This was the second piece that I created when I began my trek as an artist back in February of 2008. I had an idea after creating ‘Digital Drip’ to begin seeking my abstract vision of common place objects.
Let’s take a baseball for example. When you look at a baseball you can take it one of two directions. You can look at that and have memories of your childhood of when you and your father used to play catch, or when you used to dress up in your high socks and cleats and play some outfield little league. Or you can look at it and say, “Yeah, that’s a baseball, so?” Which one are you?
I am the one that goes further than that. (Maybe thats the artist in me?) I look at it and I see the scratches in the leather. I see the dirt that has set in over years of bats and gloves and brick dust being rolled around on it. I see the stitching. The way the red loops in and out and has an endless and near seamless motion to it. That is where my art begins. I begin at the base of a concept and take it to a whole new level. You will see that some of my work is obvious. It looks like the title and the story behind it. But you will also look at my work and say, “What the hell is that? That is not a picket fence.” That is my entire intention when I create my art.
When you are sitting a a picnic table for lunch on a hot summer day what is on your mind? Did I pack the napkins? I hope the ice is not melted. Did I grab the extra bottle of ketchup? Where is the bug spray?
Well if you are one of the bug spray people what about those bugs? What about that lonely fly that all he wants is a taste of your summer feast? So the bug comes flying down to get a taste of your corn cake and you shoe him off. He comes back, of course. He is not finished. He wants some of that chicken. At this point you are agitated and start to talk under your breath about how you wish the big spray was actually working.
The fly comes back for one more taste of that pumpkin pie. This time you just swing your arms, knock over your bottle of Coors Lite, and continue your rampage over this innocent hungry fly. So the fly, happy and full by the point, leave to go on his merry way. He is flying around and thinking about how great that chicken was. How the pumpkin pie was a little dry but could have been made a touch better with some whipped cream. When all of a sudden his life is taken from him in the blink of an eye.
The innocent fly has met his ultimate maker, the windshield of any number of vehicles driving too fast on the road in the first place. The effects of this splatter can be seen here in my piece titled ‘Windshield Smash’.
Before the “I just washed my windows” driver throws on the wipers to bury the memory of this fly in his quite recent past you see the vast amounts of color that comes from that flies life. To the picnic party it was an annoyance and a waste of space, time, and bug spray. To the driver it is just another trip to the car wash. But to the bug, his family, friends, and enemies he had a life full of color. He had children, he had a wife who is at home making dinner as we speak. And all of what he experienced in his short life as a fly has been taken. But in this piece I have captured what I feel is the true meaning in that fly, or any other bug on your windshield, life.
