1984

The Book, not the Movie (or the Year)
I have listened to the book on tape version of 1984 several times now as well as having read the book.  This book and Aldous Huxley's Brave New World are two of my favourites.  While listening to the book on tape I may have become a little bit obsessed with it and how it has come to actually exist, especially in post 9-11 North America.  The freedoms that we were uncomfortable giving up in the last decade have become permanently obliterated.  I remember having to have my finger prints scanned in the States in order to exchange a comic book.  Anyone who doubts that a piece of 1984 has become a reality just needs to remember three little words..."continuous global warfare."  America and its allies have been at war constantly for the last 10 years.  The "Secure Beneath the Watchful Eyes" is actually taken from a poster used in the London Underground.  It really fits, doesn't it?  Okay, enough rant.


The artwork for page 1 was based on a line drawing which was based on internet images. Page 2 was originally done by cut and paste of  images laid out in Microsoft Publisher.  I downloaded  images from the internet and used them as my base.  I then added    family photos and comic book style thought balloons illustrating the "thought crimes."  Any resemblance of Big Brother on page 2 to George Bush is purely intentional.  Once again page 2 of 1984 is a drawing/painting based on the original Publisher document I created.  I also  have a page of the original black and white Publisher document in my Journal.

I am sure that I spent at least a week on these pages.  Again, this was a huge exercise in process.

Emptied Prairie

 "I Dare You to Like This as Much as I Do."

Andrew Wyeth:  Christina's World  1948
Museum of Modern Art, New York City

Andrew Wyeth:  Master Bedroom  1965

 If, like me, you grew up on a prairie farm in an area that was previously populated by families every quarter section, you are familiar with Emptied Prairie -- skeletons of family farms surrounded by ghosts of its former inhabitants.   Family farms abandoned complete with furniture, old clothes, books and more.  This was my childhood playground. Note the Andrew Wyeth like picture in the page above. In place of the young girl in the field note the skeleton. Note the similarity of the cat in the abandoned bedroom in the top image to Wyeth's "Master Bedroom".  These images are gel transfers from a National Geographic photo.  When National Geographic did an article entitled Emptied Prairie in 2008, I used the images and created this piece.  I started with a background coloured as a winter landscape and gel transferred, tape transferred, and collaged the images on to the background.  The reason I like it so much is because this not only reminds me of these haunts from my childhood visually but also seems to capture the mood that these memories elicit.

Memorial

Everyone Dies Famous in a Small Town --Just before Christmas 2008, one of my childhood friends, Chris Whitfield, died.  I saved the obituaries for some time and then I decided to incorporate them into a journal page.  The upper right corner shows one of the obituaries, the 2nd is in the upper right.  Details of the obituary were written in gold on black(on red), and lyrics from Miranda Lambert's Famous in a Small Town are written black on the antique white. It felt appropriate.  Overall I was very happy both with the outcome and the process; after all this is all about the process.

Lets Make a Family Album

I like this one --  The backgrounds are painted with yellow and red over gel texture. The photo booth strips were created in Microsoft Publisher by cropping existing family photos and repeating them on 4 photo strips. After printing they were cut out with borders and glued down to the background.  The total picture was covered with clear matte medium.
   This page reflects my first two page spread.   The reaon I like this one is that I think that it is successful as a completed work of art.  It has a cohesive element that brings the whole piece together and it is personal.  This page has photos of the girls but the other page has the rest of the family in their own strips.

"Art is a journal entry..."

"Art is a journal entry for someone who doesn't write in a journal."

                                                                                                   --PEZ

Bad Tattoo/ City

What if I were inked up?  Okay so I was having a little fantasy about being covered with old school tattoos.  Either that or drawing old school tattoos.  After this I decided that I was ready for neither.  This is the last of my 1 pagers as I get comfortable with trying to create a wall to wall finished piece.  There is actually a photo of me underneath this.  An old photo from when I had bigger arms.  It was black and white and I painted over most of it, but the arms are still there. 

CITY
This is another infill page done at a later time.
This is an acrylic painting done as a background picture. I gessoed the square in the center of the page and created a line drawing reproduction of a representation of a cityscape.



Get ready for the next piece....it all starts to come together for me with my first two pager on the next page.....

Bored Games

Bored Board Games -- The page on the right is the next journal page.  At this time I was not ambitious enough to try a 2 page spread so I simply did one.  At this time I was playing Scrabble with my wife and she was always beating me.  Being competitive I started playing online and memorizing all the 2 letter words.  The small text reads..."Start as a BEGINNER. After a while you can be GOOD. When you study, practice and always play to win you become OBNOXIOUS then you need to take up SUDOKU"  In the background is a list of all the 2 letter words.    I was quite proud of this as an art journal page.  A lot more planned and cohesive than my previous attempts.

Later I went back and infilled the blank page across from the Scrabble Page. I gel transferred lots of parts from a book of board games that I picked up second hand. This is a very dark and textural piece. Although this piece is so dark and alot of the gel transfers are obscured by covering paint, it kind of works. It looks even better in person.