My newest assemblage - "Make Something Real"

Make something real.

Those words came to me when I was considering what kinds of images I wanted to create to promote The Unforeseeable Future on social media. More than just an epiphany for that particular project, "make something real" has become this year's theme for me.

I have become disenchanted with the latest advances in technology. It seems like the notions of digital/virtual/artificial/augmented when it comes to images, intelligence, and reality itself have overtaken everything else. So far I'm not impressed with the metaverse, or NFTs, or A.I. "art." I need to get away from screens sometimes. I need to work with my hands. So what if it's messy.

Like its predecessors in this style, Make Something Real is the result of years of accumulation. An aluminum palette that probably dates back to 2019, paint skins, and paint that dried in various tubes and bottles when I was away from my studio in 2020 and 2021 all make up the entirety of this colorful assemblage. The support is a framed cradled wood board from the Artist and Craftsman Supply on Wabash that we lost in 2020.

I thought I hadn't made much art this year and was less productive than I was last year, and then I removed the blank wood boards that were laying on top of this piece and realized that it was almost done. I only had to add a few more pieces of dried paint.

In keeping with the title, I decided to use vintage ceramic titling letters to spell out "make something real" in some of my photos.

I think I may have come up with the title of my next book. We'll see.

Because of that, I've decided not to sell it yet. In the future it may be the star of a solo show.