kids with Downs Syndrome, and I would soon be dodging bodies like parking cones in a test drive commercial.

I missed the traffic report on WAMU!
I went to "McCain 570" on the AM dial as a last ditch effort. They were only reporting the traffic problems in the White parts of Virginia, not the Black parts of DC.

Resigned. Crestfallen. I switched the dial and listened to Market Place. I watched the sun set.

DC has interesting driving patterns. You know how you are not supposed to "block the box?" I'm mindful of that. I don't want to be that guy -- that guy who is stuck in the middle of the intersection when the lights have changed.

My light turned green, allowing the one car in front of me to proceed through the intersection, just far enough to cut off the traffic from the cross street, trying to turn right on red. It's an 80 second light. Traffic starts honking at the 40 second count down, and there is just enough daylight ahead of me to scoot my car into the cross walk on the opposite side of the intersection. At least, there was enough room until cars from the cross street decide to turn right onto red and eclipse my right of way. I can understand one car making an eclipse, but three? Since when did Maryland and DC drivers become Italians "in line" for gellato? I say a silent prayer, hoping for the death of the man who placed drivers licenses in Cracker Jack boxes.

Now I'm that guy -- that guy stuck in the intersection because the lights have changed.

A Couple Recent Activites

Evidence that the Chalkboard Talks at the Katzen took place. the event was part conversation, part performance... and I didn't even need Piero Manzoni to sign me to become a piece of art.

Prince George Community College is celebrating its 50th anniversary, and the art department is hosting a faculty show to coincide with the celebration. Moment of Zen, along with work from other current and past faculty members, will be playing in the Marlboro Gallery through November 6.

Out of Context

My latest work from the series of Four Letter Words involves words taken Out of Context. If viewed correctly - or incorrectly, depending on context - it is my most obscene work to date.

To recap:
The series of Four Letter Words is a challenge to the title. "Four letter words" is a euphemism for vulgarity, and vulgarity is typically thought of as those words George Carlin examined which could not be said on television (most of which were longer than four letters). This discourages the 3900+ four letter words out there (as deemed playable by the Scrabble dictionary).

The interesting thing with Anglo Saxonisms (another quaint euphemism) was examined by Diane Ackerman in her book A Natural History of the Senses. To paraphrase, "Why fuck when you can fornicate?" In one chapter, wherein she briefly explored a history of language, Ackerman suggested that the languages of Anglo and Saxon were considered brute and harsh when heard by the ears of the Gauls. As a result, the televised audience (in the US) will more than likely hear two four letter words replace once, because the sensors believe an audience would rather hear about couples who "make love."

To counter the brutality of our linguistic Anglo Saxon heritage, as a culture we have invented other euphemisms and colloquialisms for penis, vagina, intercourse, and masturbation. It is also a methodology for adolescents to speak outside the radar of adults. This tradition is older than The Bard of Avon whose phrasings were "wont to set the table on a roar" when such subjects were discussed.

When proposed for the Athenaeum in August, this was a series that was refused from the exhibition. The refusal was based on the grounds that the Athenaeum serves as a rental facility for weddings, events, and ballet classes. It is simple to empathize with that position, since display of that work would probably provoke some outcry from patrons as well as the city of Alexandria. It's also unfortunate. The three works that sold the best were the two series of Onomatopoeia - one because of its relationship to Roy Lichtenstein's pop paintings (blam), the other because they are monosyllabic nonsense that have acquired some sort of intelligible meaning (hunh) - and Currencies, though not as a complete series. I believe the latter did well because they were shiny (composite gold leaf and graphite). Out of Context would have sold as a series... and probably had back orders. Intellect aside, there is a repressed juvenile in us all.

Floating with the FLC at the Katzen

I was recently asked to join the Chalkboard Talks as part of the Brushfire Initiative by Provisions Library. I'll be speaking with Mark Cameron Boyd, Kathryn Cornelious, Nick Karvounis, and a person to be named later, to discuss "The Intersection of Art & Society" on October 18th at The Katzen Museum at American University. The talk/conversation is around 1:00.

To prepare, I stopped up at American University to see what the show was all about. There are a few jaw-droppingly hysterical works, like the translation of Dazed and Confused from "American" to "Indian" (accent). What I would no have given to have a recliner and a six pack... I would have watched the whole movie.

OF course, the exhibition made me realize that I am still behind on the clone of myself that I need to do the volume of work I'd like to complete before the polar ice caps melt... back to the studio.

A VOTE OF NO CONFIDENCE

For some reason I just got this page as I tried to perform a search through my Google search short cut. Blogger and Gmail still work, but this is a little disconcerting.