PENIS HAT

23 x 22 x 3 cm 
My sophomore year of college, a mini-van full of my friends from Maryland came up to visit me at RISD. We went to Boston, spent the day walking around, perhaps my favorite past time of late-adolescence. Kacy and I discovered these hats. They say 'PENIS' on them: HILARIOUS.
We were nineteen. We bought them. We wore them together. We were willful dickheads.

HORSE HEAD FABRIC

9.8 x 9.8 cm
I have a great sister named Kate. She and I helped raise each other. Once, there was this sweater... never mind. Hi Kate.

SANDPAPERS FROM AROUND THE WORLD

24.7 x 7.2 x 2.5 cm
When I was riding my bike through Europe in 1995, it dawned on me that I had neglected to bring sandpaper. Sandpaper is a tremendously necessary sketchbook making tool. So I went out and bought some. When I travelled to Indonesia, I bought some there, too. Then I bought some in Hong Kong, Guam, Louisiana, places like that. Eventually, I had a nice little collection, so I put it in this box, labeled it. Such is life.

OAR BOARD

37 x 16 x 2 cm
I found this piece of an oar on my honeymoon in Croatia. My wife and I were there in 2005. I brought it home and eventually used it as a prop in an animation about the process of sight (hence the brain image). When Oliver moved to the states and we shared a studio, I screen printed 'OAR' on it, which was the name of the collective he, his brother Rory, Duke and I operated under in some of our art project endeavors. 
So there it is. That's what this thing is and why it looks like it does.

NOTE TO MARTY JOHANEK

11 x 10 x .1 cm
This was my mother's. Her name is Martha. When I was a kid, friends called her Merth, and that's what my two daughter's now call her. I think 'Marty' was a short lived 5th grade experiment. I call her 'mom'.

PAUL ALFRED INFO

12 x 12 x .2 cm
I was in an airport in Guam in 1997. Wait, let me change that: I was in the airport in Guam in 1997, on my way back from visiting Hong Kong and Indonesia. Somewhere in there I crossed the international dateline. I was on my second Tuesday of the week and pretty wrecked. 
I met this man Paul in the airport lounge as I waited to depart that birdless island. Really, Guam has no birds. Look it up.
Paul asked me how I enjoyed my stay on his island. I told him I had been there only 30 hours or so, and didn't really see a whole hell-of-a-lot. He espoused it's virtues, talked of waterfalls and good golfing. Paul told me that when I returned to Guam, I should call him; he'd show me around properly. 
I'm not certain why I kept this napkin. I have absolutely no plans of returning to Guam.

SMALL PLASTIC FIGHTING YANKEES

13 x 13 x 5 cm
I am a Yankees fan. I have been as long as I can remember. It is an internal struggle. As a child, they represented everything that made baseball magic. Through the lens of adulthood, the patina of history betrays a system with less integrity. 
Perhaps it is just part of growing up, but one day it suddenly dawned on me that millionaire Derek Jeter wasn't standing in the corner of my studio chanting "CO-LAGE, CO-LAGE, CO-LAGE".

TROPICANA DRINK STIRRER

3.0 x 10.0 x .2 cm
Is electricity yellow or blue?
That was the question that set off a chain of events that made an indelible mark on my new found free adulthood.
I was in a bar with Noah, it was 1997. We came upon the topic of what color electricity is. I said it was yellow, of course. Noah claimed blue. I'm not certain how the wager came about, but somehow we decided to ask the waitress, and if she said 'yellow', we would rent a car and go to Atlantic City right then and there.
She said 'yellow'.

REDSKINS TICKET STUB

5 x 10 x .1 cm
This was the last sporting event Darryl and I attended together. We drove down to DC, watched the Redskins lose then  stayed at Chung's house after the game. He didn't have the right cords to plug our Playstation into his TV, so we just went to bed. 

ONE & IS PROGRAM

21 x 14 x.1 cm
In 1992, my friend Navid was murdered. A couple years later I wrote, directed and acted in a play about it called "One & Is".  This is the program. It was a search for answers, and didn't really have enough questions in it. I wasn't in the mood. I was 20. I needed some fucking answers.

SMALL CREEPY PLASTIC BABIES

5 x 2.5 x 1.5 cm
My wife performed a play in Gloucester, Mass in 2000. It was right after 'The Perfect Storm' was filmed up there, so every single establishment was hawking themed wares.
Daryl and I found these in a toy section of some gift store. Amidst the perfect storm of Cloney-esque drink specials and Whalbergian t-shirts, there sat the creepiest little humanoid forms either one of us had ever seen. 

DRILL STAND

15.3 x 4.5 x 8 cm
Lois used to live next door. She had lived there her whole life, as had her parents, as had her grandparents. Lois was a hoarder. This was her father's. It represents perhaps one-tenth-of-one percent of the old tools arranged like a drunken Tetris game strewn about her basement.

PHILLIES TICKET STUB

5 x 14 x .1 cm
My brother-in-law Court is from Pennsylvania. He's a Phillies fan. In 2006, Court and his wife (my sister Kate), me and my wife drove down to Philly and enjoyed a day at the park. A year later the cavalcade of child bearing began. These days, the concept of our families enjoying a day at the park involves less baseball and beer, but definitely more accidents involving urine.

SUCKER NOTE

9 x 7 x.1 cm
Upon completion of what I considered to be a successful prank involving two similar sweatshirts, I arrogantly left a note for the "victim", one Peter Jeffers. Peter didn't finish high school, was never much for the books, isn't really an avid historian. As I found out after he had left town, you can also add 'sucker' to the list of things he ain't. 

RISD ACCEPTANCE LETTER

21 x 12 x .1 cm
I had been visiting my father in California, and my mom picked me up at National Airport  in Washington DC carrying an envelope under her arm. It was a thick one, and full page size. But the true giveaway was the smile on her face.

PURE FUNKTION ALL ACCESS PASS

7 x 10 x .1 cm
Chris Hoover was the best skater of all our friends. Once he broke his wrist so badly he had to have pins put in it and was in a cast for a couple months. So he skated in a cast. When we all left for college, Chris set up a fully fledged screen-printing business. While we were learning about art, Chris was making things, running a company. He called it Pure Funktion.
Since then, Chris has had his fair share of broken wrists, metaphorically speaking. Just as that initial fracture was self-induced, so have been his other breaks, and Hoover would be the first to admit that. But he has never failed to get back on the board, and he has never failed to be a fucking hell of human. 

GOMPY'S 25 YEAR KNIGHTS OF COLUMBUS PIN

1.7 in diameter x 7 cm
Both of my grandfathers were in the Knights of Columbus, a fraternal Catholic organization. This very tiny pin is what you get if you are in the Knights of Columbus for twenty-five years. Well, you also get all the benefits of being a white dude, most likely. Whatever benefits there are to being Catholic I'll leave as TBD.

ART PATCH

8 x 3.9 cm
I walked into a workwear store in Providence, Rhode Island about 8 years ago. This one had recently half burnt down. There was no electricity and half the inventory was mildewing in the corner, an unfortunate side effect of the the fireman's valiant efforts. The proprietor was wearing a rain jacket inside, hanging out, hoping to salvage a buck or two from what was left. I bought this patch. I thought it was funny.
If this makes no sense to you, you have never been to Providence, Rhode Island.

CLIFF HARRIS CARD

6.3 x 9 cm
God bless you Cliff Harris. You have a mustache and you are unashamed that you are bald at 34. You'd look like my dad if my dad looked like a dad from the seventies. 

PHOENIX CAN

9.0 cm diameter x 14.4 cm
This was my mom's. Somehow it became mine. For about a decade I used it as a storage unit for a multitude of beads that at one point constituted a necklace, a love letter from a girl in the form a daguerreotype and lewd cartoons drawn by Nick Aanthon in the 7th grade.  

RED HAND ULSTER TEA TOWEL

66 x 39 x .3cm
Ah, the Red Hand of Ulster. I kind of don't even know where to begin with my close, personal relationship to this contentious symbol. So I won't. I'll just say that my love of conflict extends to the degree that I will collect its representation in tea towel form.

SWEET LOU

28 x 21 x .1 cm
My father took me to meet 'Sweet' Lou Piniella sometime in the mid-80's. We were at a hotel convention room on some turnpike in Jersey. It was like 11am and Lou was literally purple with hangover. I asked him:  when he first heard people chanting 'LOOOOOOUU', as was custom when he made a plate appearance, did he in fact think they were saying 'BOOOOOOOOO'?
Sweet Lou grunted, probably threw up in his mouth a little, and slid this 8x10 glossy my way. I had met a hero.

ROTC CERTIFICATE

28 x 21 x .1cm
When I was a senior in high school, we were told to stop by a certain folding table set up in some hallway and fill out the necessary forms for our diplomas. I had assumed that all the necessary information was held on some microfiche somewhere. In the absence of this definitive information system, I saw an opportunity: while using my given and formal first name to communicate a sense of validity, I substituted my middle name with 'Pickle'. It was pure 18-year old genius, and it worked.
This is not my diploma (which does in fact bear the name 'Michael Pickle Premo'. This is a Junior ROTC Certificate of Completion that was actually issued to my oldest friend in the world, Kacy. He forged it over to me, as a gift. I consider this document a higher honor than my actual high school diploma.

BOB SCHEFFING BASEBALL CARD

6.3 x 9 cm
Bob Scheffing: manager from Detroit, or heralded member of the French Foreign Legion?

P DIDDY LIKES MOO GOO GAI PAN

21.5 x  27.5 x .1cm
There are a few inside jokes at play here, admittedly. Having said that,  I really think that given a distorted photocopy of Sean Combs claiming his status of "great enjoyer" of a particularly phonetically amusing Chinese dish, one should be able to create his own joke with relatively little effort.

CUT PULLEY

16 x 30 x 10 cm
The parts cut out of this pulley, the other half of the metal wheel cover and the wheel itself, were used in a piece of art. I never got rid of the leftover pulley because:
a. It is awesome looking.
b. have you ever cut hardened steel with a hacksaw? It is a son-of-a-bitch.

CHAIRMAN MAO BUTTON

4.5 cm diameter
My father-in-law gave this to me. He was a communist. As my wife tells it, she was born so as to continue his bloodline before he died in the inevitable revolution. 
In 1973, he traveled to China to find inspiration. He brought back, among other affects ideas, and realizations, this pin.
Pretty well made, I mean, for something made in China.

BLADE SHARPENER

11.2 cm circumference 
Aaron gave me this. It is a machine designed to sharpen razor blades.  It is predicated on the idea that one keeps and reuses things, like, at all.  Needless to say, it is obsolete.

PILE OF STICKY NOTE PHONE NUMBERS

22 x 22 x 1cm
As the twentieth century entered its eightieth year or so, the rolodex gave way to a miraculous invention: using merely a wall (usually the one adjacent to the phone bearing wall), one's entire black book could be laid out in front of him on little yellow pieces of paper that actually came with adhesive already on them.
This here pile contains all the numbers that mattered to me whilst in high school.

PATRIOT MISSILE BASKETBALL SHIRT

66 x 43 x 1cm
I bought this jersey at Unique, an enormous second hand clothing store that was on Broadway south of Houston before non-big-box business models become untenable in the area. Though I tried to alter it a couple times, I could never get it to fit properly. It was clearly made for someone a good deal wider than I.
Initially I was attracted to this jersey for its absurd faux-patriotism. I imagined it to be 1990: a mediocre junior-varsity basketball squad decides to shine in the reflective glory of our military's most recent technological advancement. But what I really love is that the team is in the singular, as if this pudgy collection of 50% free-throw shooters acted not as a collection of disparate missiles, but in true team spirit, as a single Patriot Missile.

PAT'S STEAKS FLATTENED CUP (MISSING MEASUREMENTS)

14.5 x 17.5 cm
There is a war going on, people. It is about more than those wit or witout; it is about more than what side of the street you stand on; it is about meat. Meat with cheese on it. 

HI-8 TAPE

10.0 x 6.3 x 2.8 cm
I don't know for certain what is on this tape. I am pretty certain that it is a montage I made when I was a freshman in college, kind of my first foray into film / video. I am pretty certain it depicts a Providence, Rhode Island before its mid-nineties Renaissance, a Providence where the canals were actually shitty and an old man could still buy a decent sweater. I am pretty certain I am on this tape, or at least my image; I am young and unaware as hell and look it and I am pretty certain that is fantastic.
When I put this tape in the Dumpster, I screwed through it and attached it to wood with resin. I am pretty certain it can no longer be viewed.
I am positive it is better in my memory than it would have been on any monitor.

ANNA ROMANO'S 1931-32 CANCELLED CHECKS

17 x 7 cm
I did not know Anna Romano, the issuer of these checks. I got them at a flea market that used to be in SoHo before SoHo became the kind of place where any and all available spaces mandated a continuous monetization stream. What I do know about Anna Romano is gleaned from these checks: she lived on 14th street; she seemed to be able to pay all her bills amidst the onset of the Great Depression; she had impeccable handwriting. 

SCORECARD FROM FIRST TIME AT NEW STADIUM

20 x 14 x .2cm
I grew up going to "The Stadium", meaning Yankee Stadium. I was there with my dad when George Brett flipped his burger over pine tar; I was there when Leyritz hit his home run in '95; and I was there when Tino and Jeter staged one of the most exciting comebacks in World Series History. All this is to say that when the new Stadium opened up, I was ready to dismiss it as lacking the authenticity, the history of the old Stadium.
Truth be told, it is a magnificent place to see a ball game. Everything was wonderful.
Everything except , of course, Alex Rodriquez' performance in the clutch. Two K's down the stretch in moments that mattered, and my first experience at the new Stadium is tarnished by some new-school glorified gladiator whose ability to stat pad when it doesn't matter will create a trillion dollar path to the hall of fame.
I guess its a new game. Looks and feels a lot like the old one, just a lot more shiny.

SEX PISTOLS T

74 x 63 x .5cm
When I was in 9th grade, I used to hang out with this kid named Alex Doyen. His dad was from Belgium and his mom from Ghana, and he went to the French school up the street. Though nothing on this t-shirt is in French, his mom still knew it was bad, bad news. 
Even at an early age I was there to collect things of ostensible value that must be jettisoned from the lives of other. I would don this shirt for the next nine years, through college and beyond, until it became impossible to remove without the material about the shoulders tearing.

ON RAMP DISKETTE BOX

11 x 10 x 2cm
In the early nineteen-nineties, a new phrase entered the American lexicon: the information superhighway. This was the semantic forbearer to what would become "the internet". 
I went to college in the early nineties. Nobody owned his own computer. We all wrote papers at what was called a 'computer lab' and saved our work on hard discs that held like 10 Megabytes. This little yellow box held all my discs and all my megabytes. It was my on-ramp to the information superhighway.

THE DUMPSTER MAKES THE TRIP TO GOVERNORS ISLAND

So we moved the Dumpster to Governors Island the other day. Everything started off just grand; though it was my first time behind the wheel of a forklift, moving a 5 ton object in downtown Brooklyn proved less difficult than one would imagine. Also, the weather seemed to be agreeing with us.

Ah, the weather. Perhaps some back story is called for:
I have moved the Dumpster, counting each leg of a round trip as individual move, 10 times now in the last 330 days. Without fail, it has rained during the move or installation every single time. So it was no surprise when our sunny sky darkened a bit.
Here I am on the phone with one of the event organizers while trying to get a tarp over the dumpster as we waited to load on to the ferry. Even if it was to rain, I'd have things covered.

But this does not count as rain. Whatever the hell came through lower Manhattan the other day was more like the kind of weather that gets a name and causes a manic run on Walmart. With one gust, the tarp flew off the truck. At that same moment, the guy with the clipboard was telling me that we had load on immediately or the ferry was leaving. Then the other dude in the blue shirt came by and told me that the truck looked too high. While I'm not crazy about his style of communication (yelling the same information at someone repeatedly), I was even less fond of what he was saying. Not fit? How is that possible? I cleared the size! What? Not fit?
Also, I was really wet.

But it did fit, by no more than a quarter-of-an-inch if it was a mile.
After that, we crossed the top of the upper bay, unloaded the Dumpster, set up the roof and once we were all finished-- POOF: the sun came out.
Ended up being a beautiful day.

THE DUMPSTER ON GOVERNORS ISLAND

I am excited to announce that the Dumpster will be part of the 2012 Governors Island Art Fair, free and open to the public every weekend in September from 11 am to 6pm. 
Catch a free ferry from either Manhattan or Brooklyn and come see exhibition environments built by over 100 selected artists. Also, there will be my dumpster.
Click this link for directions to the art fair.
Here are the dates:
Sept. 1 & 2  /  Sept. 8 & 9  /  Sept. 15 & 16  /  Sept. 22 & 23  /  Sept. 29 & 30

LUCERNE LAKES GOLF COURSE SCORECARD

14 x 19.6 cm
My grandfather and I played golf when I was very young, like 9 or 10. I'm the 'M' on the scorecard, and unless my grandfather just decided to omit a '1' in front of each one of my frames, I'm not sure I believe that score.

MICKEY MOUSE TURNTABLE

35 x 15 x 24 cm
Hi kids indeed. This was my mom's or her sister's. I think over time, colored plastic from the middle of the last century actually gets brighter.

REDWINGS

12 x 13.5 x 30 cm
I bought these in 1997. I wore them pretty much exclusively, save the odd pair of Chuck Taylor's, until the re-resoled sole simply would not keep water out anymore, sometime in 2001. Then one day in 2009, Aaron added the final touches when he wore them while re-tarring our studio roof.

A

8.9 cm diameter x 1.3 cm
This wooden disc is from when my cousin Chris worked in a shop that built yacht and private plane interiors, and the scraps he lovingly collected for me were all teak and beautiful. I painted it and printed an 'A" on it, featuring it in an animation called 'Seeing Seeing' I made with my buddy Jonny. I skipped a big fancy to-do to film it with him because he was leaving to move to Ireland a week later, and I was terrified of life without him. The 'A' printed on it is from the silk screens I burned for the sashes my wife and I donned at the completion of our wedding ceremony, hers saying 'WIFE', mine saying 'HUSBAND'.
Its just a little piece of wood and some paint, sure, but with its variance of emotional association, this thing is a tome.

OLFA CUTTER

13.0 x 1 x .8 cm
A girl gave this to me. Not like a gift-- not like a gesture intended to transfer meaning in greater measure than the value of the material object given. More like:
ME: 'I need a blade'
HER: 'Here ya go.'.
But nonetheless, meaning was attributed to the object. I'm not putting that on her, not assigning her the responsibility my lofty perception of an everyday action. All I'm saying is that a girl gave this to me. 
Sigh.

LONDON LODGE THERMAL PRINT

11.7 x 4.5 x .1 cm
The most fucked up place I visited while driving across the United States of America was New Orleans, Louisiana. When I expressed my consternation over dear NoLA to a native by saying ' I just can't put my thumb on the place', he echoed that sentiment as its beauty.
The motel I stayed at while visiting New Orleans, The London Lodge, pictured here as a thermal print of super 8 footage, was not beautiful. It was the kind of place which could aptly be mottoed  'Where terrible things quietly happen.'

CREEPIEST PHOTO I OWN

10.7 x 15.5 cm
In the business of mnemonic devices, photographs are their own kingdom, much less a mere phylum or family. So it was a matter of policy that I left photographs out of this project. Having said that, this is the one photo that gets a pass. I don't know where I got it; I don't know what the situation is; all I know is that at some point in the middle of the twentieth century, a sentient being documented a non sentient being, the result being this  creepy, creepy image.

EASY WAY TO LEARN GOLF RULES

7.4 x 10.2 cm

Page 1: Hit the ball in the hole that is very far away. 

Page 2: Every time you swing at the ball you make a mark on a piece of paper with an inappropriately small pencil.

I think the rest of the pages are just 50's style illustrations of white people.

WATERCOLORS

12.8 x 10.5 cm
These watercolors accompanied me to England, The Netherlands, Belgium, France, Spain, Italy, Guam, Hong Kong, Macao, Bali, and 15 of these United States.

1995 HONG KONG GUIDE BOOK

9.7 x 12.7 x .8 cm
I went to Hong Kong in 1997. I went there to experience what palpable change feels like, figuring that if there was anywhere that might play host to a tangible anticipation, it would be Hong Kong. 
I don't know if I found that specifically. In fact, I'm not certain that what I discovered won't change as the distance displayed in my rear view mirror elongates.  All I'm saying is that I'm banking on total enlightenment on my death bed. I figure that's fair.
What I do now know-- and always will-- is that he 1996 / 1995 transit system guide book to the city of Hong Kong (given to me by my father) is an example of righteous design. Righteous.