Poppies, flamingos, and frameworks

I found some time to make some art this weekend. I have been collecting photos of spring flowers on my daily dog walks. One morning I discovered that a house I pass routinely had been “flocked” - that is the front yard was covered in pink plastic flamingos. Apparently, this is a service you can pay for from a legitimate business.

These images came together into a mega-gram - my term for a large image broken into individual grid squares for posting on Instagram. The complete image looks like this:

I like to make the full image large enough that it requires scrolling one or two screens worth to see the whole thing. This is only visible when you visit my profile page on Instagram. Each “post” is just a square chunk of this larger image. Sometimes those little chunks are interesting. Blown up on a canvas they might make for good abstract paintings.

This collage seemed to be working well. The little flamingo head peeking out from behind the geometry makes me happy. Many times when I post one of these to Instagram they die right there. They don’t feel right for whatever reason and I let them wash away in with the social feed.

This one felt good though so I broke it in half, fixed the composition, and made some proofs on paper and canvas.

I will probably include these in the next batch of silk prints I do. I’m particularly fond of that circle-wrapped-star. It reminds me of Captain America’s shield but more like a sunflower. Captain Sunshine maybe.

I re-post all of these to my personal website. One day Instagram will do something stupid and I’ll lose all of my work. I make a more permanent home for them online.

While I was cross-posting these to my site, I decided the layout had gotten stale and needed some upkeep. I tweaked the layout and moved some things around. Much better. I realized that I could make these big tiled images a little more interactive, so I added a little bit of code that allows them to respond when tapped or clicked. Each tile smooshes backwards into the screen as if set in wet cement. Each tile remembers its location, so when you return to the site, everything is where you left it.

This repeated rabbit-hole has become a bit of a process or a method. Make a thing, put it on Instagram, make prints, repeat.

While I was working on my website, my friend Sterling sent me a link to an updated artist’s statement, He used the term “framework” to describe some of the guardrails he places around his art in order to focus his practice. Framework. Right. That’s the idea.

These iterations of collect, create, post, reflect, create, post are the framework I’m working under when I make art. I hadn’t realized this was my process until my friend pointed out his own process.

Ok cool, so now I have a process.