>I work in Oakland, California, and Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.
Art as a vocation only sprung up, quite unexpectedly, about
four years ago when I found myself the only map provider
in my new Mexican expatriate community.
My first wave of activity was a series of small, intensely
detailed line drawings. The object was to create dense
layers of random symbol and imagery that would yield
many interpretations when viewed in the aggregate.
Eventually, I started planning the line drawings around a
central visual metaphor, then weaving in the details, again
in an intentionally random manner.
These projects, most of which are two years in the making,
are a response to the complexity and enormity of the
information and images that I have taken in, willingly or not,
in this age of the Internet and global connectedness. From
cacaphony, patterns emerge: Many on top of many. I know
what I see in my drawings, but I'm often surprised at what
others find in their tangles, brambles, and fragments of
satire. Closer inspection, preferably with a magnifying
glass, brings out more nuance, humor, and hidden
archetypal symbols.
IMAGINARY WORLDS
>Presently I am working on a batch of highly detailed maps
of imaginary worlds like the two at right. "San Digitopeles
and the Nano Valley" blends computer circuit-board motifs
with the more familiar patterns and colors from satellite
imagery of the earth's surface. ´'Elsewhere' began with a
sepia photo of a weather-worn church door in Patzcuaro.
These pieces usually begin with a surface that bears the
scars and wear of many years, tracing the stains to find the
beginnings of coastlines and geological features. I don't
create these worlds so much as I discover them, piece by
piece; and as I expand and elaborate them, they tell me a
story.
Here are pictures of the huge Imaginary World Map #1,
familiar to my Yelapa visitors for the last three years.
It has been somewhat of a cliche of intellectuals for
decades that modern life has caused the isolation of
individuals in more and more particular subcultures -- a
secession of the self, as it were, into private worlds,
resistant, despite the wealth of communications
technology, to participation in a more broadly conceived
flow of human life. My imaginary world maps take this
notion to one logical end: by discovering patterns of
physical landscapes and human structure within the
humdrum randomness of worn-out furniture, and
connecting them into a coherent self-contained "world," I
convert my own isolation into a deeper sense of
connectedness.
MINIATURES
I've been cranking out miniature places on canvases as
small as two inches square, using crackle paste and highly
viscous dyes to imitate forests, mountains, and seacoasts.
Most miniatures are islands, but I've ventured into coastal
enclaves and even a lake. At right are a few of these
pieces, which are all numbered and archived for future
collectors. All come with easels for display.
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Art
