Read 'em and Weep - advance in frescoland

I am moving in a direction that I can no longer call forward. I am losing reference to borders and permanence. The last transition towards elusive photo fresco portratiure was the result of having enough frames to cast the images into, which therefore restricted my experimentation. The black and white blurred images in plaster that I have been trying to make have been rectangular as a result of the wooden frames. Essentially this is a formal shape and since I feel more of the essence of the characters that I am entombing it has restricted my thinking about the final graphic, as well as, forced me to keep making frames before I could make my photo-frescos. Now, as I have developed my pouring technique I have realized that I don't need a frame to work in, I only need a flat surface upon which to work. Above you will see the first work done without the use of a frame.



A piece of misinformation I have absorbed from pop icon Albert Einstein is that while traveling the train to Princeton Einstein proposed that he could see in 4 dimensions. Although this may be fiction I have always wondered if this is indeed possible. Now I am playing with fire in that I think I can see the innards of the people whose photographs I print into these photofresco prints. The fact that I am moving away from shape and permanence only makes me feel closer to the idea that I am seeing something more than the two dimesions that make up the visual image. I am pulling from the past the persona of the individuals themselves. This is a spiritual dimension that exist in photographs, but is not conveyed through literal photographic printing techniques. Here is an image of Einstein himself.




Now that I have a clue what I am doing I am challenging my own aestetic in that my rejects may be more on target than what I keep trying to accomplish with these prints. If these images are going to be spiritual, then by definition they do not have to adhere to my constraints on what is visually appealing. My sense of composition and style is irrelevant to the final product and I need to separate my own desire to have a symbolic and good looking image from simply a read on the photographs that I am working with. Much like reading cards, I should not project what I want to see. With this in mind I have a sad looking image of Warhol and a dark image of Bruce Lee.

Things are coming around in the t-shirt world

Affordable Organic tshirts, Made in the USA organic t-shirts, fashionably cut organic t-shirts and stock in organic t-shirts. All of these things seem to be coming around, finally, to where we can offer and fulfill reasonable quantities of organic t-shirts at good prices. To start with check out this Ultra Club organic t-shirt starting at $4.50/ea on white. 5.1 oz certified organic cotton, not bad for the price. Add $1/ea for color t-shirts.

American Apparel still has the best colors available, photos to follow, but the prices are higher. In the $5-7 range approximately.

The Anvil should be coming of age now and although I like the Alstyle t-shirts the organic t-shirts are never available when I need them. I am looking forward to trying the Bayside organic cotton t-shirt and possibly private labeling that brand. The price will be a bit below the American Apparel and the cotton a little thicker and not quite so soft. So stay in touch with the organic pages at t-shirts.org as I relaunch and consolidate the available wholesale organic t-shirts that are currently on the market for spring 2010.

There is no easy way to say this, but there is a funny way

For more images of Photo Fresco and Screen Paintings go here: PhotoFresco.com


I get different results almost everytime I work with this process. This makes the game of trying to control my results entertaining and constantly surprising, if not frustrating. The reality is that I must not know what I am doing if I can continue to get this many different results. When I try to make a mistake I get a perfect print. When I try to get a perfect print I get new flaws. I can only say that my dry skin from mixing plaster and my messy floors with broken castings is a testament to my determination to get this right.

At one point I thought I had understood the mix and the pour and the results, but when I went back to repeat that with black and white images I've only gotten clearer and cleaner prints. I'll post the images later of the image rocks drying around the fireplace, but romantic it is not. I've only had an obsession like this a few times in the past, like when making a model for an engineering class or making a chopped bicycle when I was a kid, model cars, puzzles, car repair, to name a few. The problem with this undertaking is that the only thing I can do is make more samples. So each result leads into a new test, which leads into a missed target and a new test. I've got so many Frida Khalo Phot-Fresco prints that I get dizzy looking at them and I can't remember which test proved what.

My last test was using very wet plaster and this seems to be the right direction to go with what I am after. I am trying to get a uncontrolled blur around figures in black and white images. Sort of a halo effect. I consider it materializing the character's soul from the photograph. Maybe this is why the results are so elusive. Once I get the blurred image I can then use that to create a screen painting from which puts the color and life back into the print. (See Burroughs reference on earlier post).

I could probably manipulate the images in Photoshop and get a result that is dramatic, but the plaster Phot-Fresco printing process seems very holistic and as it is very elusive to get a good print then I think the process may be true to form for what I am after. I don't want something that I can visualize, I want some that manifest itself from the materials. This is what I got occasionally when I was a photographer and now I think I have a process that can merge that effect with rock and ink. Onward.

William Burroughs Fresco Screen Painting

For more images of Photo Fresco and Screen Paintings go here: PhotoFresco.com

New elusive Photo-Expressionist Frescos - Paulson uses a pulling teeth metaphor

Ex-Treasury Secretary uses "tooth" metahpor. The Bailout was Like Pulling Teeth, he said. This definitely makes teeth the news of the week. Have I mentioned the "Happy Teeth" t-shirts we sell?


Frescos Update: I've gotten different results with slightly different materials. Images shown above can be compared with a previous set shown below. The funny thing is that I was trying for more clarity. However, these results are more exciting to me as I appreciate the unexpected results when I make these fresco prints and this a result that I enjoy. When I did more photography I used to get similar effects on 35mm film with extreme overexposure while following movement. This was a style I liked but it wasn't palatable to others and I didn't pursue that style. I switched over to screen printing in college and have been making t-shirt type products ever since. Now I am back to the same types of results as I got in film, only with fresco prints.

Photo Frescos Final Beta Test - Images Posted here

The last test generation of PhotFresco images are here:






The last test generation of PhotFresco images are here:

Don't get fooled again - The Greater Recession C'est Arrive!

I run a business, so I am always suprised when I get scammed. Sometimes I see it coming and other times I simply act too quickly and the devil is in the details. The one thing that always seems true is that the cards are stacked against the consumer and there are endless ways to get taken advantage of.

Just like the new wines in France, Le Grande Recession C'est Arrive, bad French but the reality is that the economist in charge have been figuring some really messed up match on the economy. The Great Recession has never gone away, it just got bigger. I am refering to the revised jobless numbers and the resetting of the stock market prices. The reality is that things can't just get better because the projections are going in the right direction and they have stopped going down, especially if the numbers aren't correct to begin with. This is cooking the books for the manipulation of public sentiment. Except for the fact that eventually job losses have to slow because there is nobody left that can be fired without turning off the lights and going home. A slowing of the decline is not an incline. An incline will happen once the year to year comparisions are coming in being compared to the desperate situations of the prior years in percentage terms. A growth in the economy would result from adding jobs and not reducing less or fudging the numbers. The Greater Recession is now what it should be called, because none of the media are willing to use the word Depression and they "want" it to be different than the 1920's.

As far as getting scammed goes it was with Star Ford in Glendale. They switched in and out the sales guys when I was buying a car and I signed a contract that did not represent what I thought was happening. Due to the fancy debits and credits the car that was suppposed to be paid off by Star Ford of Glendale was valued at $100 and they added the cost of paying off my car to the new loan. Does this scam have a name, besides "Screw Your Best Customers"? That was my 4th car from this dealer so I didn't expect to get scammed since I trusted them. I attribute part of my failure to recognize the scam to the switching of sales people and negotiating with a man in a back room who never showed his face. I call this the MSRP , Multiple Sales RipOff Pros. I've filed a complaint with a Consumer Advocacy Group and since these sales reps really don't seem to give a crap I will eventually have to sue them for stealing my trade in vehicle. Whatever you do, Don't Buy A Car From Star Ford in Glendale or any other Star Ford for that matter.

No, I did not have an advance copy of the Obama Speech

I know, the lead on on my last post was similar to Obama's tooth analogy. What can I say? Great analogy makers think alike. There ends the similarities. Also since my last post J D Salinger has died. I am inclined to make a design, but the best I've got is to post a picture of him with the word "FUCK" below. Like this.

Two funny items about JD, besides the fact that Catcher in the Rye preceded the beatniks and his reclusiveness added to the mystery of his character, was that in coming up with a name you have to be both sarcastic and non-glorifying in order to add consistency to the design. I couldn't do a simple "Never Forget" design as I have done with so many other images. Secondly, I was reading the unauthorized Wikipedia.or bio on JD Salinger and one of his wives went on to marry Charlie Chaplin. For no reason I had been doing a Charlie Chaplin screen painting and will post the image here: