5.28.2012

The Hollywood Sign

1997


Y'ever seen a movie with the Hollywood sign in it? One where characters are near it? Seems like they never get it to look quite right (which is so dumb, if you think about it.) You wanna know what the Hollywood sign looks like close up? It looks like this.







Back when I lived with Alicia in Santa Monica, she and I and Ed and Maggie took a hike up that mountain they got with the sign on it. I brought my camera.

Twenty-Seven Teardrops

2004


Biscuit (Mandorla)

1998 / 2002


Let's see, This finally showed at the 2002 Forest Park Community College "NEW WORK" show in St. Louis, but it got it's start at the Scottsdale Air Park in 1998 where I made the basic vesica piscis frame and substrate which traveled with me to U. City where it sat for some years until I figured out what to do with it. The center pattern is made up of copper buttons embedded in a masonite panel (which took an awfully long time to drill) covered in an oxidized iron patina, as are many surfaces from this group of work.


Radio Penny Details

2000


It got clear to me upon my one visit to the Radio Penny Studios in the Post Dispatch Building in Downtown St. Louis that Chris Deckard doesn't record music like other people. He was always something of a dapper enigma in his velvet jacket and ruffles; a sort of a Syd Barrett atavism. He did some interesting stuff with Julia Sets. Stuff I didn't understand. I came in contact with him through Rebecca Ryan and the Suite 16 Project. He was recording her tracks for the CD and I was the photographer and designer for the project. Good times.











Scenes from Death Valley

1983

Ask me and I'll tell you, "My favorite place on this stupid planet is Death Valley. I love how, on the salt flats, it's so close to absolutely nothing. The earth and the sky are the same white and there's almost no horizon line. It's actually kinda scary cause you feel like you can't trust anyplace that's so completely still. Nowhere can you feel more alone. It's where I wanna die."



I shot a whole role out there when I was 18 (my first of two visits), so there are many more pictures somewhere and they will appear in time. For now, here are these from a rest area near Furnace Creek, I think, and a view from the car.
6/9/12 - Just noticed this old post.

Bubbles

2006




Guarantee

2004


Painted Wasp

2006


The truth is I'm scared to death of bees and wasps so when I was working outside with some spray paint and one of the little bastards came at me, I replied with red. I really let him have it too, like it was a can of RAID. No way any insect could've survived that... but check it out: Two weeks later I'm working at the same bench and who should appear but that same red wasp! I couldn't believe my eyes! (so I took a crapload of pictures of the blighter to prove it really happened).