the troll covets sporozoan

tapestry

Originally uploaded by printtroll.

In the absence of the past we are left with a blank slate? But when left in a void we must start from the beginning like a child first holding a drawing utensil. The past gives us a knowledgable starting point, a place from which we can look at the blank slate and attack it rather than allow it to intimidate us. In his book Radical Reconstruction Lebbeus Woods writes - “Willful destruction obviates the burdening weight of history, leaving only the liberating elixir of its inspiration” It is a beatiful statement and it askes we as artists to destroy ourselves everytime we begin to create, to leave behind what we believe to be precious so that we can find new pathes within our work.

sdrawing4

Originally uploaded by printtroll.

This drawing is 8 by 10 inches. For years I have made work on a grand scale. I believe I felt it gave the work more stature to be huge but I am not sure that I was right. It is ture that a small object can get lost on a wall full of huge paintings. Huge paintings cannot command the intimacy that small work can.

painting

Originally uploaded by printtroll.

I haven’t made a painting in almost ten years. I thought I was done with painting, it is so decorative, but no here it is back in my world. Of course it is a sporozoan the beast that will consume me and it is pink. Pink is a great color I love it. It makes so much sense to me after painting with reds for so long when I was younger. It is all that fucking trolls fault making me paint pictures of the sporozoan.

I made a batch of cement this past week; it was thick and heavy. I could feel the moisture leaving my hands just from being near to the cement. As I shoveled it from the mixing bucket to the floor, I was soon to tile, I thought about my studio and the sporozoan. The sporozoan is an idea, one mirroring humankinds arrogance, I want it to be dense and draining. I want it to make the viewer feel as though they are being buried in cement. I want them to experience a sense of dread that is overwhelming and forces them to contemplate their own position within this arrogant world.

i drown in petroleum distillates.
hands cracked to the point of blood.
the room with the low ceilings and concrete floors leaves me empty.
yet every day every hour i am there.

i feel, i think, i hear sounds i know inside and out
they ring over and over again.
the oil and dust cloud my eyes

i am whole, driven, independent and mad
my stomach burns with the black liquid
weeping without tears
it burns and yet no where do i feel so at home

1991 -

Gunk stuck under my finger nails. -
Copper dredged by steel. -
Color forced into incised lines and pits. -
An image is formed that grows and flirts with me for years. -

It presents me with a new way to look at how and why I make. -
I glare at people, keep my distance from them; I am dirty and off putting. -
Whispers grow and a name is given: printtroll.

The man asked me. The symbol on your shirt what does it mean? It was the first time the troll had been asked the question. The owner of a deli on Cropsy Ave in Brooklyn. A 50 year old Indian man. After some discussion he finally said “I guess that is what art is suppose to do, make people think.”

It seems like a life time ago when sporozoan existed in the dreep of the pacific northwest. It is a place of origin for the object the distillates and achrmatone projects with byron were its seed. A low ceiling basement, dirty and dank with fluids and dust were its home in those early stages of its existance. The place where the troll found his home again.

What is it that makes us want to make things? Want to create? We make things because we want to make an impression on others. But what is it that we are trying to accomplish with the things we create? Sporozoan is meant to be viewed in places that art normally isn’t. Its meaning is derived from a play on ritual. It gains meaning by being something that people encounter rather than plan to see. Does this mean that if it is viewed in a gallery setting it loses its meaning?

What makes you want more from yourself? What makes your ache to do something with meaning? What is your most pure thought? What do you wish you were that you would never dare tell.