Birth of a Fallen Star

The reason I can't leave home is that I always chase my tail. I'm so busy going back to where I started that I never leave even though I am running and

trying as hard as I can. These stars are representive of that in a multitude of ways. First, my stepfather, whose at-home hobby craftsmanship was an

influence on my practical arts used to make these wooden wall hangings that consisted of a staircase mounted on wood and around it were 1-2 wooden stars. The

staircase and stars had small shelves that would lend themselves to holding very small items like statuettes, but I can't remember anything being that small

that it could sit on them. These items were cut from plywood and glued and what was most memorable about these is that they did not match the cursing son-of

-a-bith mother fucker who made them. This tattooed asshole made these cute little items when he wasn't cursing the world and threatening everyone's

existence. So stars and celestial characters dominated my artistic existence from the very begining as a contrast to reality.

I've done my fair share

of star gazing and I enjoy the relevance that exist between dimensions of space, light, matter and existence as a ponderable oddity that can consume my time.

However, the simplistic symbolism that has come to represent celebrity through stardom is forever a contradiction of relevance. Star gazing truly engages

the imagination whereas star stalking simply entertains the envious parts of the psyche. Needless to say I find myself in Hollywood, 20-30 years beyond my

welcome as a tourist. I did not step off that bus on Hollywood Boulevard at the end of the 70's to just step in the footsteps of the transient famous people

who occupied the squares under my feet. I was there to puke on them and fall down drunk. I was there to sell myself to be like them. I was there to burn in

hell while staring out into the night sky not seeing stars but helicopters blaring a like onto my naked ass.

I heard a radio broadcast of Dennis

Hopper a few weeks before his death as I imagined him hovering over a star with his name on it, honoring his work, as I felt sick to my stomach. I attributed

this infatutation he must've had with a star on the ground with his name on it to the influence the drugs were having on his brain. Obviously he had been on

morphine for too long leading up to the last few minutes of his life the people around him had to encourage him to preversley honor himself in such a way. I

won't go out like that. I won't let my fans down.

The only thing I can figure is that there is nothing symbolically equivalent to a true artist to

associate themselves with to represent their work beyond Oscars and Stars. Now I find myself influenced by these same stars, haunted by their existence and

tortured by their ubiquitousness. The materials that I have been working with have now given me a ludicrous imitation of the celebrity nonsense, but as I am

a captive to symbolism I have no choice but to continue in this path and create these things that I call "Fallen Stars". First to make a star you have to

have mastered making clouds. This I have done, but they are too elusive to be identified with by the masses as they are not intimidative like stars are.

Second, you have to work with bare elements like metals since the hot core of stars eventually cools to the elements that make up the solid matter of the

universe. Three, you have to be ridiculous in being, spirit and dress. My resume speaks for itself in this case, so I don't need to enumerate any

more.

The stars themselves are not intimidating, but are fragile pieces of plaster coated with bronze and steel in a thin veneer design that is

unique. Unique is Unique, why describe that which is obvious. I can make up uses for these items, objet d' art, coasters, flat ashtrays, I don't really care.

Personally I think they are perfect for throwing and smashing. Wipe your ass with them, I don't really care. I know once you have one in your space it won't

make any more sense than I have attempted to make for them because they are simply without meaning. It is all projections of reality, symbolism and purpose.

Why should we expect to be anything more than an ashtray for society or an asswipe for the government. The core of our existence is of course much more than

that, but I am not going to portray anything more than the contrast that they represent to the what and how we view stars. These are fallen stars, these

stars are the people we know, the real people in our lives. We don't have to understand them or use them, but we can if we need. These stars are fragile and

temporary, but made of stone. These stars are an accident in the making, but influenced by what we want to see in life.

Where's the Rock?

With new products come more understanding. The new hybrid gypsum material I previously mentioned it a complete polymer resin. The good news is that it will mix with the metals that I have been working with. The bad news is that it may not be as fine when mixed as the Gouache and Polyester Resin mixtures and therefore I may be limited by the detail that I can accomplish. I have been working with extremely thin layers, so thin that if I give them a scrub I can remove the finish. Obviously the durability of working that thin is questionable, but I appreciate the economy of a very thin veneer. I haven't even gotten to the sealing stage yet as the pieces I have made are still damp, but I can't wait to see if a spray darkens the color and/or enhances the appearence of the metals.

Today was much like any other day and I mixed a new batch of prints and backings on different materials. I also stewed a batch of Gum Arabic in an old school cappucino pot that emulates a double boiler. I have been working with stars using a combination of bronze for the star and steel for the background in black. By working with thinner layers I have come to the conclusion that it may be easier to bind layers of different materials as the thickness doesn't work against the binding effect of the plaster. There is only a short time for the binding to take place and if an image is too thick it may not saturate and bond with the plaster medium, so working thinner potentially gives a better bond with the base material than a thicker image. This also proved to be true in practice.

I browsed the pigment section of Douglas and Sturgess today and noticed some materials that I have looked for in previous experiments, most notably cadmium. I have tried to get enough information to experiment with screen printing solar panels and cadmium was one of the active materials that could assist with making photovoltaic films. The simplist form of a solar cell that I have found was a aluminum wire wrapped on a coated copper plate. These pigments may be printable with cold casting either with polyester resins and or gypsum hybrids. I am going to find some of my materials and see if it is relevant. Conductivity, thin and layered were the keys to creating multi-layered solar films that create electricity. I don't see how this wouldn't work if printed efficiently. The old site I worked on was SolarPowerIsHot.com. I am hoping that I uploaded my data so that I can find the materials list and start anew.

Now we get to the good stuff - Weathering is the Great Equalizer

I've boiled down my efforts to metallic coatings in non-toxic casting materials and although I have succeeded in the short run of making the initial laminate I have reservations about the long term product and went back to researching actual products made to do this. Lo and behold there is a modified mixture of Hydrocal plaster that works as a kit with Mojo and Voodoo to make thin walled sculptures and faux metal castings that can exist in weathered conditions. The magic chemical hybrid plaster cement is called Forton MG.

Read More here:

http://www.artmolds.com/gateway/technique/forton_1.htm

FMG consists of a gypsum plaster modified (hence the abbreviation M.G., for Modified Gypsum) by the addition of plastics and fiberglass. The system involves mixing precise amounts of several products, including Hydrocal FGR-95 from US Gypsum or alternatively, Densite HS from Geogia Pacific (both are gypsum-based cements); dry melamine resin powder; a hardener; a liquid polymer called Forton VF-812, and; fiberglass. These various ingredients are the base to which aggregates, colorants and metallic powders may be added; in which the latter, though somewhat pricey, simulates the look and feel of metal.



and here:

http://www.douglasandsturgess.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=DAS&Product_Code=SC-1245&Category_Code=

If you've been frustrated by trying to put a plaster or gypsum cement sculpture outside only to find that it is slowly dissolving away, then perhaps you should look at Forton MG or Matrix G. Essentially enhancement systems for FGR-95, (see plasters and gypsum cements) these materials not only allow you to use FGR-95 outside, but also will enable you to create sculptures that can look like metal or stone at an economical price with a material that is relatively easy to use. The beauty of these products is that they do not need to be cast solid, but may be cast or laminated hollow with glass fiber reinforcement to create something that is light weight as well. Oh sure, you say, I can do that with cement or fiberglass, which may be true to a certain extent, but try to obtain the fine surface with cement, or avoid the sticky mess with polyester and fiberglass. It can't be done. With the Forton MG/Matrix G systems, we have a go-between material that gives you the best of both worlds. Available in three different sized kits.

Inert is as Inert does - understanding decay

I often think of decay as a natural process. Today I wondered if the visual affects of aging have any effect on the actual dying process, like is someone that looks 80 more likely to die than someone that looks 60, although both candidates for death in this case are 70 years old, I wonder? Decay is understood as a scientific process within the world of uranium and half-lifes, but those ideas are abstract at best. Decay is also understood in an everyday way with things like meat and lettuce, but we don't think of it in terms of half-lives or lives, just simply decay. Zombies are the best example of a real-world half-life decay of a human body, Death accelerates decay, but I digress.

Half-life's are exponential in some sense and in that way I think of them as the same as the relativity of time; All of these explainations are rational explainations of mysteries based on some relevant truths. We can't fully understand these concepts by assuming that there is a relative scale of time that is somehow applicable to our sense of time. Example: If light is a constant and we measure light as some context of a year, but over time our years have changed in duration, which would allow us only to measure light as a constant in years from our current point of the duration of a year. If a year was twice as fast as it is now, then in fact light would be twice as fast numerically in order to remain a constant. This seems obvious to me, but I do have trouble explaining this to others.

As we measure decay there seems to be an attempt at making decay relevant to the thing itself. This makes sense since a half life for me is different than a half life for someone who is going to live twice as long as me. However the acceleration of half-life's as a rule of thumb is suspect, nonetheless, I did not start this diatribe to discuss half-lifes, but to understand decay. Unstable objects decay faster than stable objects. We are all nuclear objects in some form or another, albeit static rocks of living beings. My previous arguement that plastics will dissolve is reinforced by this concept that inert substances last longer because they are not decaying in the same way as hybrid polymers and compound chemicals do.

My brief studies in mineralogy taught me that the structure creates the item and the completeness of the structure is what is a visual representation of the inertness of the item itself. This non-binding effect of inert materials therefore creates minerals and minerals are by definition inert and subject then only to atomic decay, extreme heat and smashing into smaller pieces. Smaller pieces is where I come in and by getting minerals in very small, atomized, pieces I can bond them in a gypsum glud type of cement and continue their decay in an organized aestechically pleasing way. These minerals, metals, are as inert as I can get and by definition they are UV coated, which is the weak point in acrylics.

Now I can atleast have a discussion on the relevant point of decay if I understand the materials I am dealing with like Steel, Aluminum, Copper and Bronze. The binders are subject to decay before the materials that make up the image are. Also by definition there is no binder that can hold these items except gravity. By understanding this I have a newfound respect for silver print photography since the actual black and white image contained in the fixed geletin is silver particles which are not subject to decay, but the paper and chemicals that bind silver prints are subject to decay and are not simple. The gist of my understanding is that complex chemicals will break down faster than simple inert chemicals and if you want archival then you have to go inert.

Patience is what I need, but I can't buy that in a store.

Indeed I would, if I could, but I can't and my experiments suffer as a result. I've succeeded now in getting a layer of colors to adhere to the plaster with a combination of pigment and metal powders on a simple layer of paper. The many other materials I have tried have had mediocre success, but I think it is because I have failed at being patient enough to allow them to fully dry. I think that as the mixture of pigment and binder dries it would be sucked into the plaster as the plaster dries. I know this is just conjecture, but when I pour the plaster there are often puddles of water on the top and sides and I have a feeling it is sucking the water through the plaster as it bonds with itself and the water is forced out. Since the Gouache is also holding water as it dries the water would be sucked from it too and that is the bond that would contain the print in the plaster.

My concern is that by waiting too long the gouache will rebind with the paper or substrate that is is printed on. I have never gotten a consistent result, but I feel that a semi-wet separation in the past has benefited the transfer of the image to the plaster, at least when I am dealing with other inks that are migrating into the plaster. Often when I have waited too long like more than an hour, I get the inks only half separating. Sometimes I have done extrememly wet pours on purpose to get a bleeding of the image and by oversaturating the materials I get effects that suck at first, but as they dry the bleeds become accents to the image itself. My goal here is not to get a fluid effect, but to simply transfer a high metal content print into a plaster base that can essentially be a plaster version of cold casting metal.
Why, you ask? Cost and toxicity I answer. I can't afford to work in the world of plastics which require chemicals that are smelly and that without a mask I will get high. The bonding elements of the backing of non-solid pieces creates a range of problems that require a range of solutions that take me away from the work itself. Finally, I am not convinced of the lasting time of plastics. In the back of my head I think that all of a sudden a polymer breakdown is going to happen at the age of 50 or 100 years from now and certain polymers, like acrylics, are going to just dissolve. Heat is another potentially damaging influence and from the way I am making things there would only have to be a separation from the printed surface that may cause the entire collapse of these pieces.

So why go where no artist has gone before. Wait, strike that! Let's assume that there was an advanced civilization long before our time that had reached an extreme level of sophistication, before the bronze age, there was a plastic age, but it dissolved and disappeared and therefore we have no record of it's existence. This explains a lot about things if we simply assume that God was originally manufactured in plastics, but his/her physical presence has been removed because he/she was created in plastic. When civilization rebuilt itself it started this time with clay and worked itself back up to plastics. Plastics are evil and even acrylics may fail in the same way that every other polymer based derivative will. Because of this paranoia I have decided not to take chances and the gypsum based materials like plaster and metal pigments seem like the way to go.

Gum Arabic Goauche Binder aka

Mixing binder to use with atomized metal. I have successfully adhered the bronze and steel to plaster, but I am afraid of the acrylic heat set ink working consistently, so now I am going back to the basic of mixing a clear binder to hold the atomized metals, like the goauche paints that were good at binding. The old problem of making layers bond is now going to be an issue, but If I work with one later at a time and make sure to use mold release I think this will get me to where I want to be. Testing 1,2, 3. I am looking for my old jar of Schmincke Ready-to-Use Gouache Binder (This ready-to-use gouache binder is ideal for producing your own gouache colors in small batches. Just add dry pigment to the binder and mix with a palette knife, using a simple mixing ratio of 1:2.

No longer will you need to produce large quantities of colors. Now it's simple to make new and fresh colors as you need them!

The gouache binder contains gum arabic, dextrin, and a wetting agent.), but can't find it. However I did find a bag of Gum Arabic (Water soluble gum that is used primarily in making water colors and gouache. To use, simply dissolve in hot water in a double boiler until the desired consistency is achieved.
), but it may take up to two days to get it into a useful state from scratch, much too long for me. ROAD TRIP...

Polyester resin stepping stone to where I was

I use the phrase stepping stone in jest, as one of the objects I am considering making would be stepping stones, like the Hollywood Stars in Los Angeles, except as clouds. The issue with making such an item is that it has to be durable and I have gone back and forth as to how to make an equivalent item, but with updated imagery an a different aestetic. The polyester resin and epoxy resin systems I have been playing with have showed promise when I mix in atomized metals like aluminum, steel, bronze and brass. I have even been able to screen print these mixtures with a varying degree of detail. Yesterday I applied an acid finish to one piece and got a nice patina effect that showed up the next day, so the final results are interesting.

The problem has been the smell and toxicity of the chemicals as they bug everyone around me, including myself. There has also been a significant number of bonding issues and cracking that has happened after the pieces have been made, so these techniques are difficult to apply in my current setup.

Back in the day I used to mix bronzing powder with water based inks and get a printable medium that I applied to t-shirts. I am desperately trying to make something other than another t-shirt, but these materials and skills may be the only marketable product that I can make that can help pay for the process itself. I was wondering if the atomized metal would work similarly to the bronzing powders as I assumed they would and hopefully they may work better and print through tighter screens. My big question now is what materials to print on to try and replace the need for the polyester resins and what or how should I use the final product?

My original inspiration to the harder materials like plaster and the fresco process came from transfering images into the wet plaster itself with varying degrees of success. I did not have luck using water-based screen printing inks, at least not consistent luck and eventually I moved towards gouache because of the opacity and I was able to get some of the pigments to bind with the plaster more consistently. I don't get a lot of bleeding with the gouache pigments, but I do get a pretty good bond to the plaster.

Now I am repeating the process of trying a water-based medium that will bind with the plaster and I jumped right back where I was with the t-shirt inks. The difference this time is that I am thinking about a multitude of carrier materials as the polyester resins have made me rethink how to sustain the prints until I can laminate them into a more permanent piece, as printing on silicon sheets, vinyl, water-slide decal paper, transparencies and such. The myriad of materials I have worked with all lack something and are questionable when it comes to creating a thick painting like final product because of the difference in the materials themselves as I have previously described the many failed attempts at bonding the image laminate to something of more character. This is where t-shirt printing comes in handy because it usually doesn't matter the thickness and there is always a desire to get the thinnest possible layer that will do the job of making the image stay on the shirt.

First I printed an Ultraman image with a Black Steel atomized metal mixed into an extender water-based ink (which really means a heat-setting acrylic ink). This had a nice asphalt grey type of look and I printed it on vinyl and some transfer materials as well as a t-shirt. Didn't really look any different than using a black ink, so I don't see a lot of rationale for continuing this mixture on t-shirts, but it could work in molds if the other materials I use like plaster, Gorilla glue or polyresin adhere to it.

I can't seem to figure a reason why it won't be as good as polyester resin as a binder since t-shirt inks are made to endure washing, drying and wearing. Next I mixed a bronze atomized metal into the t-shirt ink and it had a milky look, but I am hopeful that it will be like glue and dry clear. I printed this on a variety of materials including films, vinyl sticker paper and a t-shirt, of course. My goal is to apply some acid to the printed surface and cause the patina effect to happen before I transfer the images to another surface or material. My concept is to make bronze stickers for cars or transfers for shirts that have this effect, yet the toxic effects can be removed before the image is applied to the final product. I now have these materials drying in the hot box trailer and I am trying to think through the many possibilities here.

If it wasn't for my experience in the fashion business I wouldn't be thinking so commercially about these items, but I can't justify spending my time making prints and photo frescos since nobody buys them and I have to pay my bills. The funny thing is that because I am forced to keep working with t-shirts, the thing I sort of hate, it is only because of these skills that I have so many solutions with materials that may get me away from the Polyester and toxic materials, which I hate for different reasons.

I want to do something extreme like coat my Chrysler 300 with bronze and then patina the whole thing green, or pass out Y-Que stickers that have the patina effect and then see them show up around Los Angeles. These projects won't be possible if I don't get a product that I can make and sell and as always I am back to doing t-shirts first so that I can have fun later. When will later arrive?

Cold casting with polyester resin and atomized metal

I've been mixing polyester resin and epoxy with atomized bronze, aluminum, brass and steel. It's an interesting process that has me working with various methods of screen printing with these materials as thin laminates. The final effect is a potentially durable print that should go far beyond where I have gotten with the plaster and ink materials I've been playing with so far.

Although I like the effects I am trying to back away from the strong smelling materials that are impossible to clean from the screens once I print a couple of prints. The idea would be to work with similar materials that are easier to clean until I figure out how the final print should be displayed. Bonding has been a problem since the plaster that I like to finish the back with does not bond with the metal filled polyester resin. To solve this I've started pouring Gorilla Glue on to the back of the metal and to create a bonding layer. After the Gorilla Glue dries then I pour a layer of plaster and install a couple of hanging hooks. The end result is a hybrid metal plaster frame that isn't as heavy as the fresco frames I have been making previously.

The colors are not going to be as vibrant, but the potential durability is captivating.

Mobile Gallery Setup in Sausalito on Friday

TrArt Gallery 06-2010 Photo Fresco in Sausalito :
2nd week of display of Fresco Art in Sausalio where the buses unload tourist from around the world. The unmarked vehicle is only recognized by the inquisitive viewer. My new enemy is Seagull poop. I've made these things to be able to withstand erosion, rain and uv exposure, but I did not think of bird poop when I moved the gallery to the waterfront. I need to look for a special bird-poop resistant coating that I can spray on.