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Letter
Dear Stacy, How’s everything on that side of the building? Not too bad over here in the middle I suppose. I see you’re taking advantage of that window; I kind of just saw that as losing a useful wall, but it seems it can actually be more useful than a wall. Funny. I think I’m going a bit crazy lately; really busy, but not busy with the right things. I’ve barely painted at all this week... Enough of this horseshit though, no one wants to hear my whining. It’ll sort itself out somehow.
Indeed. Anyway, I was looking at those pieces you’re working on. Very interesting. At first glance, just kind of walking by and not stopping, I halfway thought they were of foliage of some sort. Shrubbery maybe. Now that I know what they are, I’m finding that first thought strangely enlightening. See, I’d be tempted to categorize the structure of an aircraft carrier and the structure of shrubbery in two very separate places: one is a literally growing, living form from nature, and the other is a very carefully planned thing, exactly what we mean when we say “man-made.” I don’t know though. I’ve been seeing a lot of artwork lately, where there are these patterns or forms, which you can just tell are not simply the mark of an artist’s hand... And sure enough, you read the statement, and it’s some process of taking parts of photographs, or utilizing some automatic rhythm or pattern or texture from somewhere. It’s this thing you can just sense, and there’s no doubt about it... Or maybe I’m wrong, maybe there is doubt. Have you ever seen an intentional, hand-made, non-guided mark which truly looked like something from nature or something mechanical? If it exists, it’s rare. It may have something to do with necessity: if you’re designing an aircraft carrier, you’re thinking in terms of certain tasks which this thing needs to accomplish, and in terms of conserving weight, and space, and in terms of buildability and repairability. This is all necessity. It’s not your whim. And of course, if you happen to be a shrub, there is no such thing as whim, you just grow according to a certain algorithm, and in response to sun and soil and water. All necessity. And it shows in the shapes and patterns. What does this mean? I don’t fucking know. It’s almost formalist, and that doesn’t often com from me.
Anyway, another interesting part of these pieces is the shift. There are two cut-outs, which for all intents and purposes are identical in shape, in two different colors, but they don’t line up – there’s a shift. It’s like you’re in an earthquake, or you’re cross-eyed, or maybe it’s a reference to fuck-ups in printing. It’s also like a fake shadow, which is interesting because the shape itself starts to be illusionistic, it starts to convince me that there’s depth, but then when the shape is repeated ¾ of an inch off to the left, it ruins it, it becomes entirely flat. The presence of a copy makes both itself and its original into fakes... Something tells me you weren’t thinking anything like this though. There’s no clue in the work or in what I’ve heard you say about it that would lead me to believe you’re concerned with these interpretations. Actually, I’d like to hear what you think about them. The thing you were telling me about, which is in there – your grandfather in WWII, on an aircraft carrier – is also not evident in the images themselves though. I guess it’s hard to say what’s really “in there” or “not in there” in artwork. It depends on who you ask, and it doesn’t matter who concurs. You might even say it’s shifty. Well, on that sour note, I guess I’ll be going. I’ll see you around. Cheers. -Erik
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