Friday, 21 March 2008

Work in Progress

Its been too long since I posted, but that's in large part because I have many blocks which have been carved, but yet to be printed. I also have a project going which I haven't figured out the finishing part of.

It started like this: I have these postcards of politely smutty 50's pulp novels. They are a guilty pleasure, certainly. But seem ripe for something. I've always been nervous about using text in my work, its hard for me to use well. Recently I did a series of portrait prints and laid text from interviews with the subjects on top. This seemed to work well to allow a second point of view in the portrait. Anyway, it has emboldened me. So I've done watercolors of these pulpy novels (the cards and other novels) and plan on layering it with text.

The only issue is that I don't know what kind of text to be using yet. What to use? What should it do? I am thinking areas of uncomfortable harmony and pointed contrast. I'm looking at a Linda Lovelace autobiography, which is pretty depressing. Excerpts from smutty novels, but with Male rather than female sexy characters. Or high minded criticism drawing out the manipulative signs in these images from someone like Susan Sontag.

Anyone have suggestions?

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