Crude

Nodding Donkey oil pump

-Eureka! This piece is really about my oil well! It's about my

complicity in the world's self-destructive dependence on fossil

fuels.

This spring I decided to submit a piece in support of the Landfillart

Project. Ken Marquis, organizer and curator of the project, hopes

to have a book and traveling exhibit by 2012 that "portrays the arts

communities efforts to positively impact the environment through

re purposing previous metal waste.."

All artists receive a reclaimed hubcap to use as their canvas. I got

mine back in late March. My original proposal had the intention of

exploring my automotive roots that consisted of helping in my

fathers auto body shop as I was growing up. Perhaps some kind of

transformation of the hubcap into an artist book? Much to the

dismay of my salt of the earth father and two uncles I spent an in-

ordinate amount of time welding 'assemblages' from the ever grow-

ing junk pile behind the shop. "You could make something of your-

self if only you stopped wasting your time."

Now it's late June and I've been back and forth: somewhere between

progress and procrastination. I had worked up a series of custom

decals based on vintage photos of the shop and wrecked cars that

went through it. They didn't click here. Somehow that story seemed

a bit intimate for the hubcanvas. There seems to be another narrative

here.

Soldering mesh hands for hubcanvas mixed media piece

Instead I think the piece is about oil; we're hooked on it and our

landfills are filling up with the discarded products that had their

origin in the oil patch and our throwaway culture.

And, Yes I own a piece of this mess.

My grandmother, Maud, proud Nebraska frontier woman had

oil discovered on her ranch and I (along with a gazillion assorted

grand and great grand kids) all got a piece of this aging and nearly

pumped dry well. I still get an occasional royalty check from some

subsidiary of a subsidiary. Usually enough to buy a few art supplies.

So what the hell, lets make a piece that looks gift horses in the

mouth. No offense grandma, but we've got to make some tough

oil decisions.