philinthecircle.com Blog

I spent a bit of time this last week cleaning around the house and decided to get rid of a bunch of stuff. As I was trying to decide if I should Goodwill my old jeans or trash ‘em I decided my theme for February would be “Giveaway.” I know this is contradictory to the Goodbye Art idea, but oh well. It’s disappearing from me so that’s all that really matters. Each week I will give away the piece in some way.

As you can tell I grabbed all of my old jeans and stapled them to the wall. I then did a white wash coat over them. I debated for quite a while how to actually make the picture but I settled on using my toes. I’ve never done a toe painting before and can’t say I thought it would turn out real well. But that’s Goodbye Art’s goal is to make me experiment and not care as much about the outcome since it is more about the process. I think I stood and stared at the jeans for about an hour before finally mustering myself to get to work.

I dragged down the ladder, took off my sock, and climbed up. I had to use a little wadded up piece of batting to put the paint on my toes.

I then proceeded to smear the paint on my toes and work. The hardest part of this project was being at an odd angle to where I was applying the paint. I couldn’t be right in front of where I was working and the jeans were not totally flat so I had to imagine how the paint was looking from a different angle.

There’s not a lot to say other than my toes were almost raw after this. Jeans get pretty rough when they are covered with paint.

My fingers looked freaky after this because they were sitting in paint for a couple hours. I got pretty tired only standing on one foot for a few hours. That was a bother.

I was pleased enough with the final project as it was exactly what Goodbye Art should be.

If you are able to support Goodbye Art by purchasing an 8×12 photo click here.

This project took quite a feat to get off the ground. I remember wanting to do a fun piece for Valentines Day and somehow decided upon the ABC’s of love. I took a stab at writing it and couldn’t really put a lot together myself. So I posted a blog up on MySpace asking people to come up with ABC’s that were sweet and funny and the letters had to represent objects. It got about 30 people joining in and so I printed out all of their lists and sat down highlighting ones that I liked. From that point I picked certain ones and made a list. I had to haul that list around with me for a number of days, deleting some and editing others so they rhymed. I plinked around on a synthesizer and came up with a tune, went to a friends house to record the piano aspect. I then recorded myself singing and pieced the audio together.

Then I got started designing my recording space. I wanted to have the camera on the floor looking up but I ran into major problems. Since I would be working on a piece of glass the camera would be looking through the glass and there were tons of reflections on the glass. Long story short, I had to piece together a little recording spot that didn’t have any reflections, the light had to be limited etc. It was a total pain.

Then I sketched out my images on some post its. At this point I was ready to begin and wasn’t sure how the quality was going to turn out. I set to work separating out all of the colors of hearts and had a bowl for each. I put together a few of the pictures and was satisfied with the quality, I say satisfied because I was working with such a large pixel that the detail was difficult. Anyway, I spent about 14 hours just piecing together the pictures then I spent 7 hours in front of the computer cutting and splicing the video. ugh. But I am quite happy with the final product. Something very different for me because of the music. Quite fun.

Here is the original poem.

A- I love your adams apple
B- you’re beautiful without beer goggles
C- you are better than chocolate rain

D- You never stop giving like a dairy cow
E- You are tastier than a carmel apple empanada from taco bell
F- My love for you grows like fungus

G- We are tight like OJ’s gloves
H- Your hands I would love to kiss
I- I want to hear your voice more than my Ipod
J- Screw Mars and Venus on Jupiter is where our love fits

K- You make my heart jump like a kangaroo
L- my heart bubbles like a lava lamp when I’m with you
M- I’m drawn to you like a powerful magnet

N- I’ll protect you like a ninja
O- Like an Octopus my hug will surround ya
P- We fit together like perfect pieces in a puzzle

Q- You be my jukebox; i’ll be your quarter
R- I’d enjoy the itch if you were my rash
S- I will always love you, wait, what’s your salary?
T- our love, like the Titanic, will make a splash

U- our love stands out like a unibrow
V- Your touch is like Viagra, oh wow
W- You have everything I want and need just like Walmart

X- I’ll xerox your photo all day and tomorrow
Y- you can be the string and I will be the yo yo
Z- your sexy highlights remind me of a zebra

If you are interested in sending someone an 8×12 photo of this piece I put together click here. Any purchases directly support Goodbye Art and my other large projects. Thanks so much!

I hope you all got a kick out of this piece. I had a blast with it.

As you know January is supposed to be snow but it has been so cold this weekend that I decided to take advantage of it and do a “freezing properties” project instead. I saw the temp was going to be well below zero and knew I had to jump on the opportunity. I may even stock pile a couple goodbye art project this week seeing as it will be so cold.

I don’t remember how this piece came about exactly. I remember trying to find something that would make water freeze at a higher temperature and discovered that only pressure would. This made sense but I wanted to make sure there wasn’t something I was missing. In my search I ran across all different descriptions of things that make water freeze at lower temperatures, wine being one of them. I have played with colors of liquid before and thought if the right temps came along I might have to freeze something we normally don’t. I just thought wine would be fun because it fits that category and could serve well in the right context.

I grabbed a pane of glass and put a little rubber ridge around the outside. I got it as flat as I could and poured 6 liters of red wine into it. I went back later with a soldering gun and proceeded to cut out the wine I didn’t want. When that was done I poured a couple liters of white wine into the remaining area. Let that solidify and then brought it in, set up my cameras and sat back to watch.

I was rather impressed with how the pigment in the wine separated from the water. Pretty cool.

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!

No it’s not really pee. Come on. Seriously. The furthest portion is 30 feet away and 15 feet wide. No one in the world has the pressure to push pee that far. And if they did it would rupture other parts of the body. ugh.

Moving on.

So I went to the grocery store and bought a bunch of yellow food coloring. Which was actually hard to find. It is usually mixed in with a multi pack. I also bought a sprayer, the small hand held one. Then I headed for the park. I hunted around for a part of the park that was out of view of the rest and had a rather short steep incline. Then did a little planning. I knew I had to make the picture in between takes in the video but it couldn’t be obvious that I had traipsed around making foot prints all over. This was crucial as I would have to work from these steps to make the picture. I then recorded the first part of the vid telling people what I was planning to do. Then I pointed the camera at the ground and turned it off. Then with water bottle in hand I walked in the steps I already made and proceeded to spray in the picture walking backwards at times. I only goofed up a couple times but not noticeable enough. Then I went back to the camera, aimed it as best I could at the same spot I had last recorded at, turned it on and brought it back up to my face and finished off the video. haha. simple. The tricky part was trying to keep my perspective appropriate while on a hill side, as the further away portion had to be drawn larger. Since it was Lassie it worked out just fine.

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

This piece took some great timing. The weather was such a factor in this and it couldn’t have been better. The temperature made it up to 40 degrees that day and then to 25 when night fell. This allowed for me to easily build the wall with soft snow and then when I was chipping it away it would freeze up which enabled me to make a very thin piece.

I was going to start back with goodbye art with “freezing properties” being my theme for January but then the temp went up. I made the decision to switch to “snow” so I could actually get some pieces done. Although I am currently working on a “freezing properties” piece for next month, just because I have no idea what temperatures February will bring.

The wall for this piece is about 6feet wide by 6feet tall and 1foot thick. I picked a foot because I was pretty darn sure my light wouldn’t shine through. I then had to run to home depot and get a flood light, they are surprisingly cheap, only 20 bucks. I then dragged out my cameras and extension cords and the like. I got everything set up and very nervously started to chisel away on the wall. After the first 20 min I became ecstatic upon realizing the wall was freezing as I worked. At first I set out to make a three tone image but quickly realized I could put a fair amount of subtle shading in it. I then spent about 3 hours rubbing snow off of the wall and slapping more back up to make my changes. I wasn’t totally happy with the final product because it doesn’t look perfectly like him. But I settled to having it resemble him and be happy with the time I spent on it as an experiment. Which after all is the point of these projects.

Destroying this piece was rather fun. I don’t think I have ever jumped through a wall of snow.

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

after a couple months away from Goodbye Art I’m bringing it back starting in January and will be working with “freezing properties” to start.

I found that this project over all lead to some experimenting and playing around that was/is great for my own development.  A different way to think about art was developed.  It has lead off into other aspects of my work and I quite enjoy it.  So I wanted to continue with the idea and see what happens over the coming months.

This piece came about in a kinda weird way for me. As you can tell or have already noticed, it’s not a portrait, oh my gosh. What a change. Well actually I have been doing more and more pieces that are not portraits, but I don’t put them up on the site.

I was sitting around with a can of “easy Cheese” in my hand wondering what I would do. I fought with it for a very long time before deciding that the better choice was something most people don’t see from me, so I went for a cheese log.

The process was pretty simple. I found a log that was out of view from roads and pathways and went to work. I had to go buy more cheese and the cashier didn’t even ask me what I was doing. It is only strange when I point out that I used 32 cans of the stuff. ha. It gets used up rather quickly.

For some reason the blog software won’t let me put in pictures. But you all have seen them on the site.

Take care

phil

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!

“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!

——-

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.