HORSE POWER

My Small Black Stories serieses (The Book of & The Archive) are marked by motifs that were fermented like yeast in dough, imbuing the work with a lift and a life that contained its own cell structure; mitochondria that knew its work and purpose. It became bread that tastes of its regional ingredients, and of the artisan’s hand.

I realized that those motifs came about not from rigorous, un-fun Olympian-type training, but rather organically, and more accurately, by virtue of simple repetition. In my life, I’ve found that repetition imbued with meaning and intention becomes ritual, and ritual is a powerful form of communication. Those artists that had come to their own styles appealed to me so strongly because through the repetition of their styles, they were communicating something in a language that they were also seeking to teach me. It is their native tongue, created by them, and brought to the world via their ritual practice of art. What a powerful thing, especially as its creation is necessarily unconscious and unselfconscious.

Bringing it back to my illustrative style, I started to recognize as a pattern things I’ve already known: that despite my playful forays, there were particular constants that I’d always come back to, almost by instinct. Some repeated elements were: simple close-up still life portraits of home settings like a kitchen countertop or bedroom nightstand; comic-strip style journal entries; collaged spot illustrations of functional household items; greasy pastel (digital) brushes with lots of gappy texture; and more.

Almost as a revelation, I seized upon the last two items mentioned. You know the saying: “You can’t see the forest for the trees”? That was me. Because suddenly, I realized that that was my thing. That was the thing I kept returning to, over and over again. I was wandering around in the forest, looking for it, and getting distracted by all those damn trees. I’d kept creating collages of spot illustrations using functional household items in a greasy pastel digital brush for lots of gappy texture, and thinking that that was practice, and these works the equivalent of scratch paper. When the real examination of my style came, there was of course something bigger and better that I should be able to hold forth, right? Right?! That was my thinking. I know better now.

Anyway, I say all that to say: Horse Power is the latest work in my yet-unnamed series of works featuring collages of spot illustrations using functional household items in a greasy pastel digital brush for lots of gappy texture. Among them are also Tiger Balm, Parental Mementos, Objects of My Distraction, etc., etc., etc.! The collection of the individual items are memorialized in works like Alive Herbals and the other works in that gridded series; a sort of altar space to house spiritual objects.

This appeals to me is because these repeated objects represent talismen that on their own, appear to be mundane and insignificant, but within the context of my oeuvre, are their own Easter eggs; the material goods that represent the keys to my consciousness. In these illustrated works, I’ve found another native tongue. I’m ready to speak to those who have ears to listen.

P.S. I’m creating 11 X 17” posters for Horse Power as a companion to the ones I made for its closest cousin, Tiger Balm, so stay tuned.