pocket lining

monoprint from a couple weeks ago.

I have spent the last couple years with suits moving in and out and around my work. I often use suits to speak about the facades of men. this shell in which we hide and the cage in which we can be trapped. Usually the suits are empty, or at least the wearer is invisible, and sometimes hanging from some string that connects it to the great puppetmaster in the sky.

recently i had done a project where i had to flay an orange prison jumpsuit (i will post that later). I realized in the act of that i had to cut into the suit jacket. Sure enough, when i finally did i felt as if i was taking down a buffalo, cutting out the organs, and laying out the skin, sure to use every part. It's pretty much the one thing i got from 5th grade history was that story of the native americans slaughtering buffalo and using every part... which would, for some reason, always serve to make my mouth water.

So when i sliced into the lining, and moved into the space between the outer and inner walls of the jacket, i was presented with all kinds of other layers and things i had no idea about. Organs spilling out all over. mouth still watering however. and then i find these pockets.

suit pockets are like (insert cheesy reference here... snowflakes, fingerprints, bank accounts, whatever) in that no two are alike. So, i gutted all my suit jackets and now i have a collection of scalps and blood all over the studio floor. sticky...

since, i have been thinking about pocket lining, and lining one's pockets and blood for oil and hurricanes and halliburton... you know, the usual. and also The Shape of a Pocket (a book i am only here and there through), and so on and so forth... the pockets will be with me for awhile i can tell you that. there are plans....

i inked one up and rolled it through the press. and then another and another ... lots. and then i wanted to see what it would be like to put something in the pocket of course.... so i grabbed a national geographic and cut out this pig. mmmmmmbacon. yes yes, orwellian... obvious and whatnot, but it was just to test and that is what you see here.

sidenote... i am also working with getting the participator to absorb into the work... one technique being intense white, or intense black (ala malevich and kapoor). i like this about the pig shape. it pulls one right into that space. however, the pocket is so yummy even without the pig that it pulls one right in as well. we'll see...