icons
 

The Process

I agreed to do a piece for this show before having any idea about what I might do. Then Ruth called to check up on the artists and we had a great conversation about laws, Joseph and web sites. Again, I said I would come up with some sort of piece that would exist in conjunction with the show accessible via a link.

A week went by and then another. I did some research. The invitation came in the mail with my name on it and still – I did not have an idea.

Then I was at my folks house for my fathers birthday dinner, he showed me a big chunk of dead tree that they had taken down. He often saves those sorts of things because they are interesting. The chunk of tree had an organic looking bulge and reminded me of the icon idea.

They gave me the JCL catalog that my brother had picked up from the mail. Again, there it was my name on the list. After dinner we talked about what the “second commandment” is about and if the bowing down was more important to avoid than the making of an image. I jokingly said, of course if I used icon as a web search term I would get ...

I have used the idea of the electronic icon before. In 2001, I set up discrete physical objects on a desktop; each object represented access into a branch of stuff I was working on. It was an attempt to have a presence in a physical gallery that tied to work that was a network of concepts, actions, and objects… and there was that piece for the fear symposium.

Anyway, so then I had the idea for this piece.

With the idea was the realization that having my name on the list of participating artists and not producing any piece at all was actually a good piece. I am also accomplishing that piece.

No piece at all --- the absence of a divine image object.