Speculative "Masics"

We are all made of stars.

When I begin working on an idea there is always a preference to allow them to cook slowly and come to conclusions by gathering the most amount of evidence. I look at everything I can to reinforce them. I could post photos of all the graphic design tragedies that litter our lives today or get over it and try to make our visual world a lot better. 

 I am tired of Audry Hepburn's anorexic face glaring out at me from the front of a not anorexic young lady. I am bored seeing skulls everywhere, they are not interesting. If you want to see some real skulls go to the catacombs in Paris, that's interesting. What we wear and purchase revolves around a need for us to display to the outside world something visual that identifies us. So are you ironic, edgy, nervous, there are style sheets for those. Are you desperate for attention or less attention? There are style sheets for those too.

 What do you wear when you want to say "I have been up all night having sex with my astral lover in a dream scape similar to an Egyptian temple, now I want a coffee." I might have some answers.

                                                        

I have a certain fetish for architectural detail. It forms part of my living triplicate of food, clothing, and shelter. Most of my work comes from and goes to these three functions. They are both the source and the ultimate destination of my ideas. Those three things are the bulk of what creates our experience on planet earth and makes us who we are.

There is still a belief in the notion of powerful images representing complex ideas. Walking down Broadway on the UWS, gawking at the Ansonia I stumbled on the Level club located on west 73rd street; It is an incredible structure, a breathtaking a tour de force of Masonic symbolic. 

 Which leads me to ask; If masonic images where at one point and time so celebrated, then why have they become suppressed and secretive? I have several friends who get very nervous when I talk about this as trend. They  have reservations about how the brotherhood would react. My response is  fashion students wearing a Freemason apron is great P.R. Better than a guy shooting and killing Norwegian kids showing up on the news dressed in full Masonic regalia.

                        Here are some "Masics" to what you may be seeing.

   The Eye of god that is all knowing 

judging on public actions not private lives.

                              An hourglass presents a relation to the the

                        past and the future. It is a testament to the fleeting

                    construct we allow to be placed on our existence.

    A Square and compass represent "builders" of our world and an idea

          accuracy of moral and ethical measurement creates a solid foundation for humanity.            

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Level_Club  

easy stroking: a cock block print.

For C.I. 

People come into your life for a reason. I am blessed to have had so many incredible people in my life serving as a wealth of inspiration. It is another layer to the thick cake. Everything I do is for the people I love and I am fortunate that that number grows daily. 

This is a step by step of the image building process for this design. This is a 13 screen print.

A simple tile print. It begins as a medallion that is lined up on its axis.  

complexity comes from the additional pieces that are added and
used as  linking strips between the individual tiles

The pattern begins to take form as a series of interlocking
 shapes that build an increasingly complex design. 

Double mirroring of the design creates an easy formula to build the image. To formulate the prints occupying the negative space I used the same screen printed on cutout shapes formulated on an axis.  Creating print puzzle pieces that are added to fill the gaps. The black outline gives the design somthing to build color on.

These prints were challenging in as much there was an attempt not to make then vulgar or offensive. My idea was to produce an attractive print independent of its contextualized parts. 

this first color is later covered by other
 printings and the layering tones it down.

. 

The tips and veins.

The blue overlap only catches the interior of the print creating
four diffrent distinct colors.

A second ogival shape is colored with a darker
shade to create more depth

A nice lattice in the background
makes a complimenting pattern.

Inserts allow for colors to be modified within the body of the repeat.

the gold insert also acts to move the eye back
into the body of the design.

The last fill color before the background is added.

Black as a ground color  makes the whole
design pop and unified.

Veil

This print began in the form of a painting stuffed in the back of a storage room. Rather than dig it out I decided to make a repeat pattern design based on it. The concept of a veil is that there are certain places and formations on earth that open into other dimensions. They change your perception in such a way that when you return to our dimension you are changed. When I was a child there was a special place in the woods near my house. I would play there and loose my days in a mass of uncounted hours, I understand now that I was experiencing a veil. This is a three quarter brick drop repeat, the connecting pieces where reformulated three times to adjust the math in the printing. If the math is off slightly it may not show up in the beginning of the printing but as the image needs to be repeated, the larger it becomes the more it distorts.

These first four images capture my working process of formulating this repeat, The design that I am working on turned out to be totally wrong. The math was off and it didn't show its weakness until I had printed a meter, after words it began to print totally off, there was no amount of adjustment that could save it not to mention when I started to add colors.

I had to redraw the whole piece, central medallion and joining pieces as one print so there would be lesser chance of distortion. After that I could start adding overlapping color prints with a great deal of accuracy.

After a few trial printings I gain a comfort with my screens and their printing order. I make the first print with 1 dark piece, the base, then i build on that trellis as a way to repeat it, on the first test all other printings aside from the original are printed in light grey or green. This allows me to see what the basic element looks like.

I print several tests before I print my style sheet that shows the design as the finished product.

This is a step by step description of the printing of a sample, A three quarter brick drop a-symmetric print is a pain in the ass, nerve wracking, but the results make it totally worth it.

I like to use silver spoons for my ink cause its classy.

This little guy is Aection who was torn to death by his own hounds after Diana turned him into a stag for looking on her in a private moment. The hunter becomes the hunted.

This project has led me into my next grouping, I am increasingly interested in sacred geometry and symbolism and the way they transport us by changing our perception of everyday life. 

                                   all printing was done at art studio fuji, via guelfa 85 firenze