Back To The Big Lino

Otto Mueller

James Ellroy

Andrew Wyeth

Anselm Kiefer

Ed Sanders

Sonic Youth Flower EP

Savage Pencil

Anselm Kiefer

Last Fall I started this project. As I got the big lino prepared for cutting, it was getting a bit colder.
I knew that I would be in the studio late at night mostly, and that it would be cold in the studio.
Linoleum gets hard brittle and unforgiving in the cold.
So I screen printed over the winter.
Kept warm.
And now that Spring is here? Coming?
I'm back to cutting.

The lino is about 5 feet by 7 feet.
It's pretty slow going.
Gives me time to figure out the rest of the piece.

This is going to be printed on rice paper. Giant rice paper. Which I have to get made.
Big, delicate rice paper.
The first time Eduardo and I printed the flowers on rice paper, it was the windiest day for months. And Hochbaum had just showed up that afternoon.
It was a difficult job keeping rice paper soaked through with oil ink from blowing on everything and itself. and then trying to peel it apart without tearing them.

There is going to be light and sound as well.
I have some help.
But it's not quite there yet.
It's solving that mystery which propels me to cut this damn lino.

I haven't worked on something this large in a while. Something that is going to take a long time. And has already taken up a lot of mental space.
And work.
So the ideas and reasons for doing it are shifting.
I had originally wanted to record myself reading The Family by Ed Sanders.
The entire book.
And play that along with other sounds and video projections, using the rice paper print as the screen.
I want the projections.
And sounds. And possibly music. But I don't know what narration(s) if any will remain.
From multiple sources.
Right now I'm thinking about a collage.
But that could change.

I'm including pictures of some of the initial inspirations for this piece.
There will be quite a few more by the time it is finished.
And along the way.




And.
It's about California.
It's about Los Angeles.