Another Anecodted Topography of Chance started by chance. It was late September 2019, just before Covid-19. I was visiting my father-in-law in Brooklyn NY, he was in a hospice. I had never wheeled a wheel-chair through cities and restaurants with someone close to death in it. I had read self-identified crip-poet Laura Hershey's poem In the Way. When I exited the hospice a taxi picked me up. Nothing would make me smile. The cabbie was chatty anyway, and asked what I do. I old him I was an artist and teacher. We talked about things. At the airport - LaGuardia, as he pulled into the offloading section, he handed me a weekly that he was reading called "Caribbean Life". He said, "Make art with this and give it to your father-in-law." I said okay. A month later my father-in-law passed away. A few months later Covid-19 hit, the entire world was quarantining. Elders' last rites in hospitals and hospices were performed on-line, through glass, or not at all. By the end of 2020, 81% of the pandemic's deaths were over 65 (listed at 282,836). I couldn't figure out what to make with the weekly Caribbean Life. I read it. I left it around in view. I did what Thoreau suggests and let the idea come to me. My art processes tucked into constructivist logics at a making-scale that fit my home-studio-office. Daniel Spoerri's "an anecdoted topography of chance" was at hand. I was not smiling much those days. Grandpa was a constant presence in my families life. We were in grief. I kept looking at the Caribbean Life and one day the smiles all stood out. I quickly calculated an analytical drawing grid superimposing all 24-pages of the weekly. Constructed my collage and drawing algorithm, and went to town. When I was finished with the collage, I made the corresponding map. Instead of sketching each object like an archeologist might and as Spoerri annotated finds, I constructed small models from the pages like an architect would. I engaged the materials, like lighting-gels, that I had at hand.
This is an on-going project and has not been exhibited or published.
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