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.
