My Mount Rushmore -- An installation
Lovers Lane, Dallas, Texas
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WRITING PAGE: MileMarker and other Projects/Essays
Much of my writing
came about during a job I had from 1982-1987 as an art-shipping truck driver, crossing the country
alone on a route from San Francisco and Los Angeles to Santa Fe,
Dallas, Chicago and New York, schlepping paintings and sculpture
between artists and museums, collectors and galleries. During
that time I found photo to be the most flexible way to remain
an artist every day, taking pictures every now and then but not
putting me behind schedule. Then, in motel rooms or out walking
after dinner, I began to describe in writing the places where
I was walking or looking. The writing eventually was compiled
into a partly-published manuscript called MILEMARKER, while its
short-paragraph style turned into fiction (to a degree), and found
its way to the paintings, offering a verbal element layered over
and perhaps contradicting in some way the visual element. In subsequent
years I was able to write history "poems" for the city
of Dallas, Texas, as parts of public art proposals. These days
I also write an occasional essay, but most writing is to be found
as an integral element on many of the paintings.
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An extensive essay from 2011 describing the cleaning out my parents' home after their passing, but segueing into a consideration of artworks in the collection of the Art Institute of Chicago.
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From MILEMARKER