Flammable Documents: fathomless vacuousness, scenic excesses, continuous calamity, instruments of uncertainty, angst overflow, unambiguous misdirection
Screen prints with ink and ashes.
Paper: 22 x 29 inches. Image 18 x 24 inches.
Full set: $1200. Individual prints: $250 each.
90% Will go to Habitat For Humanity Greater Los Angeles.
For the 50th anniversary of the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art/WSU the Department of Art faculty were asked to respond to work in the collection. I couldn’t resist choosing Ed Ruscha’s 1970 portfolio News, Mews, Pews, Brews, Stews & Dues. Produced at Alecto Studios in London, Ruscha used a wide range of organic materials and food items instead of ink to give his screen prints their distinctive and irregular coloration. For the suite of 6 screen prints that I created, I have incorporated ashes into the prints, as a reference to the escalating wildfires in Washington State and across the west. The ashes are mixed in the ink, sprinkled on the screens, and dusted onto the wet ink. These prints were produced in October of 2024, but the swift devastation of LA by wildfires should remind everyone of the magnitude of what has become a new normal. Whereas Ruscha's portfolio of the six words plays with alliteration, rhyme, and nonsense, my work responds with short, convoluted phrases that characterize the difficulty of finding meaning in a moment oversaturated by questionable information and amplified anxiety.