PrettyFakes

I prepared this artist’s statement for the upcoming Stereo exhibit at Light and Glass Gallery.

THREE YEARS AGO, frustrated with drawing and painting, I bought some film for an old Polaroid camera I’d had laying around for years. I bought it in the mid-nineties—frankly, not as a camera, but as a decoration, something odd to hang on the wall. There was no flash and the shutter stuck; when the frames came out, they were soaked in warm oranges, blurred at the edges.

The pictures were a shock; contrary to the constant digital manipulation of the modern world, I loved having little to no power over the resulting image—even, in many cases, whether anything would show up on the film at all. I’d always struggled with detail and control in my work, to the detriment of the piece and my ability to create. When you spend three months worrying about whether the stucco looks right in a building in the background of a painting, you’re not actually painting. You’re hand wringing.

The Polaroid stripped me of control, and rewarded me with prizes and secrets. I could try to take a photograph of a McDonald’s at night, and the camera would shudder and blur the fast-food joint into a neon wonderland. The smallest details of a building would become its center, each hinge and wire magnified into a supporting timber.

I quickly began to couple the Polaroids with lettering and writing, as much from my background as a flier artist in the 90’s (astonished by Los Bros Hernandez and Jeff Kleinsmith and the Kill Rock Stars record label) as comic book fan (trying desperately to emulate the clean lines and exquisite lettering of Dan Clowes and Chris Ware and Adrian Tomine).

My love of Mississippi and rock and roll soak every frame. Nearly every one is of or about Mississippi, lyrics to my favorite songs scrawled, stamped, and smeared across the gloss of the Polaroid. Every-one says the same thing: I love it here. I love this song. And if I had to live it all over again, I wouldn’t change anything for the world.

PRIMARY TOOLS: Polaroid Sun600 LMS (with flash); Polaroid SX-70 (no flash); Polaroid 420 Land Camera; wooden letter stamps from Cavallini & Co., San Francisco, California.

This entry was posted on Monday, December 10th, 2007 at 9:36 am and is filed under Gorjus, In Mississippi, Polaroids. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.