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The P.M. of The Domain is wanting that I give a talk after the reception. I thought of brining down a power point presentation of the work in a room adjacent to the show then realised that while that may be expected, it is pretty strange. Why look at reproductions when there are the real things in the next room. Taking countless classes to Edelman gallery and watching students race for the books ignoring the work on the wall, I know that people some how feel reassured but the levelling effect of slides wouldn’t work at all.

An advanced version of the talk so they can be prepared.

So I thought I would talk about my rationale for doing what I did in the spaces. Not knowing what to expect and being nervous I went to the generic white box as the space. I feel that shows should be as much an essay as the books etc. The show would be an anti JB>PC as there I was trying to make a large room intimate. Here I am not trying to show how intelligent I am by editing the work into a tight piece but showing how clueless I am. As I stated I was going to explode my books of wander and since there would be four walls they would be the four directions.

Then with my mind on The Rock and knowing that the Flat Earth Society has one of its four corners of the world someplace on Fogo Island, I thought that I would base the work in the corners of the gallery bunching them there then having them filter out to almost nothing in the middle of the wall. The work now wouldn’t be based as much on where it was made but how it fit with other work.

I wanted a lot of work and mixed in size and type. I wanted the wall to look like how people keep my mailings – a pile if a pile could defy gravity.

Then I saw the floor plans. The gallery seems to be a T shape there really didn’t seem to be corners but instead six wall spaces. I also became a bit nervous about pulling this off as there was a lack of time and what I seemed to be planning may take more time to hang that there was allotted. With what I initially wanted to do I really couldn’t layout the work until I was in the space – I have a hard time visualising spaces and tend to see them as bigger than they are but in this case I feared the opposite. I thought that not only should I make a lot of images but also a few different sizes for these images.

This clearly was impossible for I had no reason for changing the sizes, outside of whimsy, but I did fear that the size I would choose would be either too large or small. I wanted an intimacy with the work and wanted viewers to get close but I didn’t want the images to be lost. I also realise that no one would know any of this. As on

Seeing the shape and the walls I backtracked. To calm myself I broke the space down into four walls – two of the four had doors in the middle of them. I thought that the show would be this trip from confusion to clarification – or what seems confused to what a more simple space. The initial gallery room would be the mini prints the gallery that one goes into afterwards would have murals on both walls, one would be ikons – wonder if one will ask of what – the one across from it a wall of blockage, chose 11 prints sent them off to the service bureau and I could breathe a big easier – but remembering that I had said that I would never make big prints again…

Backtracked again as I also found that the main gallery was the one that had the high ceilings and thus the one that had the murals so the idea of a path to enlightenment would have to be a backwards

I think that it was a mixing of laziness and fear that had me turning to the triptychs for the other extremely long wall. Most come from so far so good but I added other that could be used for the show in St. John’s this summer. I found that I cannot force the triptychs their arrangement arrives the way these entries do – in a flash and if I am not close to anything to write them down, they’ll feel stiff. I made too many and am not sure that this point how they will be arranged as I don’t want a straight line. I also want to hint at the fixed relationship versus the moveable one I know that some will be polyptychs but by having some abut the others. I also want to hint at the fact that this is the arrangement now but come back in 15 minutes and it all could change as what is important in the image changes. Made too many so that again I can edit when I am hanging.



Just fingered some Masao Yamamoto snaps am terribly jealous. They are here beside me as I write this… fully pocketable…who would know…maldito!!!


For the last two walls I went to make slews of plastic camera prints, I wanted more than that and in truth started with 35mm as I didn’t want any regularity working though I realised that the best work for what I had in mind came from the plastics. The images are mostly 12x12 cm.

Printed in a stream of consciousness method, one image would lead to another – more or less the way that I pick slides for my classes. I hope that there are too many and also will place them on the wall with the same mindless association. What I don’t want is there to be a division from the passage to the other gallery.

Not wanting this segregation of black and white and colour realising that colour was making only a cursory appearance, I went to the snaps made with the digital in the hopes of having some incorporated into the walls of confusion.

To hedge my bet even more I brought 54 standard sized prints but now seeing the Yamamotos I shall sink or swim with the original idea afterall I don’t want to show how intelligent – read clever – I am. Ironically the work is based on his installations.

This could be a disaster but there are disasters and then there are disasters. If I come away learning something it will be great if I come away with a complete mess well…