philinthecircle.com Blog

“How much oil is in that? How much oil is in that?” I kept asking myself after I did the Oreo piece. Being able to see the floor through the paper kinda grossed me out. I used to eat Oreos all the time, but not since that project. I was going to do a different piece this last weekend but on Saturday found myself eating some chicken McNuggets and fries, and of course I was licking my fingers after it. I stopped for a moment and knew what I had to do.

So I put up a black backdrop and hung butcher paper over it, so when the oil made the piece transparent it would appear dark. I did a little setup and started smearing fries. Originally I was going to purchase a bunch of fries and make a large elaborate picture. But after working for a bit I knew it would be much more interesting to just use one package of fries. And yes they are waste, I would not eat them after this.

Yes the abstract and obese were chosen on purpose. It helped with the idea and the execution of the idea.

Workin on somethin.

If you are able to help support Goodbye Art it will help make future projects more grand and impressive. You can purchase the picture of this piece here. Thanks so much!

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hindsight comment on 1-16-2008

I was a bit surprised by this piece and how it was taken by people. I think it got connected with the crowd that just flat out hates McDonalds. The viewer ship was rather high and I felt kinda bad that the image quality wasn’t as good as it should be, the whole thing could have come off better. But I think this piece really resonated with people because of the size, lack of detail, and grease factor.

If you are able to help support Goodbye Art it will help make future projects more grand and impressive. You can purchase a signed picture of this piece (until the 28th) here. Thanks so much!

This piece was pretty straightforward, I’m trying to remember how it came about. What I do remember is waiting in line at Starbucks after a “thought walk” and finding myself as usual staring at the food behind the glass. It’s covered with chocolate and just looks so darn good and I was reminded of a diet I had heard about where you chew anything you want but you don’t swallow it. I thought it would be funny to see someone in sitting there chewing their food and spitting it back into the bag. Not an image I wanted to keep for very long. Anyway, you can see how it developed.

One of the parts of this I am so entertained by is how much extra time goes into each piece now just for the video and final photo. The creation of that piece only took an hour but I found I had spent 1 hour setting up the work space with lights and cameras, then the post production was another 3 hours. ha.

I’m not putting up any other photos because I can’t do a lot more than are on the site.

If you are able to help support Goodbye Art it will help make future projects more grand and impressive. You can purchase the picture of this piece here. Thanks so much!

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Follow up comment posted on 1-16-2008

I have fielded many questions and comments about this piece. I think a comment that has stuck with me pretty well is people thinking I was insulting Britney and joining in the media frenzy to pull her down. The question I have gotten a lot with this piece is “why starbucks?”

Let’s start with starbucks and I will pose a question. What do Britney and Starbucks have in common? Not from a business or ethics standpoint, but from how society views them. Does society love Britney? not really. Does society love Starbucks? not really. But do we seek these both out and spend a fair amount of time with both? Yeah. Society has a total love hate relationship with both Starbucks and Britney.

Am I insulting Britney? Maybe visually in some way because after all I am spitting out food to make a picture of her. But on the other hand that chewed up and spit out food perfectly shows you how the public has treated her. It puts into a different perspective the idea of destroying something, how we feel about it before and how we see it after.

Hey all this post has been edited now that I have more time.

I think the most frustrating thing out of this piece is I couldn’t get a final photo together that I was happy with. So this will be the first piece that is not available as a photograph. My apologies to all of you that have been so gracious in supporting this series.  But I was able to get together a photo for the web here.

I think the only super strange thing that happened was I sat on my legs for so long that the muscle on the lower leg right side in the front almost died. I stretched it to such an extreme that the next day I walked with a flop foot. I couldn’t walk properly as if I had a mini stroke. It was really kinda scary. So I hydrated myself and now the muscle just hurts but it will be fine.

The other thing I am finding entertaining is on YouTube how many people are angry at me for “wasting” oreos. Like really angry. I thought it was hilarious that people said I should have donated them to a homeless shelter or soup kitchen. I don’t think any of those places would take Oreos that had been sitting on the floor for 5 days. ha.

Anyway, the next project will be made tomorrow morning. Probably in one sitting. I have my area all set up, lights, cameras, now the third element is needed. It will be really quick and the video might go up tomorrow. I want to get ahead because I have next week off and I want to spend that time working on the big piece in my studio. I should be able to get half way done.

Alright, I’m outa here.

Now I said that October would be about viewer involvement, but I was sitting at work yesterday thinking about how this would all pan out and I think it is best that I wait for a month or so before taking on this idea.  Reason being, if I involve others with something as personal as art I want to make sure it is interesting and a unique experience, and the fact that this falls into the Goodbye Art category I need to make sure it fits within those limitations as well.  The last part of this is how much time it will take, I think the time put into it will be much greater than what I am doing now.  And I barely have enough time now.  So I will wait for another month.  That being said, October is food.