Finally, one piece that worked

This has to be one of the hardest challenges I have had over the last 5-8 years, embedding images consistently into durable objects. Consistently is the linchpin here as I've gotten on piece to work here or there, but always find a way to confuse the products and process to where it doesn't repeat itself. The exposure to the chemicals like Epoxy and polyester resins don't necessarily help my efforts, but they keep me confused enough that I just keep trying. I don't consider it passion, so much as surprising that I haven't settled on a process after so much time. Admittedly I keep raising the bar on my standards and switching materials in order to get a maximum effect at a reasonable cost. As the learning curve for the materials I am using keeps me switching things it just takes more time than I have to get to a logical conclusion with a final product. Ifeel like I am my a Research and Development department for my company, but at the same time I have to run my business and keep my wife and 3 kids happy.

Today's point is that I got one piece to work on something that almost resembles a product. I used Epoxy resin, pigmented with Fillite and Iron Steel atomized powder, with digital print and a back coating of gold that almost looks like a true gold foil, but it was a mixed bronzing powder with a basic Acrylic medium. The bond to the epoxy was 100% and the image is as embeded as it could be, not a sticker or laminate, but a bonded flush 2-color image that bleeds into the black epoxy. I don't think this one is water proof, so I still have a ways to go, but as I previously noted, this ain't easy.

The funny thing is that the back of this small piece, an ipod shaped christmas ornament, looks better on the back than the front. Since I have so little faith in any of these samples being an actual product, I often play with the casting and do something stupid to make sure it won't look complete. This technique is the genius of my creativity as these incidental mistakes and modifications are always the way a new generation of the process is born. My latest silliness has me sticking left-over images on the back of the epoxy while it is setting up. The problems I used to have with air bubbles have vanished in my newest test, which is why I stopped applying images to the top of epoxy in the past, and these images actually look better in some ways than the images that I am doing all this work to make appear embedded.

The problem with the floating images is that the tops of the image have a thin plastic veneer, which is only negative because I know it is there. The average person would not care or give a shit about this, in fact, they may like the shiny coat that the plastic surface provides. The fact that I hate this so much is all the more reason why it is probably the right way to go. If I keep in mind that the idea is to have a reasonably priced item that is consistently easy to make then I have found it with this technique, I just don't want to admit it, but it is true. My last batch of castings all have a back image and it was hardly any more work at all. I've started embedding magnets with these castings so the a magent will be now be embedded into the iphone shape too, but I have to wait until tomorrow to see if it bonds adequetly or if it sinks into the epoxy and gets lost in the resin. Still it may be funny if there is a magnet embedded below the surface and it may even help a second magnet stay on to the piece too. Manyana.

Vicious Cycle

It seems I am testing the same products over and over, but somehow I know it is different this time. I have several more specific ideas in mind when I move forward, but each time I change a substrate or a pigment I tend to get different results. As I test more my control of the environment gets better and often the test that I did on a product earlier, do not seem to apply any longer, so I then need to start over with the same products again and again. Currently I am rediscovering epoxy as my main casting medium because it is durable, strong, waterproof and finished looking when mixed with the right fillers and pigments. I strength is the more important factor as a set epoxy can withstand physical shocks better than most cement and gypsum based plaster products. The smell of epoxy is not as strong as polyester resins and epoxy does not shrink like polyester resins do, so there are fewer problems with warping in the final pieces. The bonding of epoxy to images also seems to be more consistent than with the gypsum plaster products, polyester resins and cements, especially when I use acrylic paints.

This is where I am currently analyzing my products for the most affordable and superior way to embed images into epoxy. Earlier I was casting objects, painting them with a variety of pigments and methods and then coating the reinforced pieces with coats of clear epoxy to give them an exterior strength and finished looking surface. The extended production time wore me down pretty fast, not to mention the additional cost and problems that are associated with clear coating things and trying to make them smooth and clean. By acquiring some epoxy paint and attempting to print with it my systems were available to simply cast with pigmented epoxy to begin with and surprisingly the results appear to be promising.

Image a thin veneer of epoxy with the image cast in the pigment, either by screen printing or by impregnating the veneer with acrylic. Depending on the mold I have been able to get a variety of finishes from glossy to matt using epoxy and by directly putting the images into the epoxy I have made a seemingly durable surface that does not need a thick coat of clear epoxy to protect it as the protection is in the pigmented veneer to begin with. The jury is still out if acrylic mixed into epoxy has a more durable surface than simply acrylic on it's own, but in my mind the acrylic can wear away over time with extreme weathering and a relief would be created where an image otherwise would have been. I know this is a projection without any evidence, but I am basing this on the sense that somehow the epoxy is merging with the acrylic otherwise there would be no bond at all between the two materials.

Currently I have three different acrylic bases set in epoxy to see if there are any variations between the materials. I have already had good success with one of the acrylics so that is the control acrylic to compare the other less expensive acrylics to. One of the acrylics has a polyvinyl acetate in it's chemistry, so I am not sure if it will provide a decent bond with epoxy and I anticipate that acrylic to have the least success. Nonetheless I am moving forward with using this acrylic because it is thicker and it wouldn't be the first time I was surprised if it turns out to be a good paint.

All made up, but nothing to be

Sensibly speaking I've gotten to an almost finished state with super durable materials, mostly epoxy mixed with pigments, and I am not sure what to make of it. I've been mixing a flexible epoxy that pops out of my molds and has a nice top finish, but the brick wall things I make can only go so far in that they are heavy wall hangings and not too practical for modern living. What I am most happy about is that I do not feel I have to provide a finish coating on these castings and there isn't much that can damage the image since it is made from pigment and epoxy.

My latest experiments have been to make a thin print using acrylic and then by pouring the epoxy behind the print I get a decent bond between the expoxy and the arcrylic which allows the image to carry into the final piece. The top layer then appears to be resiliant and flat so that it could be used as a table without applying another clear coat of epoxy which increases my handling time. Also I have been reinforcing the back with gypsum cement and wire mesh to add some strength to the pieces. while also laying down a silicon mold to make the back uneven in case another layer of reinforcement is added later.

The point of all this is that I have a one big step, 24 hour cure time, solid yet flat piece that can withstand weathering and a good beat down. I put two identical pieces outside to allow them to weather, but I don't expect much to happen quickly, so now I am forced to think of more things I can make with this technique before I get bored at staring at them not eroding. I don't really have a product to make besides the tables and some sort of shrine, but the more I think about it the more I realize that there isn't really anything that people want that I can make.

I can reduce my cost now that I think I have a single step process and don't have to go through extensive finishing processes, but it doesn't help just to make things cheaper. If I am just going to make cheap things I can stick to t-shirts which is what I am trying to get away from. If nothing else I can now relax about the concepts I've been playing with and go back to my day job to make some money. I love the idea of making a house out of these bricks, now that they are resiliant, and fitting together a montage that is interchangable.

The other idea that keeps popping into my head is that these pieces could be used to build a fortress quickly, somewhere like at the Occupy protest, to keep the cops from tearing down the structure like they have been doing in Portland and Oakland. For example a group of 50 people could each carry a brick and then stand side by side stacking them and make a quick wall that could be used as a temporary structure. Or the individual pieces could be used as shields, yet still be justified as a free speech tool.

Blog Whore

I may be a blog whore, but I love this blog the most. I have started posting on a new blog at http://site.yque.com/word using a wordpress format. It does not mean that I am abandoning this blog, but frankly the world has abandoned blogs so it may not really matter. Blogging has been reduced to a primitive form of communication and it's usefulness may be the same as a diary, for personal use only. The format here is simple, which I like, but it may be too simple to allow for growth. I think of this place as a rambling technical jargon world where I can mumble while I drink about epoxy, resins and other fast setting materials. It is the dream world of magic that lies in the chemicals that are pigmented and toned into something that may resemble something else and it is here that I can transliterate the intent.

I am challenged by the newer tools, like facebook and twitter, "Why?", I say. "Why?" Do people not know how to make web pages, but they have to rely on 3rd party software to organize their lives. FTS (FUCK THAT SHIT) if that is not already an acronym. I don't see any benefits to the limitations that exist in a pre-organized format for social relationships in th digital world. I don't have a valid reason why it isn't good, but I don't have a reason why it is good either. It is like I can't be personal if I feel that I am literally in a pre-formatted So check out http://site.yque.com/word because I won't be posting here quite as often.

Hidden Values have no Value - Epoxy Clear Coating takes away the texture effects

The riddle, hidden values have no value, means that many of the processes I have used to get to my final product are now ending up being hidden under a layer of epoxy, which provides a great finish. I have been doing casting with resin and plaster and printing using vinyl and acrylics which have come together as a finished rectangular framed pieces. Although I have built walls with these framed frescoes as I call them, because of the plaster, but when I fit several frames together I have been able to make small tables that look ikea like modern. The effect that makes them seem useful as a table is the final coat of epoxy, as a clear coat, and this also works to smooth out the top surface. Once this clear coat of epoxy is applied, then all of the effects of the raised plaster and printing as flattened into the base.

The flat effect of the table top means that all of the work I have put into the fresco under the epoxy seems wasted. I could just as easily printed out a picture and pasted it to the top of the frame and gotten the same effect. I can tell there is something going on underneath the epoxy, but I don't think anyone else would really care. I do think over the long haul, 20-50-100 years, the benefits of the plaster under the epoxy will hold up to any exposure to elements and to long term exposure to UV, better than a print out of a piece of paper would. Actually, I am not sure that the durability comment is even true since to destroy the paper you would have to go through the epoxy.

The few benefits of the photo fresco versus the decoupage technique is that the epoxy bonds quickly to the plaster, whereas paper seems to unevenly absorb some of the epoxy and it can create inconsistencies in the appearance of the underlying work. I have been resigning myself to consider each thing as totally different and simply moving forward with making as many clear coated pieces as I can using print outs just to get more finished work out there. I just have a hard time breaking down and doing things that way as I love the process that the screen casting photo frescoes create. Fact is the decoupage technique will help me clear out my old screens sooner and that is the biggest issue since I have so many screens left over from my years doing t-shirt printing jobs.

Recently I have been using larger frames for the photo fresco prints and this is very satisfying work as I can place a photo image in the center and build a brick wall pattern around the photo, then later cast in the plaster or duracal, tinted to be the color of brick, and this provides a pattern background that gives the feeling that the photo is on a wall, literally. I haven't clear coated one of these larger pieces yet, but I have been buying one frame a week to do this with and so far this is my favorite wall hanging type of work because of the size and the fact that the photo is not the main element. Also these frames already have two holes drilled into them and are quite thin, so I feel that as a frame it can present itself without having to be adorned with additional wood or finish work.

I have been reinforcing these larger pieces on the back with acrylic and burlap, so I also feel I could use these pieces to build a wall with the backside being the interior part of a structure. The exterior part of the piece has all the character of a plaster wall and I think they could hold up under some severe exposure to UV, rain and whatever else may come the way of our mild, but wet winters in Northern California. The point of this is that as long as I focus my photo fresco attention on these larger pieces, it might free me up to make more of the decoupage type pieces and not worry about the fresco techniques that are not realized with my current methods.

What if all the things I tried before worked now?

Generations have passed since I have last posted. There is an Ipod 5 out now. There is a new recession, possibly even a new President. Also there have been several new developments in my photo-fresco endeavors.

Except for all the technical stuff, one newer change is that I have started using some of my own photos for the content. The images are not as iconic as some of the famous people and symbolic shapes that I usually hack together, but in some sense this has added a personal touch to my work. I will discuss the relevance to my photographic and screenprinting edeavors later.

Secondly I have reintroduced the idea of making the final pieces into tables. I tried this earlier, but didn't like doing all of the finish work required to make a table work and be flat. I have since simplified the process and am using aluminum frames that bolt together nicely. These aluminum frames come from my screenprinting work, so they are recycled, but they also add a modular elegance, sort of modern looking and strong.

Thirdly, I have found ways to keep the brick wall concept in this work. By working on larger pieces I can suspend the photographic print image in the center while finishing a brick pattern around the graphic, thus making the piece fell like a photo made into, or pasted onto a brick wall. Most recently I have started finishing the smaller pieces to the edge of the rectangular frame with red plaster, thinking of each smaller piece as a brick itself, that does not require the grout pattern of an entire wall. This may force me to work more with horizontal images for the smaller work with the idea of placing them into larger walls.

Finally I have merged all of my materials in a way that baffles me, but it works. Screen printing inks, gypsum plaster, acrylic gesso, burlap canvas, silicon molds, wire mesh stencils and clear epoxy. Each piece does not require all of these, but together they make what I am calling photo-fresco. I have been considering the use of the work screen-casting as some of the pieces are filled with plaster and in a sense they are castings, but the photo-fresco phrase seems to have a sensible meaning.

I now have a wall, but what next?

I took my portable brick wall to Los Angeles and set it up in the back of Y-Que Trading Post in Los Feliz, Hollywood, California. It is discreet and blends in with the back of the store. This piece does not cry out, LOOK AT ME!, but is more of an I Am Here With You type of thing. It is not definite, yet it is solid. There are objects to focus upon, but they are not the totality. In fact I cannot even say that I can define the wall except in pieces, and then that does not work because the wall pieces will change over time. Whenever someone mentions it in my presence I try to draw them to the back to look at the infrastructure, which is of no concern to most. I feel I may have gone somewhere with this piece and where it is seems important, in that I have lifted the cement of Hollywood 90 degrees to a vertical position. There are the Hollywood Stars, which are on the ground and people walk on them and are forced to look down. Also there is Gromann's Chinese Theatre which has imprints and signatures in cement, but again it is horizontal and people step upon the work and must look down to see the work. The potential for my new work is to bring into wall form similar symbols that are culturally relevant, through the media, but give these characters that cry out for respect and meaning a new way to be entombed. I am hesitant to push celebrity images into my wall, but this may be necessary to give it cultural meaning. Thank gosh I have so many mugshots of celebrities that I can work with to push this idea. I am currently restrained by the amount of time I can devote to my side projects, but if I consider what is important with my work I can find the time to fill more space with photo fresco brick images. I am also considering a brick sticker campaign, for but marketing reasons. My time is the summer and projects are what I do, so something that won't get me thrown in jail for vandalism is workable and stickers are just not a convictable offense.

Why not use polyester resin directly and epoxy

For straight casting it may be better to just use the epoxy and forget about all of the plaster and cement. I could cast the top layer first with clear epoxy, then paint in the back with the cement images in reverse order and don't use any cement or plaster. The reason that this won't work is that epoxy seems to need something to hold onto and it may change shape and become fluid in heat, therefore as a thin layer epoxy is good as a coating, but not so good structurally and something strong under it is best, whether it is wood, plaster or cement. Plus the epoxy would require painting in reverse order and that would just take away from the fun of making these pieces as I have been developing my techniques and in some cases I don't even have to paint my finished work, like with the cast brick wall patterns in the screen printing frames.

Painting can be considered a final coat, instead of an epoxy layer. In many cases I am spray painting color and added effects like brick lines by spray painting onto the cast materials like the Duracal gypsum plaster cement. The paint, if it is bonded well, is essentially a sealant, a top layer of protection from UV and rain, but I don't fully trust it. Mostly because paint scratches easily and will rapidly wear away with weathering, as can be seen on the many murals around Los Angeles. So except in mild conditions or for short periods of time, spray painting is not a satisfactory sealant by itself. I have used spray painted clear coats on top of epoxy, but the smell and blurriness that ensues is not worth it.

Double sealing by coating the back and the front is not to be done. If I have learned anything it is not to completely seal anything. If you do then the moisture that is built up inside with eventually destroy an item from the inside, so I have resisted the desire to paint the back of my pieces or to add an extra layer to the back, unless I leave the front unsealed. Ideally, my pieces are not completely sealed in that the wood on the edges can absorb moisture, but how would the water know to migrate to that part of the frame? Possibly the capillary action of the wood could draw the water from the plaster over time and work as a sponge, but I don't feel comfortable with this for now, although it is intriguing.

The wooden frames are serving as bumpers for the castings and in the past I have had trouble with the piece drying out and dropping from the frames. However, I have since worked in reinforcement and anchors regularly to keep this from happening. I broke apart one piece the other day and first off I was able to walk on it without it breaking and secondly with I tried to break the individual piece it literally broke the wire mesh inside instead of separating along any specific line. Therefore the reinforcement with plasters should make the pieces hold into the frames for years, or until the wood itself rots away. I am no longer putting decorative top frames on my pieces as they tend to get broken in transport and now that I am anchoring the pieces more successfully I don't think the top frames are needed to act as a bonding agent or washer against the wood.

I have been testing aluminum frames, but I have so many wooden frames in storage I still consider this testing and a future application. I have to keep going forward with using up the thousand or so wooden frames I have in storage to escape the trap I have created for myself by doing so much commercial work with screen printing over the years. In a way this is my punishment for being successful as a business person in that I have built up an archive of old frames with screen printing designs on them and most of my efforts with photo fresco prints has been to find an application that can use up these frames. Now I am buying aluminum frames for my screen printing, but I still need to recycle these frames instead of just taking them to the dump, cleaning them out and reusing them or continuing to pay rent for them in a storage unit in the desert. The wall is the best use I've come up with so far, although then I am going to have to store the wall, but hopefully I can build a house or fence out of the wall and then just watch it wear away over time.

Gypsum Plaster Products versus Portland Cement Products

Without getting into the chemistry about why one of these types of products is better than the other I have just started testing them in my pieces to see which ones I like. Personally I am overwhelmed by the many different types of cements that are available at my local hardware stores, not to mention the mortar isles, I haven't even been able to start in that section. Truly I don't know the difference between mortar and cement, other than one must be made for adhesion and the other for durability and strength. The mixtures between portland cement, sand and additives seems to largely make up the differences between the materials. Price is my concern and the ability of the cements to make detail in a mold, so I haven't found many workable solutions that include any type of aggregate when it comes to the portland cement products. Mortar has no aggregate, but the cracking when it is poured at 1/2" or more increases, so I have decided to stay away from the mortars for now.

The biggest problem with portland cement based products verus the plaster gypsum based products is shrinkage. Cement shrinks, even the expensive stuff. I've been working with "Cement All" at $18 for a 55 lb. bag and although the cracking is down to a minimum, it still appears to shrink around the edges. I have anchored the pieces before I pour the Cement All mixture, as well, I have put in a reinforced wire mesh to strengthen the casting, but I don't want to have to rely on the mesh and anchors as a way to keep my pieces in place and even with an epoxy coating on top to help with the bonding, I find myself back to square one which is why use durable materials if I have to seal them in a clear bullet-proof case to make them work?

Ideally the concrete may get it's strength from the shrinkage as the water is displaced and the molecules harden into durable structures that can exist outside in the elements. Also the strength may allow the material itself to resist cracking in normal temperature fluctuations, so there are some good factors about portland based cement products that have kept me from giving up. Stucco was another material that I have been playing with, but as I use it more and more I don't see really the advantage of it over other acrylic polymer based gypsum based products and I don't seem to get the detail out of the stucco that I do with the plasters. I have also forgot to mention the setting times are longer with the cements, even the quick ones, as compared to the plasters.

This brings me back to the Gypsum plaster based products and the one that seems to work like cement, but expands like plaster is Duracal. Grey in color I have mixed it with red cement powder and have gotten a nice brick color. Duracal seems to be strong and sets very quickly, unlike the cements. The detail when casting with the Duracal is as good as with the other plasters like Hydrocal, Forton MG and Tufstone. Tufstone is my favorite white based plaster that has microfibers mixed in and an acrylic polymer, but neither of these items may be as durable as cement without coating them and covering them with sealants.

Having completed my first Wall of Photo Fresco pieces, as shown in a prior post, I realize that weight may be a larger factor than strength. The pieces I have been making with the cement were made with the idea of being about to be placed in the ground, like bricks for a walkway, only with images molded and cast into them. I took these same items that can hardly be picked up and used them as a the pieces in my photo fresco wall and the weight of the wall scares me. I can see this think falling over and killing me as some sort of artistic justice in that I keep trying to make something that will last a long time, so it inadvertently shortens my lifespan proportionately. Now I live in fear of my wall as I have tied it to the strongest thing in my yard, and unused weight lifting device that is too heavy to get rid of. I may not lift weights, but lifting and moving these photo fresco castings all day is indeed a workout.

The weight of the wall is something that I must deal with and this seems to lead to the obvious conclusion that the thickness must be reduced. I spoke with an engineer about how thick concrete needs to be to be able to be walked on and 2 1/2 inches is a basic measure, so I have been back filling these castings with thicker layers of aggregate based cement to give them the option of being able to be used as counter tops on tables or a walking bricks, sort of like the Hollywood stars in LA, but my style. This added weight also means more material, which in the end offsets any savings that come from the cheaper Portland cement based products. Unless I can find a cement that does not shrink and is truly crack resistant then I need to go back to the high tech plasters, like Duracal and make thinner walls that weigh less once they are made.

My son has finally found a practical use for this wall as he thinks that he can use the wall as a practice board for throwing lacrosse balls at, well, this may not work with the thinner structures, but if the wall can withstand that type of abuse then I can use that as a measure of success. At least as he propels the rubbery heavy balls to the wall he won't be standing under it, so the risk of the wall falling on him is less. Still I don't trust the weight and I can't see any way to make the photo fresco wall without using lighter materials, even if they require additional exterior coats to make them durable and resistant to the elements.

Long Time No Plast ...er that is.

I haven't been posting regularly about my progress and work with casting reliefs, screen painting and photo fresco works as I keep testing new materials and until now I have been too caught up in the work to report to headquarters. As a result I will post a bunch of material in short burst with some accompanying photos, not in any particular order. My latest experiments have been with using cheaper materials like Portland Cement based mortar, stucco and cements to try increase the waterproof character of my pieces.

Water resistant, water proof and ultimate durability go hand in hand. The most toxic element in regular outside exposure is water, through mist, fog, rain, and basic humidity. Temperature change is also an invisible factor that changes the shape of items throughout a day. Strength within an item may resist the shape-shifting, but the porosity of an item also allows saturation which in turn may cause materials to breakdown. Sealing a piece is also a way to stop water from getting into an item, but my understanding is the if an item is completely sealed temperature changes will still make the materials that are used increase and decrease in size throughout a range and this is what can cause materials to crack and break away from each other.

I have been using Epoxy instead of Polyester resins in many situations when it comes to sealing the top side of my photo fresco pieces. The epoxy may expand and contract more easily than the stiffer polyester resins, although the resins may bond and seep into spaces better. The setting time for the polyester is shorter, but the smells are more annoying. I prefer the polyester resins to the epoxy when it comes to casting detail and strength, but I think when it comes to sealing an outside piece the epoxy, without any layers of resin works best. The thickness of the clear epoxy layer also seems to work like a clear plywood that bonds the exterior edges.

It takes a long time for the epoxy to set up and the air bubbles are problematic, as well as, bugs, debris of any kind and paint brush hairs. Everything will show up in the end. However, with the epoxy I can use the final layer as a part of the structure and reduce the depth that is required for strength. However, the protection against Ultra Violet radiation, UV, is limited with Epoxy and I have gotten yellowing very quickly once I have exposed my pieces to daylight.

I found that the epoxy seems to bond well to portland based cement products and gypsum based plaster products, considering that both of these are porous on the surface and the epoxy has a long set time that allow is to migrate into any crevice that may help with bonding. By using epoxy on the cement and plaster castings I have now had to put a final varnish cost to protect from UV exposure. To me this is the weakest link and requires additional work with drying time, blurring and the basic problems that come with varnishing. I have heard that there may be some kicker that can be added to epoxy to increase or add UV protection to epoxy, but I haven't work with spending more money on that yet.

Assuming that epoxy and clear coating varnishes don't add anything other than new layers of invisible protection and exterior strength to a piece I have gone backwards to find more durable products that don't require coating to exist for a long time outside. This brings me to my next issue about Gypsum Plaster versus Portland Cement.

It is a wall of bricks - photo fresco style

I just keep making these things and now finally I have a place to put them, on a wall. I've made tables out of these brick frames, cemented them in the ground for walking stones and now I've mounted a batch of them onto a wooden frame for an interchangable photo-fresco brick wall. This is sort of like one of those games that has pieces that can be moved around only a lot heavier. This wall is self supporting, although I have not tested it in a heavy wind, and is approximately 8 feet tall and almost 6 feet wide. It has a vertical and two horizontal columns of frames that can slide in and out from the back. I have had the idea for a long time and even applied it earlier to screen painted frames, but it did not seem as awesome as this, which is why I probably kept working to make this thing. I'm not sure where it is going to go, or what I am going to do with it, but for now it is done. Ta da!

I may have to dismantle this wall and take it to Los Angeles. I don't really have a any type of art gallery to show my work, but I do have a store in LA called Y-Que Trading Post. Periodically I take my individual pieces, usually in sets of new work and switch out the pieces in the front window. These new pieces are very heavy as I have made them to also serve as walking stones or table tops. There is not rhyme or reason for the layout or composition of the current wall, but I did try to find some symmetry between the images and I enjoy the vertical strand in the middle. The chicken images and the black bricks both have 4 pieces shown and each piece is somewhat representative of different materials and techniques as I have progressed along while using my old screen printing frames as the wooden base to cast these faux brick patterns in. There is a street fair in the Los Feliz neighborhood this weekend so it may be a good time to get down there and put something interesting in the store. Driving has been a real problem these days due to gas prices, but I don't see any benefit to sitting in may backyard and staring at this wall for months on end, which means, "ROAD TRIP!"

Shiny Objects don't make themselves

That's right, Shiny Objects don't make themselves. If they did then my life would be much easier than it's been lately. I've wasted many days testing the various ways of combining images with my photo fresco techniques in order to make pictures and now magnets. Why magnets? Because they are a smaller version of the larger pictures, easier to store, ship and handle and they will cost less and hopefully sell more than my larger heavy full framed photo-fresco pieces. Either way the final product appears the most presentable and durable with a clear coat of epoxy on top of the graphic image and I challenged the fresco process to the other types of materials that can be placed under epoxy as a substrate and the fresco process seems to be superior in many ways.

First off for thickness. All the materials I tested have some dimension whether it is paper or a magnet or a sticker. I have tried all of them, including Japanese Rice Paper, thin Magnets, adhesive sticker paper, vellum, regular paper, acetate and direct print. Texture is important to me and as a result the direct print method is by far the most 3-dimensional of the effects, but since the final coat for the magnets will get covered with a clear coat of epoxy the 3-d effect is rendered useless through the glass-like cover. And since people like the shiny object it may have a greater appeal than the more difficult and interesting 3-dimensional graphic objects. My goal is not to abandon the 3-d Screen Print Painted Frescos, but to use them as an original and then with the photographic image I can duplicate the image part of the design into a magnet, or full framed larger fresco as a marketable piece. The original works often get damaged in transport and may be too fragile anyway for display purposes, but it does keep me in production of the tactile part of the process that I like.

The end result of this testing is that the easiest method is the one that has the fewest moving parts. In this case all of the castings with a final coat requires and adhesive to mount the image to the fresco base which increases the steps and drying time required to get to the stage of applying the clear epoxy coat. I tried polyester resin clear coating some objects, but the fluidity of the resin was not as smooth as the epoxy and the bubbles and ridges did not flatten out like the epoxy did. The epoxy did require more drying time, but it dries without the stickiness of the non-wax based polyester resins. The fresco process allows me to add the image in the casting and therefore the well that is created for capturing the epoxy is deeper and there is not problem with adhesion since the image is embedded into the plaster base itself. Less moving parts.

The problem with embedding the image is that I can't make a bunch of the bases in advance and then add the image in the epoxy stage. I have to know what image I want before I do the initial casting so that I can load the image into the mold. I do have some work-arounds on this topic that may make the process more complex, so I am not going there yet. First I have to finish the testing of the magnets for design and for magnetism too, as there is nothing worse than showing up at my store 2 weeks after delivering a sample set of magnets and to be given a box of broken pieces of plaster that have all fallen to the floor. My best adhesion technique for the magnet seems to also be the same epoxy I am using for the clear coat as I can use the extra in a batch mixed to cover the design and paint it on the back to hold the business card sized magnet to the back of the photo-fresco casting.

The substrate is challenging in that I like the idea of a printed body inside the epoxy that has a structure like the cellular structure of rice paper, or the magnetic base of a magnet or even the vinyl overlay of an adhesive sticker, but the photo fresco does not have a structure besides the thin gel of a layer that is bonded to the plaster on the back and protected by the epoxy on the front. It really doesn't matter if the inside image has a structure if the back and front are protective sealer layers. Shrinkage and Expansion with heat and cold over time may cause some movement of the materials. The wooden frames on the larger pieces does shrink over time as the water evaporates from the plaster, but I have added screen and nails to the casting to create a claw-like grip from the casting to the frame and that should preven the image from crashing to the ground out of the frame at some random moment. This also will allow me to use the castings as something more practical like a table top that can hold weight, like plates, glasses and laptops, as well as, survive spills.

Now that the substrate does not require a structure to be penetrated by the epoxy I can move back to why the fresco process is superior to the mounted image inside a casting process. A thinner substrate requires fewer coats of epoxy to make the final coating smooth and shiny. Evey layer of material acts differently with the epoxy and adhesives and some of them become transparent, like the vellum and the uncoated rice paper. Some of them become splotchy, like the regular paper. Others just require too many additional coats to become smooth, like the magnets which are thicker just by being magnets. A thin gel layer for the fresco print therefore allows for the thinnest possible image layer, that is transparent (thus requiring the white background of plaster), to coat with the thinnest possible epoxy layer to finalize a piece.

May be... art is the by product of the materials they are made with.

silicon. polyester resin. gypsum. dirt. pvc. acrylic. epoxy. materials are what made the final product, so why aren't materials worth the matter. they are. materials are content. art is the by product of materials.

Brick Photo Fresco Screen Prints - Although I think I am

I often think that I am finished, at the last incarnation of my work, able to complete the development phase and move into the production phase, however, this is just a fallacy. I have possibly always been at the finished stage and the constant modifications and developments are the work itself. There may never be a finished stage and I may keep spending my time thinking that the next twist and turn is what is the most important aspect of my work. Without this catch in my logic I would fall into a rut.

Recently I appraised the amount of work that was left, not sold or broken, and loaded it into my van for storage. Somehow I felt this to be an accomplishment in that I still have my work to play with, assuming I can move it to a safe location. I even loaded the broken pieces of several items into a suitcase to take to my backyard where I am going to dig a hole and bury my chipped, rusted and scarred pieces into an underground pit where they can decompose as they should. I like showing my work, but I am not a big fan of selling it.

We sold one piece in the store to the guy actor from Harold and Maude. He always buys my experimental work and then for some reason or another has to return it. In this case it broke when it was being hung on the wall because the item is self-supporting and the stress between the hooks caused it to collapse on itself. I think I have solved this problem now by making things in a single casting, but I learned from that exchange. A former employee of Y-Que commented that anyone that buys anything from us at the store should know it is experimental, or as she said it, "BUYER BEWARE".

My final batch of work does feel more complete than all the batches before in that I am photographing it and then using the photos to make other items like coasters and mousepads, which may sell without damage or risk to life and limb. I put a new display up in the front window of the store in Los Angeles, but can't bring myself to call it a "show" as it is only 4 pieces that survived, 3 broke in transit. I could make these pieces less fragile by added a back layer of polyester resin and/or epoxy to strengthen the shell. Or I could mount the fresco in a frame of wood that creates a bumper for the piece, but these both add complications, take time and cost money. Frome an artistic standpoint I have to commit to the concept and think of the work as if the generations that are a result of a piece are the piece itself and it does not really matter if a few things break along the way. More to bury.

Advancements in our 3-dimensional world

2-dimensional work has always been my prison. I've worked with photography and the literal interpretation of the world through photo chemistry and bits of silver has always captured my imagination, but by rendering photographic prints in rectangular flat 2-dimensional surfaces never seemed to release anything more than a portion of it's being. Sort of how we only use a portion of our brains for thinking, there is a pent up energy inside photos that is screaming out at us, but we cannot see it except on certain occasions when our mind is somehow fully engaged in a piece of work. Screenprinting has been my craft over the last 25 years that has taken up most of my professional time and as a result I have learned a fair amount using the oversized films and basic colors to put ink onto shirts in a photographic way. Over the last 2-5 years, off and on, I've been merging my printing skills with plaster and castings to come up with a new form of wall art which I call Photo-Fresco.

Over the last few weeks I have broken out of my prison and am on the verge of having fully realizing the potential of this new craft to create 3-dimensional pieces using resins, epoxies, gypsum based plasters with acrylic polymers, spray paint and vinyl to pull out imgages and turn them into objects. The question I have now is if wall art is the right thing to make or if I should reduce this pieces down to simple magnets and charms to make them more digestible to the consuming public. I like the ideas behind displaying prints and pieces on walls, or even selling them in my store, but it is a tall challenge to sell prints without a reputation. Whereas magnets are marketable at $5-10 and they can still be displayed in homes to keep the ball rolling while I work out the details on larger pieces. Larger pieces are more fun to make, but I can only do so many at a time and working smaller, like with pendants and charms moves my production capacity up ten to twenty fold.

The simplest way to make the analysis is to say if I sell one piece for $100, which may takes months, could I sell twenty pieces for $5/ea over the same period of time and not have to worry as much about breakage, storage and the problems with display? I have been testing some adhesives around town using a combination of double sided sticker paper and some pressure sensitive adhesive on the back and to my surprise the items I have placed around town have survived for several weeks in the weather, hot and cold. This is a positive for the flexibility of small things to be displayed in many different environments as stickers versus magnets. At least my mistakes can be gotten rid of if they are small by random postings, as compared to the larger pieces that have to be carried to a storage unit and hidden forever, or until I stop paying the rent. So it seems a combination of stickers, magnets and charms is the way to go, for now.

Down the rabbit hole and it's lined with bricks

I've gone down the rabbit hole and the walls appear to be lined with bricks, gold bricks, copper bricks, bronze bricks, steel bricks and brick bricks. Each turn of the corner shows a new type of brick that can be made. I've made a golden brick panel, that to me resembles the yellow brick road, only I call it a Yellow Brick Wall. I also made a copper brick panel that I painted with an acid wash and quickly saw the patina effect come to life. I don't have much control over this effect, but I am using a veneer of copper so the actual finish is a true patina, whatever that is. I made a flat panel with a mixture of Forton MG and a Shimmer Gold that was muted in the Gypsum, but made an amazing light wood effect. Having more choices on the final effect for these pieces is not making my life easier, but I am getting away from the plastic type finishes that I have been getting with epoxy coatings and uv spray finishes.

Pardon my departure from techniques to

Today I am going to focus on sealants and bonding frames to brick wall piecees.

Nonolith - Defined

A good story tells itself, so in a nonolithic sense I don't really need to write this definition. Since I can't really define something that doesn't exist there is no way I can mess this up. Broad thinking isn't required to grasp the idea of Nonolith, since we live with the concept of less all the time. Nonolith is just the extreme of having less, which is something most of us are used to in our everyday lives, and by applying the method of coping with less you can quickly get to the meaning of Nonolith. Nonolithic is an attempt to release anxiety that is given to things with meaning, with Nonolithicism you can recognize easily that meaning is inherent to existence in objects as well as living things and through time. Nonolithic is not the absence of meaning and the acceptance of nothingness, but the wholistic incorporation of meaning into the simplest of things, our being. Welcome to Nonolith.com - where all is none.

Monolith - or Nonolith

I have now conceptually linked the bricks that I have been making into the concept of the monolith from Stanley Kubrick's Space Odyssey 2001, but in a different way there is no reason to have any more meaning put into this concept. I have extended my rationale to the point that it does not matter what is made, because it is inherent that the understanding and concepts of our times are contained by it's mere existence. From this I have felt a sympathy for the lowly brick in it's anonymous form, but a respect in it's durability and recognizable form. Instinctually I have used my skills to recreate this object in many different ways that would be presentable as a piece of art or artifact of our times, by it's mere presence. So to come back to the underlying meaning of the shape and contextual being I am surprised by the paralells in mysterious symbolism that the Monolith from the movie Space Odyssey contains.

Today I handed a brick sticker to the guy I buy my art materials from, Arty at Douglas and Sturgess in Richmond, and he thought that if he peeled away the sticker a brick wall would appear. I told him it was just a brick sticker, like one brick and then he looked at the other side of the sticker, the brick side, and got it. That's all it is, a brick and a sticker combined. No more, no less. But somehow I feel that my concept is meaningful in that the object contains all of the information, like a database of my work, in it's being. The pigments, the color, the screen printing, the attempts at durability, the texture, the flexibility, the self-promotion, the rectangular shape and so on... Maybe I need to stick one of these on a satelite and have it launched into space to complete the mission, but it really may not be mhy responsibility to worry about that. I just have to keep making the brick in whatever form attaches itself to my brain.

Today I made a brick stencil and cast a panel of red plaster, Tufstone, then spray painted the lines on the textured surface. I wasn't overwhelmed by the effect, but the fact that it worked made the experiment a success. I also cast a batch of eight pieces last night and have now made eight frames to connect to the castings. I move into this direction without hesitation even though bonding has been a consistent problem all along. I think the epoxy will hold the frames to the printed brick panels in a strong and durable way and by batch processing a group of these it will simply mean that it has to work, or I will have eight chances to make it work instead of just one. The last time I made a batch of 8 pieces I ended up with only one working piece, C'est la vie, the others became stickers, so it wasn't so bad. My monoliths are very thin and they come with an adhesive backing.

How long would I go on before I simply read the ads on my own pages

I finally read some of the ads on my pages and since the ads relate to the text that I have been writing it appears that faux brick and brick panels are quite common in the construction industry. I am not surprised, but I am surprised by the way that I now have these items being promoted on my own pages. Is this a part of the new interlocking world we live in where the information and products that you need simply come to you if you just list your thoughts on a blog? Maybe.

I have been working on my fresco brick panels for some time, but I am sure that my techniques are different that what the professionals are using, but the end result may not be as spectacular as I have imagined when you consider what is for sale already online. The brick panels shown online fit together and can be assembled for use in a way that I won't ever be able to achieve, as well as, the realism that they convey is better than a real brick in many ways. The materials that the faux brick walls are made of appears to be polyester resins, which isn't a plus, but for production I am sure that it makes a lot of sense to use those types of resins.

Does this dampen my motivation to continue to create the brick pieces that I am making? Not really. I am simply moving in a direction and it doesn't really matter what I am making so much as there is a theme and if anything it reinforces the practicality and usefulness of faux brick in the real world. The last thing I would want to do is to make a useful brick interior or exterior wall that would actually be in someone's home. By seeing successful companies that are already in that business I can remain focused on the artistic aspects of my craft and leave the business to the pros.

I did notice that some of the brick panels are available in a fireproof, or Class A rating material, at an extra cost. I wonder if these brick panels are made of the hybrid plaster materials like the Forton MG, which is less flamable than the polyester resins. All along on this project I have felt like I was being pulled back into my boat building days and the materials that these companies that are selling the faux brick walls are using seems to support that idea. Essentially they are plastic shells made in a mold, painted and sealed. Although I am interested technically as to how they are made, it's most likely no more glamorous than how I make a t-shirt. The weight of these brick panels isn't that great either, which is a plus and if I had to make a bunch of brick panels I'd probably end up making them the same way, or just buy them from the company and slap a frame on them myself.

If I wasn't so distracted with making my own stuff I could see a way to use their brick panels in a practical way, like the previously mentioned spray paint wall or some such realism versus craft endeavor. However, I am way too gone for that, the brick has taken over my being as an object that hardly represents a brick any more. It's just an idea. A rectangle, a red outlined box, a simple thing, sort of golden rectangle, but not, a monolith.

Simple, Repetitive, Ubiquitous - Le Brick

A final coat, a sealant, will be required in all the materials that I use and this has allowed me to accept a wider range of substrate materials to work with for my fresco binder in making these framed brick pieces. I have switched to a pre-mixed gypsum based plaster that has an acrylic polymer and micro-fibers already in the dry powder. This Tufstone may be the perfect medium for me, literally.

I have also stopped worrying about the thickness of the substrate as a way to make something durable. Every time I mix in different materials to strengthen a piece, as with back filling a frame with FGR 95 or Forgon MG I create new problems. I end up with leeching white stains on the front of the pieces once they are exposed to water without a sealant. Thus the rationale for the sealant as mentioned above, although I have not sealed the items from the back too, and I have been warned that if there is no way for moisture to escape then that in and of itself can cause problems. In the end it seems that different materials layered onto each other eventually crack or leech color and therefore I can't just use mass as a sealant and increased mass is not a requirement for a finished piece.

Weight has always been a factor in my product development, so by reducing mass I am reducing weight, which is a good thing. I even converted some of my mess-ups to stickers and gave them to my kids so that they could have some fun putting them up in places. Instinctually they started drawing on the brick stickers with random slogans and sticking them in places, so I am happy to say that I continue to see no bounds with this project. I am using a pressure sensitive adhesive on the back of the thinly casted pieces, and when I say thin, I mean thin. I can't imagine any piece of ceramic being able to be used in this way. As a result I am confident that I have found a way to argue that these gypsum based products are more applicable than ceramic for my use. I have heard that ceramic technology is in use in many things we use in our day-to-day lives, like even printed pages in magazines may be coated with a sort of ceramic matrix, but I don't really know this to be true. So when I refer to ceramics I am referencing the typical crafted ceramics that are used with glazed images and designs. Boring, but long lasting in that they are crystaline and rock-like in there atomic form.

Half a student I was and indeed I only learned half the information; just enough information to be dangerous to myself and others, so watch out. Historical Geology, Archeology, and Mineralogy taught me a few things about the archival nature of our world. Unless something has a solid internal structure it won't really survive because the compounds that make up our world are easily subjected to immediate decay. Without serious efforts being made to preserve an item over an extended period of time it won't be around to convey information and since our relative time in existence is miniscule as compared to the geological record it is a crap shoot to wonder what will last thousands of years.

Our skulls will be more important, historically speaking, in the long run versus our art since it may be preserved for a longer period of time as a result of the calcium bone structure than our art. But our art will contain information beyond what our physical body can preserve as to the relevance of our existence. There will be millions of skulls left in the soil for future generations to examine, but for every unique piece of art that is created during any specific period of time, there need be only one. Each unique piece of work contains information beyond our understanding that is outside of even itself, as far as the relevance to our times, so the more unique an item is the more important it could be from a historical perspective.

Bonding my frames to the simulated brick walls is still an issue and the frames are serving dual purposes now. The frame is in essence the strongest part of the pieces I am making since the veneer of brick has become so thin. Some of my current pieces have just crumbled when I release them from thier mold. I think this is the result of too much pigment in the binder and the powdered and liquid silica work against the internal strength of the fresco material I am using to make the frames and brick. This repeats the theme of sealant, since the more color I add to the fresco dilutes the strength I have started making the frames without color and painted them with an airbrush later. This should provide a stronger frame with better bonding characteristics than heavily pigmented plasters.

Finally I have accepted that I will need to use polyester resin or epoxy as a bonding layer to firmly adhere the frame to the brick wall because I can't come up with anything better, other than pouring both pieces at the same time and this reduces the flexibility of the textures that I can create using the fresco material. The entire point of the fresco is the textural quality of the finished work, and if I use a mold for the frame simultaneously with casting the brick wall I lose a significant amount of the texture that makes a brick wall brick. I have testing using the photo-fresco techniques to create the brick as a photograph in the plaster, but without the texture it fails to work for me. Other image based things work well as the photo-fresco, but not le brick.

Nuclear fission as waste last longer than most art.

Permanence is an issue for me in that archival is a term often used to imply that something may last a long time. Nothing last forever and the things you don't expect to last may be the ones that last the longest. I spend my time working on objects that I can make permanent because most of the things I have made in the past have been destroyed with a slight exposure to the elements over long periods of time. Par example, a print I made of my wife, before she was my wife, on canvas of her body, painted of course, as she rolled around on canvas has not survived well in our basement and when I attempted to stretch it out some 20 years later it was stinky with mildew and fell apart in chunks. Not so good from an archival standpoint.

My respect for work that has lasted for extended periods of time comes simply from the point that it may have outlived the other works from those same periods, regardless of the artistic quality of the works themselves. This implies that the better engineer is the better artist. Now that I am comfortable with my basic materials that I am working with as being "permanent", as compared to the other materials in common use for decorative pieces these days, I am forced to think of something that is relevant that I should make.

Nothing is permanent and especially if nobody keeps an objet d' art around for other generations to see and enjoy. There are several ways to gain permanence with a crafted thing. One way is to make an item so popular that everyone has one of the "things" during an era that it becomes ubiquitous for the period of time and therefore collectible and synonomous with the times, such as vintage lunchboxes or popular slogans. The second way is that create something so unique and special, like a giant ball of twine or piece of toast with the image of Jesus on it that it is preserved by the elite and documented as a special object to the culture itself. The third way an object can be made permanent is by the luck of the enviroment it is left in; some things are "found" as remnants once a society has been gone for a long time and then the object is analyzed by future generations as having been representative of the times that it was made in, without being judged on it's unknown artistic values. This third archeological method is my method of choice in that the oldest art we can find is cave drawings.

A cave wall is but a wall, a or was it a part of a home/gallery/meeting place that was displaying the imagery of the times, that was forced upon the inhabitants to view. Was it communication or historical documentation? Was it art or publication? Did it remind people there of the past or of the artist him/herself that made the drawings? I don't know that we really car one way or the other as historical viewers of archeological art, we just feel lucky to have found the work itself. The only thing that is important to me about cave drawings is that they are still there to be seen today. With the right materials and the proper environmnet the perfect "archival" environment can be created on a wall, as proven, inside a cave, with nothing more than colored dirt. Why then is "archival" such a big deal when it comes to modern art and the materials that are made to make art?

Personally I understand the problems that are associated with the harsh realities of "archival" and this is why I cannot put a lot of stock into a single piece of work to survive. The materials and the methods must be cohesive and compliment each other, as well as, represent the time of their creation. My data suggest against the probability of a single piece surviving, or being admired enough to be "kept" by the museums of the world, if only because of the simple fact that warehousing and storage is a problem even for the most well-intending collectors. My opinion is that you just can't count on one thing being special enough to last. Sad but true.

Assume Nothing - Get Everything

Is there a general assumption in life that it all works out in the end? The great equalizer is death, but is there any suggestion that somehow all of the struggles in life will somehow be actualized through death? I must say that there is this sense of death-actualization that isn't necessarily religous false hope. It may simply be the fact that you don't have to deal with life's day to day bullshit once you are gone and that somehow all the things you did mean more once you are dead and can't do anything else anyway.

I am fitting in this sense of false hope that surrounds me with the environment we live in and with my own efforts to make money and create things. Underlying each new project I sense a value towards reaching a goal that is not clearly defined. There is no guarantee that these things fit together, but there is a sense that one thing will prove another and that I must continue my work. I am surprised at how each project has ended up fitting with each other, but that may simply be my own projections and rationalizations of my efforts. The same false hope I see in the economy is what I feel in my work, that somehow it will make sense and achieve a goal that will make sense in the end. Why I should believe this or allow this to be my motivation is the question as I am begining to feel like it is a trap.

Much in the same way that we are trapped in our economic realiities I may be trapped in my own manufacturing cycle of doom. My investments are always in the next piece, but I never quite achieve what I am after. Before I complete any project a new twist or turn makes the last project seem immature and pointless, except that it was a stepping stone to my current project. I have reached a new level in my work, but I am without a sense of completion in that I have not pushed this work out of the incubator that it was created in. I must do that next, but I don't want to fixate on finalizing a task when I am not sure of the relevance of the techniques.

Let me assume that the economist and predictors of our well being no more than we do about the future of our prosperity. I have a dark understanding and feeling that our culture of consumption has been and is being exploited, but our exploiters are also in trouble now that we have reached a peak of consumption and productivity. Basically if our keepers are competing for a reduced amount of consumption, then by taking what they can from us before their competitors can is the only way to find closure for themselves. What this means is that we, the consumers, will be pushed to the brink of destruction while being fed delusions of false hope. Eventually, as the sages of the economy know, the system will no longer be able to support the weight of itself without significant growth.

We are witnessing the collapse of one government after the other in the Middle East and don't be misled to think that Democracy is the goal or the result of the events that are unfolding. Economic disparity is stoking the fire and change is only happening because the people en-masse have nothing left to lose. I do not feel that we will be that far behind in the United States. I don't want to complete my own work as it seems to beg for a new rationalization on how things are good, when they are not. I feel the oppression and it is not as obvious as a government tyrant, but more like a socially acceptable medical condition that has us all wishing for better times. The symptoms are the sickness and only defiance is the cure.

Enter the Dimension

I feel like I've entered a new dimension with the latest "products" for lack of a better word. Vinyl has become my membrane of choice, a material that I have rejected for use in prints in the past, as a flexible thin durable layer for sandwiching between layers of goop. Getting materials that will bond with vinyl isn't easy. Making vinyl lay flat also isn't that easy. Sealing vinyl from UV also isn't easy, but there is something about this non-organic feeling stuff that works for me. I am even coming up with ways to remove the vinyl as the final step and thereby leave the print as something of an impression that was made on the vinyl as the "product". I keep thinking there may be a reason for keeping or leaving the material itself, but there isn't otherthan for weight. Structurally the strength of the piece may be increased by leaving the vinyl, even if the vinyl itself is hidden inside, but removing the original print from the final piece is fascinating as is the case when a mold is removed from the piece that is casted inside it.

The fact is that now I seem to be complicating matters beyond what is required and I simply need to get back to making pieces, production, not experimentation. The experimentation can go on forever from what I can tell. I have no shortage of fascinating ideas on how to apply these materials, but time is not on my side and my business requires more time than I have been able to afford it. The weather is also a bitch as some of the materials I am using, or want to use, require warmer temperatures than I can create in my working environment. To keep a space at 70 degrees F would end up costing me a fortune, so I keep going back to materials that will simply work in my not-so-controlled environment.

The entire reason I stay reminded of my goal is that most of the ruined pieces are laying around in my yard weathering as trash because of these environmental conditions. The reminder of constant failure is my motivation. I have work thrown in the mud that my kids walk on as bricks. Other finished pieces that I use as drip catchers for the new work that I am making. A large outside fireplace that is filled with broken plaster pieces. It is as if I am purposely breaking some of the work so that it won't have any value. EVERY piece I have made has a flaw and I can't really focus on trying to fix these flaws since everything seems just like a test run anyway. Why try to make something perfect if it is just going to distract me further from my goal of reaching a plateau and doing some production? There is no reason from my perspective, but I try to limit the obvious flaws.

The weight of art - by the pound

I am now defining the quality of my work by the weight of the pieces themselves. The lighter the work the better. That is without sacraficing durability and strength. Less is Less is my mantra and if I can put everything I want into a piece that is as light as a feather then that is better than a block of concrete that cannot be displayed on a wall, safely. I am working between 2-4 lbs and 2.5 lbs seems to be an optimal weight for my final product.

The struggle with this work is the plane of reference, the printed/painted surface that holds the design. I have gone very thin and applied various layers of fiber and gypsum to thicken and strengthen the image area while simultaneously reducing the depth that is required as a substrate to carry the image. Then I have been mounted the image, thicker than paper, but thinner than glass, to a molded frame from a variety of materials including Forton MG, hydrocal FGR 95, surfboard resin and mixed versions of the above as a gel coat with atomized metal formed into the top layer to build up resistance to the elements. While I can cast the image or add the image into the mold of the frame I have worked away from this lately because I have been using a frame and bonding the image and outer frame to the inner frame by adding more gypsum plasters which simply make the pieces too heavy and unmanagable. So my latest incarnations of work have been to make the frame and add it to the piece separately, outside the mold, and therefore I have removed the need for thick heavy support pieces.

Ideally the light weight will allow more flexibility in display. As with any engineering project the structure often has as much to do with holding up the materials as with the actual purposeful parts of the structure, which preverts the engineering in many cases. This is the case with my artwork and the liberation I feel by working with heavy materials and including the effects of resistence to the elements, but by making them light I feel I have achieved a goal. Coating and sealing is still problematic, as well as, the content, but now I must settle on just how I want my production to begin. What should the final defining characteristics of these items be?

I can do photo-fresco, screen painting or stencil painting. Photo fresco seems like more of a duplicative process, just making more permanent copies of other works. However, I like the process and need to get better at it. Screen painting and stencil painting is the most satisfying of the styles, but stretching the frames to start more work is a debillitating task that I find hard to accomplish. I can't afford to buy the frames that I need to stay busy with hard cash and recycling the old frames that I have is very attractive, but it takes time and energy. Each time I finish cleaning screens I feel too tired to do any work. Restretching mesh instead of cleaning out mesh is the way to go, but I don't have a consistent regiment for accomplishing this. Tomorrow.

It's beyond my control...

I know not what I do, but I do it. The world of fresco and making things has merged into a world of simply manufacturing, but in a good way. I keep pouring chemicals into molds and making things I sort of like because I don't really know what I am making any more. It's like the machine is in control and I am just the worker. The joy of being the worker is that I get to see the pieces before they are moved into new stages, the stages that allow them to be marketed as things. When I pull an item from the mold it is new and this is only once. No matter what I will continue to work on these items until they are presentable in some form and therefore their beauty is reduced to objects.

Because there is no home for this work I keep compiling batches of "frescos" and "screen paintings" here and there. Lately my favorite invention is when I salvage some piece from weathering, being left out in my backyard, and I clean it off, seal it and put it in a frame/mold. I like the effects of natural weathering on the pieces I have made, but there is no consistency with the items that I am making. I find myself lost in a puddle of poop-like things, dirty and ambiguous, but then when I look at them as something to work with they come back to life. I am hopeful that one of these pieces will be the essential way that I want to make new pieces, but that hasn't happened yet as everything appears to be so different to me. Any time I try to repeat a process it fails and ends up seeming like a waste of time.

I know it is delusional to look upon one's own work and see more than what it is, but I can't say I have seen anything that looks like this before. This is what it must feel like to be original, something that I have admired, but have spent my entire life printing other people's crap while avoiding doing anything original myself. This is why this feeling is strange, because I rarely get to enjoy this feeling since I have been a hack most of my life. My only regret is that I have not been able to see this clearly until now, later in life, when I don't have enough time left to do all the images that I think need to be done. Sure, one million different items may be just as good as one super item, but I don't think so. I need to settle on the form of the simplest version of my work and deal with it in the simplest of ways. I need to fight the complexity that tells me how to make it fit with every other piece of work that represents all of my skills and just go with the effects and simplicity of the item itself. I need to stop putting myself in my work and just let the inspiration be the work, but how?

The techniques are nothing without the context and the context is the skills as much as the inspiration. I like to think about the world of art as a cave wall brought into cities for the elite to admire the instincts of life, but I am interested in the wall as the art and I cannot pull my mind out of the wall long enough to focus on the art.

New Post - New Year - Same old shit

Not really, but I like the way the title sounds. My final project of last year was to epoxy coat a couple pieces of wood at Douglas and Sturgess at one of their night time classes. It reminded me so much of the tacky clocks and table tops that were so common in the South that I dwelled on the point and mockingly made a few pieces of wood with dollar bills in them for xmas presents for my kids. Needless to say they liked it better than any of the pieces I made using my much more complex photo fresco techniques and as coasters they have been more useful than the hundreds of abstract, have broken bricks, ornaments and art objects that I have made over the past year. I still like some of the work that I did, but unless I want to waste another year without making anything that I can sell to make money to pay for supplies, then I need to rethink the projects. The one set of items that did sell was images of the screen paintings and frescos on mousepads, so by making all of this work I can scan the images and then make mousepads or other such pratical items and still justify the effort through the sales of this merchandise.

I've been picking up the weathered pieces and broken pieces of frescos around the yard, basement and warehouse to see what attracts me the most. My first goal is to archive and file the old work while trying to finish and show the new work that hasn't been completed.

One idea I have is to show my old work in warehouse style, storage unit variety, galleries. This I can accomplish because I have storage units in various parts of Nevada and California. First in Fernley Nevada I have a small unit that can easily be converted to a gallery and I have taken much of my old stuff there. I also have a cheap space in North Las Vegas that is crying out to be used as a Gallery. I don't ever expect any visitors, but as a background project it should help me keep a perspective on my old work and give me the satisfaction of having shown my work as the Truck Gallery has done in Sausalito. The Wyatt Galleries of 2011 are going to be open later in the year at Y-Que in Los Angeles, currently open, The Truck Gallery in Sausalito, The Unit in Fernley Nevada and The Units in North Las Vegas. Contact me via email to visit by appointment only at the last two galleries.

A funny concept that I finished last year with was making bricks. Part for fun and partly to test the structural integrity of the materials I've been working with, namely Forton MG and FGR 95. I created a silicon mold then coated the first layer with gel coat of the Forton MG and fiberglass. Later I filled the mold with FGR 95 and appeared to have a brick that would have a value of $0.25 retail. With the next generation I inserted cold casted shapes and used different oclors for the brick part of the gel coat. In the end I have brick-like objects with emblems inside the face of the brick. interesting, but no cigar. Later I added connectors on the back and it appears that these bricks could be hung, if no other solid surface is available to hold such an item. Hanging bricks on the wall is no replacement for regular printed materials or framed art, but there is something absurd about the concept that I liked, although these items still looked pretty much like bricks and it wasn't too impressive to others.

Moving on with the brick idea, my daughter has been playing with grafitti and we printed out some brick backgrounds for her to draw on. This worked great on paper and we even purchased a few opaque markers so that she could color in the outlines and as a palette the brick wall conept is great. Today I scanned a brick I purchased at the store and composed a wall of bricks in photoshop. I printed these out with a laser printer on a variety of paper and am testing the transfer techniques of getting the brick image onto durable products to make fake bricks that may be lighter, cheaper, safer and more consistent than my hi-tech bricks mentioned earlier. I have a feeling that using the Photoshop brick wall as a background is a good idea for some of the other experiments like the stencils and fresco images that I have already developed. Next fake moustaches.