7 ELEVEN SANDWICH CLUB CARD

 

11.3 x 6.4 x .5 cm

This is very old and stamped only once. I never did become an active member of the 7-Eleven Sandwich Club.

BUTTERFLY ACCORDION

12.7 x 8.5 x 2.4 cm
I bought these as stocking stuffers in like 1999. In our family, you buy stocking stuffers for everyone's stocking, even your own. Ok, so in like 1999 I used everyone else's stocking as an excuse to buy myself this cute and useless and beautifully over-designed Chinese toy.

HAND DRILL

15.0 x 22.0 x 18.0 cm
This is a hand crank. I got it from my neighbor Lois when I helped her clean out her basement. I have no idea what it cranks, but it cranks by hand.

SEATBELT

7.2 x 30 x 3.5 cm
I indeed did own my dream car: a mid-eighties Volvo 240 station wagon, cornflower blue. A perfect form married to absolute function. Except that the function part didn't work out so well.
After only a year-and-a-half together, I donated the thing. And knowing what "donated" means (see: metal cube), I extracted the seat belts before I bid her adieu. I thought maybe someday I'd use them for something.

TRIP BOX

23.8 x 4.3 x 18.5 cm
Darryl and I drove across the country in 1997. Took us about a month. I kept random small ephemera from the trip in this box. I labeled the box 'trip'.

POLAROID DAY GLASSES INSTRUCTIONS

11.7 x 4.5 x .1 cm

In 1998 I drove across the country with Daryl. I filmed things, some 35mm, some super 8. This is a thermal print of two sequential stills from the super 8 footage. The image is of the Lonon Lodge outside of New Orleans. Thinking back on the trip, the process, the artifacts, the dire hotel itself, I cannot think of anything more analog. Not even a fucking LP.

CYPRESS CREEK COUNTRY CLUB SCORE CARD

15.3 x 12.8 cm
I am not a golf player. My grandfather was . When I was a kid, we played golf together: a man waning in his abilities with a kid who would never really care to wax his. But whatever. I was hanging out with my grandfather, and that's a good thing.

SILVER CIGARETTE CASE

8.0 x 9.5 x 1.5 cm
I used to smoke cigarettes. 

FABRIC FROM MY CHAIR

23 x 16 x .2 cm
When I was a sophmore in college I bought a hilariously ironic green chair from the salvation army. I owned it for about 5 years, at which point its irony had disipated and its true wear became apparent. At that point in my life, though, it represented the throne upon which I observed the world from upon high. And for about 20% of my life thus far, no less.
When trash night came-- THE trash night-- I cut a swath from the area upon which my right hand would rest. As a momento.
I do hope to someday return to my intellectual glory.

FLUSH EL BLANCO CARD

13.9 x 12.6 cm
My buddy Eoin Killeen made an album, and I made custom album covers, screenprinted on chipboard. You know what's frustrating? To watch the stupid world around me not listen to Eoin's incredible music is frustrating. Sigh.

SACRED HEART MUG

8.2 cm diamter x 9.5 cm
When Rory and Leah came to visit New York from Northern Ireland in 2003, we went to the San Gennaro festival in Little Italy. They were amused by al the religious stuff there, by how it didn't carry the same political weight it did back home. Like, you could buy a Virgin Mary mug and not have that also come with an automatic stamp denoting your specific political leanings. Ah, the simple life. In celebration of that revelation, they bought me a mug. This mug.

DREMEL ELECTRIC ENGRAVER

4.5 x 6 x 15.5 cm
Duke gave me this because it was broken and he knew that instead of throwing it out he should give it to me because remnant of function when paired with that stunning cream color of old tools should never, never, never be merely cast aside. Thanks Duke.

500 MILE RACE CUSHION

37 x 37 x 4 cm
My Grandparents went to the Indy 500 one year, an event at which they procured a cushion. 

EXTENSION CORD CASE

19.5 x 24.3 x 8.7 cm
Growing up, if my mom asked me to get the extension cord, I would retrieve this orange plastic form from the laundry room. The mechanism that the cord was manually wound around eventually broke, but by that time, the orange form had become a shape too near and dear-- and orange-- for me to simply discard.

DEAD BIRD ENVELOPE

15 x 27 cm
I found a dead bird on the street one day. It was run over by something. I know that because of its flatness, the kind achieved almost exclusively by being run over by something. Maybe it was this flatness that made me think of this dead bird as collage material, but in any case, I kept it. I put it in an envelope that I wrote 'DEAD BIRD' on. Many months later I opened that envelope. You know, it is amazing how long a flat dead bird can retain its unpleasant odor.

COLLAGE WALL PART

19.7 x 14.7 x 1.5 cm
I made this big collage wall for an animation job in 1997. Then I used the panels of that collage wall to build an office in the production company I was working with. Then I collaged more on those walls once they were erected as part of a wall. Then the company closed its office and I took parts of that wall that I liked. This is one of those parts.

5 PATACAS COIN

2.7 cm diameter
Macau is about 40km south of Hong Kong, I think. It was a Portuguese colony from the 16th century until 1999. When I went there in 1997,  I found out that the first language was Cantonese, the second Portuguese. I found that out by not being able to talk to anyone. I would just point at food items and hand people patacas. I'm pretty sure I got a fare deal most of the time.

CHINESE GAME INSTRUCTIONS

36 x 26 cm

Chinatown offers a veritable cornucopia of stocking stuffers. One year I bought a handsome little board game for everyone with instructions that looked incredibly complicated. Now, I know I don't read Chinese, but I mean these things looked indecipherable for Confucius himself.

GOMPY'S PARTS BOX

31.5 x 14 x 14.7 cm
My Grandfather was an engineer, a railroad man. He taught me how to work with my hands. There are several hundred tiny parts in this box. He put them all there. They each had a use, they each had a purpose.

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.

6 WOODEN HANDLES

1.6 x 1.6 x 1.6 cm
I made a bunch of handles for a piece of art many years ago. In fact, I made too many handles. I kept the excess. There is no story here. Perhaps just indication of a reticence to waste, perhaps just indication of reticence to let go. I'm going to stop typing now.

VANESSA DAGUERROTYPE

5.0 x 6.4 cm
I'm supposed to be able to write about everything I put in this dumpster. While this object is already included, I think I'll keep what it means for myself.

TYPESETTER

5.2 x 17.2 x 1.8 cm
Before photoshop, there were metal objects and thousands of hours. I'm no luddite; I'm not saying that was a better time. I am saying, however, at that time the world housed a plentitude of handsome steel things.

FUTBOL MEDALLION

3.5 x 4.5 x .2 cm

I don't know why anyone would want a necklace of a guy playing soccer with a volleyball.

RUSTY METAL PLATE

8.1 x 5.7 cm
This was the cover of a hole in a bigger metal box that I made art of. I didn't need the hole cover plate for the piece of art, but I couldn't just throw it out. You can't just fake that kind of patina, man. 

TERRORIST ATTACK EDUCATIONAL CARDS

6.7 x 10.8 x .5 cm
Aaron gave me these. Aaron has given me a number of things over the years, and every one of them has been pretty god damn incredible. These cards, pardon me, "educational cards" depict all sorts of evil folks, like Idi Amin, The Shah of Iran and Saddam Hussein. Ironically, there is no mention on these "educational cards" about how pretty much everyone depicted on one of them was in some way a CIA puppet. 
Great, now I sound crazy talking about a set of trading cards that really didn't need any help being viewed as retarded. Ahhh, the dissenter's paradox. It's a bitch. Thanks Aaron.

HURLING BALL

68 cm circumference 

Have you ever heard of hurling? This is the ball they use for it. Rory gave this to me, along with a couple of the weapon-like sticks they use to play the game. Basically hurling makes the toughest hockey player in the world look like some whining futbol player rolling around 37 times on times on the ground 'cause someone looked at his shoe. 

16 MM 100' ROLL FILM CASE AND THE FARM MAC PREMO CARD

Cardholder - 9.8 x 9.7 x 2.5 cm
Card - 8.9 x 5.1 x .1 cm
I moved to New York City in 1995. A small production company called The Farm took me in, gave me opportunities that most 22 year-olds wouldn't have had. They made me business cards and I kept them in a 16mm 100' roll film canister. Hi John, Hi Sharon.

ORANGE WALLET

11.3 x 8.8 x 1.2 cm
My wife gave me this wallet for my birthday one year. I really love the color orange, and I really love my wife. The end.

NO CASH VALUE TOKEN

2.8 cm diameter x .15 cm
Cash is perhaps the least valuable thing in the world. The Maryland Shore, however, is very, very valuable. 

PULLEY

5.4 x 26.7 x 7.9 cm
For a while I went to garage sales looking for pulleys so I could make a piece of art made out of a system of pulleys. I bought like 4 pulleys, and then they just rusted outside. Pulleys don't work when they rust, and I never made that piece of art. So instead of just failing, I failed AND ruined several otherwise functioning objects. Sweet.

GAS GAUGE

14.2 x 14.0 x 7.0 cm
Gas gauge. Measures gas. I guess. Or pressure of gas. Maybe. There are a lot of things I don't know.

BALLERINA CLOCK PART 2

5.6 x 5.0 x 4.4 cm
So I bought this clock in really grungy barn sale outside of Canandaigua, New York and it had this little spinning ballerina that rotated in the t.v. window. It didn't work, so I took it apart to examine the parts, reassign their functions, all that. But then I lost the little ballerina. Look, I don't lose collage stuff. I can't find my phone when its in my hand sometimes, but I don't lose collage material. I was never able to do anything with this clock casing because it just reminded me too much of the little ballerina part that I'd lost.

FOLDING TAPE MEASURE

2.4 x 19.2 x 1.7 cm
My wife bought this for me in Hillsboro, Oregon. That was before we were even dating, when we were just friends, roommates in the East Village. She said it reminded her of me. I should've known right then and there that we'd someday be married.

ELEPHANT CAR WASH COUPON

8.4 x 5.7 cm
When Daryl and I rented a car in 1998 and drove from DC to Seattle by way of New Mexico, we didn't once wash our car. We vacuumed it at the very end, at the Elephant Car Wash is Seattle, but we were too proud of the bug patina encrusteing its exterior to watch it washed away.

PALL MALL CIGARETTE PACK

7.5 x 10.2 x 1 cm
These were from Hunter and I went to California to visit my dad in December, 1991. I smoked Pall Malls because Vonnegut did, and Hunter and I would go for walks at night and before we left, we'd ask each other if we had "the socks", which was code for the Pall Mall cigarettes. We thought we were very clever. I know I was stupid, but even in my forties and not having smoked for a decade and so much better for it, I have to admit that I don't feel any shame in having smoked Pall Malls because Vonnegut did. I kind of think that' still cool, even if I could only handled the filtered version.

FLOPPY DISK IN SWEATER

9.7 x 9.5 x 1.5 cm
Jonny delivered a script for me to read in a makeshift case made out of the wristband of a wool sweater. I kind of fell in love with the collage it made: digital content in organic casing, all blue and found-object-feeling. I think Jonny has an innately wonderful brain. 

AMSTERDAM COLOR WORKS RAW UMBER PAINT CAN

11 cm diameter x 12.5 cm
I think there is an inverse relationship between handsomeness of design and evilness of product content. So much handsomeness, so much lead. 

MAN'S HEAD LITHO BLOCK

4.5 x 6.8 x 2.2 cm
This looks like a passport photograph plate. I'm certain no such lengths were ever taken to create a passport, but that sounds wicked handsome, like as if official documents were inspired by the aesthetic of the Wall Street Journal, circa 1983.

DIVING MASK

14.9 x 13.8 x 9 cm
I bought this at a flea market in Fort Greene, Brooklyn in 2008. I was making art that had video inside it at the time, so I was looking for glasses or stuff like that which could be retrofitted to serve as the viewing component to the piece. My wife spotted this diving mask. I remember that she expressed excitement that she was participating in my art somehow, and I remember feeling how weird that was. Didn't she know that she is the most influential person in my life, that she participates in everything I do, everyday? So I told her that. The end.

METAL PLATE WITH ORANGE PAINT

7.7 x 3.1 x 1 cm
Here is a list of all the things that I love about this small object I picked up on 2nd avenue in the late 90's:
1. It was orange at some point.
2. It is beat up good.
3. I don't know what it is.

GOLD FLASK BOTTLE

7.0 x 14.5 x .3 cm
This was my grandfather's. His name was George John Johanek, hence the GJJ. He wasn't much of a drinker, as far as I know. I think this was part of a dopp kit, intended to hold cologne. I have to admit, that kind of disappoints me.

BASEBALL YAMAKA

14.2 cm diameter x 3.7 cm
I got this at Kaz and Shaydon's bris. There was a bucket of them by the door, because everybody is supposed to don one at such a ceremony. I found this one and was so excited by it that I was allowed to keep it. I wore it the whole way home from New Jersey to Brooklyn. Also, I'm not Jewish.

BROWN LEATHER BELT

40 cm x 100 cm
This is a leather belt I owned that almost fit. The holes were fitted at whole-number inch increments, and I am more of a half-size waisted guy. So I added a hole. 

OLD SKATEBOARD

62 x 17 x 1.5 cm
I bought this in the flea market section of the Bethesda Farmer's Market in the late 80's. It is a Stacey Peralta model G&S, circa 1977, perfect condition. It came with Bowl Roll wheels and Gullwing trucks. It cost me $20, and would probably be worth fifteen-times that if I had kept it in the condition I purchased it. But I didn't keep it it the condition I purchased it in; I skated it into the ground. 

BOTTOM OF PORTABLE

46 x 16 x 8.9 cm
I made this piece of art called 'Portable'. Eventually I dissected it for parts. The top half actually sold in Miami. This is the original bottom half, which, although it has a wheel, proved rather un-portable. 

SLAVERY ENDORSED FREE CHALUPA CERTIFICATE

9 x 7.5 x .1 cm
In 2006, the National Basketball Association passed what they called the 'Zero Tolerance Policy', which states that once a player is called for a foul, if he protests in a manner deemed too animated by the officiating staff, he can receive a technical foul or be ejected. 
Rasheed Wallace, a celebrated recipient of the technical foul, responded by saying: 'In my mind, it's kind of like a slave and master'.
So a couple days after he says this, I'm in Portland and I go to a Trailblazers game with my wife and her dad. Rasheed is a Trailblazer, and even though he is on the home team, the whole arena erupts in a chorus of boos every time he touches the ball. 
Late in the game, Rasheed is fouled and sent to the line for two free throws.
Suddenly, the arena breaks out in wild applause. I'm confused. There are but seconds left in the game, and the Trailblazers are up by 10 points, 99 - 89. What gives?
Turns out, if the Blazers score 100 points in a win, everyone gets a free chalupa from Taco Bell. 'Sheed nails one of free throws and we all get free food.
Apparently, all it takes to forgive an insulting and egregious overstatement by a man payed millions and millions of dollars to play a game is a chalupa. 
A fucking chalupa.

PINEAPPLE PAPER

20 x 25 x 1 cm (folded)
When pineapples are packaged, they are separated by these thick sheets of paper. I used one of these as the base for the collage book / album cover I made for Louque in the late 90's. Then we had the idea of making a run of handmade album covers inspired by the collage book / album cover, so I went collecting these things. They are actually kind of hard to find; pineapples aren't always in season. Also, the dudes who unpack them usually don't speak a lot of English and really don't want to talk much.

DOLL ARM

1.5 x 8 x 1.2 cm
Detached doll parts are always creepy. Always.

OLIVE JOHANEK FUNERAL CARD

6 x 10 x .1 cm
The night before my grandmother's funeral, I went bowling with my cousin Chris and his wife Hannah. We were in Rochester, New York, Olive Irene 'Bunny' Johanek's home town, where she was to be laid to rest after almost 95 years on this earth.
Chris ordered a round of brandy alexanders, a rather disgusting drink, but Bunny's favorite. As I remember, he raised his demure beverage by its delicate glass handle and said "To Gommy" (that's what we called her), and then immediately bowled a strike. He may have even still had the little glass in his hand.
I know this is not how the events transpired, not exactly. Close enough: Olive did live; we did bowl; we did drink weird brandy drinks; Olive did die. This is her funeral card.