
I discovered Lego Darth Vader in my backpack somewhere as I was leaving Missouri and I took a photo of him and sent it to Gavin.

It's hard to help and I am just weirdly obsessive like that.
These are just some of them from the trip.
![]() Last year I just packed up my car and drove around the country for no real reason at all. In hindsight I think I was having something like a mid-life crisis but without the crisis part. Mainly I just wanted to see as much art and loveliness as I could. I drove from Silicon Valley through LA and Tucson and Texas and New Orleans. Eventually I made it up to see my family in Missouri before beginning the trip back home. I discovered Lego Darth Vader in my backpack somewhere as I was leaving Missouri and I took a photo of him and sent it to Gavin. ![]() I did that again at another scenic overlook and then it just took on a life of its own. I couldn't stop taking photos of Lego Darth Vader just everywhere. I took him through Colorado and Utah and Nevada and Arizona. He's been to a ton of places and I am probably locked into doing this for a long, long time. It's hard to help and I am just weirdly obsessive like that. These are just some of them from the trip.
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![]() So this set I finished the other day was one I labored over and I'm not sure if I like it entirely or what I really think of it at all. It's weird how things from your life kind of seep into your art and I recognize now that I subconsciously pulled in some stuff from Carl Jung and Love and Rockets. I had been reading this Jung book that I bought the other day at an estate sale and I was listening to Love and Rockets a whole lot during this time. ![]() The Jung book was laying out and I am sure that I pulled some stuff from it. I'd also, as I said before, been listening to a lot of Love and Rockets and had been talking about the lyrics to Express Kundalini with Katherine. They have been such a monumental influence on me in many ways and I really value their music and lyrics. [I cannot express this properly in words without sounding syrupy or contrived.] Anyway, this set started out really fantastic and then I got frustrated with it. And then managed to save it some until I just stopped where it was before I ruined them completely. In looking at them a bit later as I scanned them I do like how they turned out though. The scans and some progress photos are included below. ![]() I was having a small chat with Chris Smith last week or so and he asked if I happened to know a guy that shared the name McHenry. I told Chris that I didn't know him specifically but that if he was a McHenry then in all likelihood we were somehow related. "Yeah. He used to talk about a Fort McHenry, in the Chesapeake area I think", he said. And then I immediately and enthusiastically dashed out some history highlights surrounding Fort McHenry. And then I confirmed that, yes, if Chris' friend Matt McHenry had ever went on about Fort McHenry history like I did just then I'd be even more certain we were related. Anyway. So I say that just to illustrate that I just never feel inconvenienced for an opportunity to talk about this stuff. I don't need a segue at all. But if I ever did then the Fourth of July is, as far as I'm concerned, about as good of a time as any to talk about Fort McHenry. I've done a lot of genealogy over the last decade or so and somewhere down the line my family is related to James McHenry. ![]() James McHenry was born in County Antrim, Ireland in 1753 and when he was 17 he came to America. He was incredibly smart by any account and he was known to have literally 'studied himself sick' to the terrific worry of his family. He formally studied medicine and became a surgeon. During the Revolutionary War in August of 1776, at the age of 22, he was appointed surgeon in the Fifth Pennsylvania Battalion and would also serve as secretary to General Washington from 1778-1780. And eventually he was appointed Secretary of War in the Cabinet of President George Washington. [And again in the Cabinet of President Adams.] On September 17, 1787 he was one of 40 people to have signed the United States Constitution. [You can read the whole thing if you're up for it.] He died on May 3, 1816 at the age of 62 and upon the death of her beloved husband, Mrs. McHenry wrote this: "Here we come to the end of a life of a courteous, high-minded, keen-spirited, Christian gentleman. He was not a great man, but participated in great events and great men loved him, while all men appreciated his goodness and purity of soul. His highest titles to remembrance are that he was faithful to every duty and that he was the intimate and trusted friend of Lafayette, of Hamilton, and of Washington." ![]() They named Fort McHenry in Baltimore after him and in 1814 during the War of 1812 the British Navy attacked the fort. On September 13, 1814 at around 6AM the fleet of British ships sat out in the Chesapeake Bay and just hammered their cannons and rockets at the fort for 25 hours straight. The fort was defended as best as possible under the circumstances and eventually the British gave up as they ran out of ammunition. ![]() The story goes that Francis Scott Key witnessed the bombardment from a nearby truce ship. An amazingly over-sized American flag had been sewn by Mary Pickersgill and was flown at the fort in anticipation of the British attack. [Click that picture! That's the same exact flag. The thing was huge. And apparently cost a bit over $400 bucks to make. And that's a lot of loot in 1814.] And when Key saw the flag emerge intact in the dawn of the following day he was so moved that he began that morning to compose the poem "The Defence of Fort McHenry" which would later be renamed "The Star-Spangled Banner" and become the United States' national anthem. So that's it. ![]() Except for one more thing; When I first started doing some family genealogy and learned about James McHenry I remember being struck by the fact that in the few images I could find of him he kind of resembled my Uncle Alphonsus Andrew McHenry in some real ways. The curly hair, filtrum, chin, eyes. A lot of resemblances if you ask me. Anyway, maybe this photo of him [and my Aunt Kate] isn't the very best example to offer as comparison but I'm including it anyway as I love it so much. Okay. That's it. Have a great weekend. Have a Happy Fourth of July!
I've always been mildly obsessed with volcano imagery and use it quite a bit in my art. I noticed this after sorting through hundreds and hundreds of earlier pieces from the One Thousand Thousand project and it reminded me of this cool little bottle I have.
Volcanic dust collected just hours after the eruption on January 23, 1910. Some quick and unedited thoughts that I want to remind myself of:
Working on the One Thousand Thousand project, as well as 52 Weeks for that matter, has really been one of the best things I could have done as an artist. The work itself isn't what I'm referring to in this. [Although that's incredibly important too.] But the process itself has been hugely beneficial in many ways. When we were doing the 52 Weeks project we worked within certain parameters we had set for ourselves. One box each week. Starting on Sunday and ending on the following Sunday. Make sure it was done by the deadline. Pencils down. We also had to use the same little wooden shadow boxes as our starting point for each piece. [Between Christopher and myself we had 104 total boxes that were identical when we began the project.] I remember the first couple of weeks really just limiting myself to the pre-defined confines of the original boxes. It never really occurred to me that I'd end up working outside of the box. [I swear to you that there was no intention of a pun here at all. I promise.] |
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