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:

Writing is like pulling a tooth, or worse.

Writing is tough to do. It requires concentration, skill and enough sobriety to be able to read through the slurs. The ideas are easy to come by. I have an abundance of overwhelming conceptual dribble that pulls your brain into a struggle with reality to the point that I have to try and explain it to others. I know the world would be a better place if we did not have to prove things to each other, but without a confirmation that our ideas exist then we are without challenge to existence. The point here is that I have teeth that need my attention, but I would rather suffer through the pain than deal with it, however I cannot deal with the pain that if I do not write I will pass on the very point of existence.

The original ideas that I was so concerned about have now been lost due to this distraction listed above, but I am writing and that is the underlying requirement to conceptual transmigration of ideas. Part of the concept / struggle that I am dealing with is the chemical difference between dyes and pigments. Techically it isn't relevant to much and not worth discussing, but on a conceptual level I find a paralell with my earlier concepts. I have always been amazed at the process of photography as much as the results (argggh today I dropped a digital camera in the mud and screamed) that are shown in their final form as silver prints on paper. The idea that the underlying molecular structure of the silver allowed these items to be interpreted artistically was an early part of my conceptual misunderstanding of composition, since composition on a moleculer level is truly the ultimate determinate of the final visual composition. The separation of the molecular to the conceptual is where we are delusional and ultimately duped by chemical based arts.

The reason why photography is valid as an art form is that is no less chemically dependent than painting on the final product. The craft required to make photographic prints is far more complex, but then so seems the honeycomb to the ant hill. Underlying all of these process, including the biological ones, we are in essence dealing with interpretation as the abritrator and therefore we have the problem. ART is not with the making, but with the viewer and chemically we are on the same level as the ant.

I come to this point as I am struggling with where I am and where I how did I get here. I continue to see large paralells with my earlier artistic endeavors which reinforces the idea that when you are younger you should just work, don't ask questions, just work. The work will take you where you want to go, not the questions or answers to questions. Then later you will have something to look at and consume. Now I am at the point where I can deduce that in 20 years I have not gotten very far. I have stopped or I have been in a loop or I am further than I realize or there is no where to go. That last sentence was really fun. I am going to post some pictures now of a variety of works that show that even if I have had 20 years I still cannot escape my own astetic and every thing I make ends up looking a certain way.