Sunday, November 28, 2021

"I Couldn't Have Stopped the Tears Unless I'd Chopped Out My Ducts with an Adze"


Torn page from Going Places by Leonard Michaels WITH - charred wood, lipstick, charcoal, pen, painter's tape and masking tape, 7 x 4.25 inches, Saturday, November 20th, 2021 Cathedral Hill, San Francisco.

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"The Old Testament"


Torn page from Going Places by Leonard Michaels WITH - lipstick, charred wood, pencil and pen, 7 x 4.25 inches, Saturday, November 20th, 2021 Cathedral Hill, San Francisco.

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"Dell bestsellers"


Torn page from Going Places by Leonard Michaels WITH - escort ad, glue, torn matchbook, pencil and charred wood, 7 x 4.25 inches, Saturday, November 20th, 2021 Cathedral Hill, San Francisco.

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Saturday, November 20, 2021

"Sacred Heart"


An original IBL photograph taken Wednesday, October 27th, 2021, Mustafio's Pizzeria, Polk and Post, San Francisco.

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"Crucifix"


An original IBL photograph taken Thursday, August 19th, 2021, on an alley just north of Grant and Union, North Beach,  San Francisco.

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"Cathedral Hill, San Francisco"


An original IBL photograph taken Tuesday, June 1st, 2021, Cathedral Hill, San Francisco.

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Friday, September 3, 2021

"The Jockey Did Not Answer"


Torn page from The Ballad of the Sad Cafe and Other Stories WITH - portion of ANOTHER torn page, crayon, lipstick, pencil, cellophane tape, staples and charred wood, 6.5 x 4.25 inches, Friday, August, 27th, 2021, R Bar, San Francisco.

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"Hope You Like Chicken Chow Mein, Motherfuckers"


Torn page from Leonard Michaels' Going Places WITH - pencil, pen, lipstick, cellophane tape and charred wood, 7 x 4.25 inches, Friday, August, 27th, 2021, R Bar, San Francisco.

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"Libertines, You Libertines"


Torn page from The Ballad of the Sad Cafe and Other Stories WITH - escort ads, cellophane tape, staples, pen and lipstick, 7 x 4.25 inches, Friday, August, 27th, 2021, R Bar, San Francisco.

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"Basket"


Escort ad, doily, plastic game, charcoal, cellophane tape, staples and bamboo basket on cardboard, 7.75 x 7 1/8 inches, June or (maybe?) July, 2021, Cathedral Hill, San Francisco.

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"In Order to Form a More Perfect Union"


Postage stamps on page from Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish (La Habra, California) historical document, 11 x 8.5 inches, Saturday, July 3rd, 2021, Cathedral Hill, San Francisco.

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(Original Untitled IBL Art)


This is something I poached from an earlier piece that appeared in these very pages on October 13th, 2018.  It never quite worked for me, but it was hanging around, and I decided to tear it in half and discard the bottom portion.  And now it works for me just fine.  Pencil, felt pen, crayon, charred wood, plastic cross and staples on cardboard with glue, 10.5 x 15.5 inches, Thursday, June 24th, 2021, Cathedral Hill, San Francisco.

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"The Image of the Divine Mercy - A Brief History of St. Faustina, Annotated"



The first photograph is the interior view, and the second the exterior.  The interior was annotated by my mother, though she might not have referred to it that way - two pink stickies and the underlined sentence.  The exterior was annotated by Your Humble Narrator - escort ads, glue and small portion of matchbook.  All of this on a religious pamphlet my mother sent me, 6.75 x 14 inches, June or (maybe?) July, 2021, Cathedral Hill, San Francisco.

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"Happy Daytime Special Memories"


Escort ads, glue, staples, cardboard, pen, charcoal, cocktail napkin, cellophane tape and pencil, on envelope for ordering grade school photographs, 8.5 x 8.5 inches, Saturday, June 12th, 2021, Cathedral Hill, San Francisco.

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Monday, June 14, 2021

"What Little View of the Sunset There Was We Made Sure To Ruin"


Scoring on photograph, 3.5 x 4.75 inches, Saturday, June 12th, 2021, Cathedral Hill, San Francisco.

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"Negated Sunset"


Scoring on photograph, 3.5 x 4.75 inches, Saturday, June 12th, 2021, Cathedral Hill, San Francisco.

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Tuesday, May 18, 2021

"Gimme Back My Bullets"


Painters' tape, cellophane tape, masking tape, pen, pencil, charcoal, glue, staples, torn piece from religious pamphlet and page from a collection of nun photos ALL ON record album sleeve, 12 x 12 inches, Saturday, May 15th, 2021, Cathedral Hill, San Francisco.

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"Crucifix"


An original IBL photograph taken Sunday afternoon, May 9th, 2021, Mission Bar, San Francisco.

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"Collaboration" (with Danielle McArthur)


Danielle always has some project that is in process, and sometimes she gets to a point where she's done with it, and is ready to move on, but she doesn't necessarily think it's finished.  So I asked her for a couple of those a few months back, and she obliged.  And they sat there for awhile and then one evening I pulled this one out and said to myself, "Why, that only needs a frame."  So everything inside the rectangle is Danielle's (and I will not speculate on all the materials, but I think paint and charcoal and pencil for sure), and then the frame is mine.  And the frame is - glue, pencil, felt pen, crayon, charcoal and lipstick.  14 x 17 inches, frame completed Saturday, April 10th, 2021, Cathedral Hill, San Francisco.

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"Cross"

An original IBL photograph taken Monday afternoon, April 19th, 2021, approximately Gough and Washington Streets, San Francisco.

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"I'm Miss World Somebody Kill Me"


Pen and pencil on paper, 8.5 x 6 inches, Saturday, April 10th, 2021, Cathedral Hill, San Francisco.

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"Highway 61 Revisited"


Portion of religious pamphlet, staple, paper, glue, pen, crayon and lipstick on Talisker box, 12 x 14.25 inches (when laid flat), Friday, April 9th, 2021, Cathedral Hill, San Francisco.

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"Liberation Theology"


Plastic Mary and Baby, paper towel and glue on album cover, 12 3/8 x 13.25 inches, Friday, April 9th, 2021, Cathedral Hill, San Francisco.

This one has been on my minds for YEARS, and I couldn't find the album in a used record shoppe to solve my materials problem.  But Dave Kuehn kindly handled that for me and surprised me with this as a gift, and for that I thank him, I surely do.

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"The Mercy Seat"


Posted several of these Mercy Seats last month (the search function works if ye want to try it!), and should be more in the pipeline, too.  Pen, pencil and lipstick on coaster, 3.75 x 3.75 inches, Saturday, March 27th, 2021, Cathedral Hill, San Francisco.

Intended for and subsequently shipped off via the U.S. Mail to Geoff Bankowski.

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Sunday, March 14, 2021

"We May Be Trash But We're A Family"


Family photograph, portion of religious pamphlet, pencil, charcoal, chalk, lipstick, felt pen and glue on cardboard, 11 x 13.75 inches, Saturday, March 6th, 2021, Cathedral Hill, San Francisco.

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"The Mercy Seat (Reverse Draft)"


And so but then after doing the two previous Mercy Streets, I decided to work backward and do what I think of as a reverse draft, as often times the bigger pieces spring from things I have initially done on cocktail napkins and coasters.  Which netted me this.

Pen, pencil, lipstick and charcoal on cocktail napkin, 4.75 x 4.75 inches, Sunday, March 7th, 2021, R Bar, San Francisco.

And, yes, as previously mentioned - there will be more Mercy Streets in the future, you can bet on that.

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"The Mercy Seat"


After doing the previous Mercy Seat, which took me several hours as I plotted out the aspects and materials, I thought it might be nice to just sort of do one in five minutes or less, which netted me this.

Pencil on torn butcher paper, 13 x 11.5 inches, Saturday, March 6th, 2021, Cathedral Hill, San Francisco.

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"The Mercy Seat"


And so this is what I waited nine years to do.  Slight changes from the tiny scrawl of the previous post; Danielle commanded me to stop before I added the crows and blood, arguing I could make another one and include those.  Which I plan to do.  She is a big fan of this, which certainly gave me some confidence, not going to kid you, and inspired me to do the two which you will see in the following posts.  And then, going forward, I'll be revisiting this some more, likely sooner than later (with crows and blood in at least one).

Charcoal, painters' tape, masking tape, pencil, pen, felt pen, chalk, crayon and staples on  printer paper, 22 x 17 inches, Saturday, February 13th, 2021, Cathedral Hill, San Francisco.

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"The Mercy Seat"


Pen on notebook paper with a staple, 3 1/8 x 3 inches, Saturday, March 24th, 2012, Little Red Hen, Green Lake, Seattle.

This was the very first version of Mercy Seat, from nearly nine years ago.  It was on a larger piece of paper and sort of scribbled into the corner as a pretty basic idea.  But I liked that basic idea, I did, and so did two more versions, larger, shortly after this, neither of which will be presented in these pages.  And so but then I always meant to come back to it, and now I have, as you will see in subsequent posts.

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Saturday, March 6, 2021

"Cross for Peeber (a.k.a. Here's to the Trains I've Missed)"


Charcoal, chalk, pencil, cellophane tape and lipstick on cocktail napkin, 5 x 4.5 inches, Saturday, February 27th, 2021, Cathedral Hill, San Francisco.

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"Cross for Chris Stokes"

A postcard fashioned out of a Talisker box for Chris Stokes of San Francisco, California - charcoal, lipstick, pencil and stickers on cardboard, 3 and 5/8  x  3 and 5/8 inches, Friday, February 26th, 2021, Cathedral Hill, San Francisco.

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"Library of Margaret Murray"

Lipstick and pencil on torn page of, likely, Shakespeare; a book owned by my Aunt Margaret when she was a teenager in school in Los Angeles, approximately 100 years ago.  6.5 x 4.25 inches, Saturday, February 13th, 2021, Cathedral Hill, San Francisco.

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My Recent Submission to the Whitney Museum of American Art




For complete context, take a look at the post immediately before this one.  The Whitney got a more basic cross (right, I know - even MORE basic!), but then I tucked it inside a CA state park fee envelope, sealed it, and called it something like "Black Cross Inside CA State Park Fee Envelope".  So the next time you are at the Whitney, keep an eye out.  Wednesday, January 27th, 2021, Cathedral Hill, San Francisco.

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"First and Second Black Crosses on Torn Pabst Packaging"


So what I was going to DO was make two little crosses, one for me and one for the Whitney (see subsequent post), but then Danielle walked out and was like, "What are you doing with those? Can I have them?" (Or words to that effect.)  So, you know, I gave them to her.  That's black painter's tape on the torn Pabst.  One's like 3.25 x 2.25 and the other 2.5 x 2.25.  Wednesday, January 27th, 2021, Cathedral Hill, San Francisco.

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"Postmark San Francisco Plus Self-Critique"


Crayon, lipstick, felt pen, pencil, painters' tape, charcoal, cellophane tape, torn newspaper, torn envelope, torn matchbook and staple on butcher paper, 7.5 x 9.75 inches, Saturday, January 23rd, 2021, Cathedral Hill, San Francisco.

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"The Book of Job"


Lipstick, felt pen, pencil, painters' tape and charcoal on butcher paper, 13.5 x 17.75 inches, Saturday, January 9th, 2021, Cathedral Hill, San Francisco.

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Saturday, February 27, 2021

A Supreme Being and the Age of Consent

Look, I'll I'm saying is that in regard to a potentially unwanted advance by a Supreme Being on a fourteen year old girl, I just think that maybe that Supreme Being could have demonstrated better judgement and shown some real leadership in terms of respecting the age of consent, that's all.

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Sunday, January 3, 2021

"The Gift of the Magi"


Newspaper fragment stapled to prayer card, 7.25 x 4.5 inches, Saturday evening, January 2, 2021, Cathedral Hill, San Francisco.

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"Mostly Black Crucifix on Cloth"


Painters' tape, stickers and glue on cloth, 11.5 x 11 inches, Saturday evening, January 2nd, 2021, Cathedral Hill, San Francisco.

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"Mostly Black Cross on Cloth"


Painters' tape, fragment from sheet of stamps and glue on cloth, 10.75 x 11.75 inches, Saturday evening, January 2nd, 2021, Cathedral Hill, San Francisco.

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Saturday, January 2, 2021

"I Made My Bed I'll Lie In It"


I really wanted to try something bigger, and here is my first pass.  Not unhappy with it.

Crayon, lipstick, felt pen, pencil, Christmas card glitter, charcoal, glue, painters' tape and stickers on butcher paper, 25.5 x 23.5 inches, early Wednesday morning, December 30th, 2020, Cathedral Hill, San Francisco.

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