More Prints

Today I finished 3 more prints...2 in this ongoing series which will appear here in a few days and an invite to an Oktoberfest party which will show up here too.

Again these prints fall under the Foreign Policy series of prints that utilize texting abbreviations as a shorthand for some kind of American attitude. The maps too function as a shorthand that represents real space.

Summer Printmaking Finals

Over the past few weeks my posting frequency has been sporadic at best. Below is the reason why. For the past two weeks I have likely averaged about 5-7 hours a day in the printmaking studio. This is the first time in 11 years that I have worked with a press and inks...it has been such a refreshing change from the technological distance of digital photography. I had forgotten how great it is to work with ones hands to produce something. Each of the polyester plate prints are parts of editions of 3-10 prints.

This semester I came in with an overarching idea of mapping, whether in a literal fashion or conceptual/philosophical maps that we use to orient out lives. Ideas range from Platonic dualism to the Hudson River School and their Pantheistic outlook, N.T. Wright's ideas on the bodily resurrection and its significance for the mission of the church today, Simon Schama's idea that we project our cultural ideas upon topography first, a simple imitation of Christ in through the stations of the cross, and the idea of poly presence or a fragmented self. Others involve the literal ND map of missile silos and the irony of the peace tower, as well as an image from PKAP and Cyprus with plotted points to suggest the Topos and Chora.

Speaking of Topos and Chora...My artist statement from PKAP is nearly ready and should appear here and over at Bill Caraher's Archaeology of the Mediterranean World sometime this week.

Experimental Cartography V

Experimental Cartography IV

Experimental Cartography III

Experimental Cartography II

Experimental Cartography

Nearly 30 years ago, Alasdair MacIntyre wrote After Virtue in which he described the fragmentary state of contemporary life in post-modernity. Not only has morality or ethics become fragmented and uprooted from their orienting contexts, but more likely the entirety of our existence. Under such fragmentation, how can we come to know ourselves and our place in this world. What does this mean for how we orient ourselves, and understand the orientation of others? Can there be any commonality apart from this fragmentation?

Ive been toying with this idea of mapping as an extension of my place studies recently. This piece is just a little conceptual exercise of mapping utilizing various recognizable forms or structures and text. And yet, its familiarity fades quickly under the weight of a plurality of places, maps, and unconnected and empty space.