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.