My art aims to convey my reaction to the Sonoran Desert landscape, both ancient and futuristic, simultaneously. I could happen upon an opening in a cliffside revealing a thousand-year-old tomb or discover a beacon placed on a rocky ridge planted there by otherworldly beings. Glowing, imaginary computer data overlay my vision adapting to each view I take in. The desert is also mysterious, leading you on, triggering questions that need explanation.
A writing exercise I try is to formulate a sentence without proper nouns, only descriptors, and abstract prose. I find essential, descriptive, and sometimes ambiguous facts that describe the artwork and construct a list. I am investigating object-oriented theory, which defines every object, living being, environment, even a single idea by its sets of data categories, like a computer database, a writer's outline, or a list.
The text accompanying each art piece is written in plain English and penned in a font I created called "Quotasoon." The process of designing a letter involves removing the left side of it, if possible while conveying a recognizable form. I could have made a set of nonsense symbols or a complicated code, making it nearly impossible to interpret. There is still a learning curve to reading the font. Hopefully, it draws you in as "cracking the code" deepens the mystery.
I develop my ideas during hiking or camping trips in the Sonoran Desert in Arizona and Mexico. My compadres are generally scientists or photographers. To their amusement, I casually snap multiple shots of subjects, backgrounds, and close-up textures as I wander around an area. Although the process seems arbitrary, there is a real purpose to my photos. Like a filmmaker scouting a location, I'm sourcing parts of a composition.
As a graphic designer, I'm involved in the user interface design of software (buttons, displays, and logic of what a user sees.) I'm using these ideas as an overlay to the natural scenes and exploring what it means to have 'controls' or 'readouts' or 'coordinates' in our experience. If I can, I try to incorporate actual data into my pieces. For instance, the frame of the hummingbird piece is the elongated tweet of the bird itself, taken from a recording. Designs are hand-drawn with a Crow Quill pen and India ink on Arches paper. These are then scanned and digitally colored. I love the look of computer-like imagery rendered in this way with my shaky drawing style. It conveys the ancient-futuristic feel I'm aiming for.
Product:
The 9"x12" 48-page book is printed locally on quality matte text paper stock with a soft-touch cover on a 6-color Heidelberg offset press.
Process:
Artwork is first inked using Crow Quill and India ink. This image is scanned and then digitally colored with graphics software.