Just a short posting this week.  As per my rule I made another Rubber Glove Angel because it snowed earlier in the week. That brings the total set of Rubber Glove Angels to a lucky number: Seven.   I think it's a good number, symbolically, when it comes to a series with the word angel in the title. I am aware that the number has a lot of significance in christianity, for example, representing things like "completion" and the "fulfillment of oaths."  So completing the set at 7 by fulfilling my oath to make rubber glove angels every week it snowed seems like a satisfying way ending to the work.

"Ellipses." is the third image in my series on punctuation marks.   This time I combined the image of the punctuation mark with a self-portrait and some ice cubes rather than close ups of brass fixtures from my bathroom.  The background is flour.   Therefore the image returns to the themes of water and food from earlier in the year when I was creating the “Secret Decoder Ring” Series.  I think including water in a self-portrait is particularly interesting since, as mentioned previously, people are 64% water.   And of course, food and water are serious concerns but here they are used playfully. The inclusion of flour, in particular, interested me here because it seemed somewhat reminiscent of snow; therefore, it referenced the Rubber Glove Angels.  I think this image makes a number of interesting connections to some of the things I have been doing over the last year.  
 
The most playful/humorous part is the self-portrait itself where I depict myself with a pencil trying to draw myself but my thumb keeps getting in the way.  This is ludicrous since if you were drawing yourself, your pencil would not be on the subject matter it would be on the paper. Furthermore, while ones thumb can get in the way for a photo it would be a real problem if you could not move it out of the way of your drawing.  This relates to a joke I make while teaching drawing…as I move around the room I ask the students to be careful not to include me in the work…  .

Once again, I took inspiration from the objects in my bathroom.  (Floating) Quotation Mark… is constructed from images of the hinge on my shower door, the top of my sink, my countertop, and a lemon. I set out with the goal of creating another image where the form  relates in some way to a punctuation mark.  However, I also wanted to create an illusion of something else.  I had two ideas…the quotation mark could actually be like the frames of glasses with eyes in them and/or they could be like a giant space monolith floating above some celestial object.  I decided to make both illusions.  The result is either some kind of awe inspiring space odyssey or a frowny face.
 
Ever since I created the rubber Glove Angels, I have become more interested in images where there are multiple possible ways to see the subject matter.  While this could be related to the work of the surrealists, my goal is simply to increase engagement with the work.   When something has more than one possible meaning people are encouraged to play a sort of “art-looking” game when they experience the work. That helps make it playful. This image, in particular, playfully combines a serious science fiction trop with an emoji and a punctuation mark.   The result alternates between dramatic, serious, and silly.  
 
This image also reminded me a lot of a painting because the counter top took on the look of abstract blobs of colour.  In fact, I had to digitally “paint” even more than usual in this image to create the forms I wanted.  As I continue with my project (during Covid) to make work from images captured in and around my home, it seems I am never at a loss for objects and surfaces that can be taken out of context and transformed into art of various kinds. Looking back at this year I might describe my artistic journey as one where I responded to my situation by retreating into a fantasy world of art, based on the mundane objects found in my house-- rather than striving to escape my confinement.  I don’t know if that’s the best explanation but it struck me as the kind of thing an art historian would say!  

This image began as another in my series of inside/outside images where the goal is to show something from within and without at the same time...thereby examining the nature of dualities.  In this case, it was the bottom of the glass wall of my shower.  Strangely enough a lot of my ideas come to me in the morning, sometimes while taking a shower, brushing teeth, etc.  For example, “Dirty Money” was inspired by my dirty sink.  This time I noticed the metal clip at the bottom of the shower glass has an interesting rusting pattern, messy grouting, and  possibly some mould…all of which gave it a painterly look. I thought I would combine two images of the inside and outside of the shower but after taking the first one, and zooming in on it, I was reminded of a green house or solarium….the metal clip even reminded me of a pot.
 
It seemed to me that the idea of a solarium or green house was in some ways related to the inside/outside theme, so I just needed some plants and water. I used a lemon tree that we have growing inside and bubbling hottub water from outside. As I put the image together I continued in my exploration with symmetry.  Much of the painterly background is unique but parts of it are cut and pasted to create subtle repetitions within the image’s pattern.  The tree itself was not going to be symmetrical at first. However, just to see what it might look like, I duplicated it and flipped one copy horizontally. Strangely enough the two trees blended together in an unexpectedly organic way.  The result, a tree that seems at first glance to be perfectly symmetrical, but when looked at more closely it reveals itself to be out of that ridged pattern in a number of places.
 
The final product was therefore somewhat unexpected again (a little like the Rubber Glove Angels). It began as a continuation of themes related to the inside/outside duality and morphed into something more about simply playing with symmetry. By the end I noticed it looked like an explanation point.  However, I am not sure if this image is making a statement or asking a question so I gave it the title, “Exclamation Point?”

Last week I created a Roy Lichtenstein inspired image (a comic book) so I figured I would stay on the topic of pop artists this week and channel Claes Oldenberg (absurd food art…although Oldenburg made sculptures…).  The title itself relates the image to playing.  However, playing with food is perhaps a little different than normal play.  Normally when someone plays it's a use of their free time and is done for pleasure. Playing with food on the other hand is something children do when they don’t want to eat the food they have been given.  It actually is using up their free time (which we try to explain to them) and is not very pleasurable.
 
Play is always a distraction from reality but playing with food makes the distraction component the most important part of the play (as opposed to the enjoyment component).  Distraction is an interesting phenomenon. When one is distracted one subtracts oneself from the environment.  Often one is distracted by a simulation (television, music, a video game, etc).  But when a kid plays with food he/she is intentionally distracting herself/himself with the very thing that is to be avoided…which I find interesting. It would be like distracting yourself from mowing the lawn by fiddling with the lawnmower…which I imagine some people do! I think we probably call the adult version of playing with food…procrastination. While distraction is a part of playing I suspect that when it becomes the most important part…something has gone wrong.
 
Maybe procrastination is the Bizarro form of play (Superman reference).  It has some of the same characteristics but, in important ways, it is the opposite. Play is healthy, fun, and positive. Its hard to say the same things about procrastination. This image contains chess pieces mixed with food. This obviously is strange because the two don’t go together, which is possibly a metaphor for the fact that play and procrastination don’t go together. 
 
The image also continues to play with symmetry.  Furthermore, I used plastic wrap rather than rubber gloves to partially obfuscate the subject matter this time.  I also became aware of a resemblance of this image to a flower…I considered taking that element further but decided to leave it where it was.

This week’s image is a return to the comic book style art I used to enjoy as a kid.   As a result, I think it’s one of my most playful images yet.  It is also clearly inspired by the artwork of Roy Lichtenstein, an artist I have always found interesting.  Best of all, the inspiration for creating this artwork came from a comical incident that happened to me.  I attempted to flick a fruit fly that was irritating me and missed…also cutting my finger in the process—which bled everywhere.  I then imagined the fruit fly was some sort of supervillain and this might finally be my superhero origin!  I came up with the name “Sporange”…the only word that rhymes with orange (something a fruit fly arch villain might plot to steal).
 
The image also continues with the theme of PPE as it includes both rubber gloves and a mask…but this time they are more incorporated into my superhero costume.  However, the most interesting aspect to the image, for me, was the play with symmetry.  A number of my images over the past 6 months have been dealing with symmetry...most notably the Rubber Glove Angels, which are mandala shaped.  This time I tried to push and pull at the symmetrical balance in ways that might cause some visual impact.   Rather than explain it all, I will leave that exploration to the viewer. Nuff Said.

First of all, this image is the third in my “Technical Exercise.” series and it’s worth noting that I simply pick a number for each one (this is #8, out of 3).  That’s because part of the point of these images is to have a little fun with the entire notion of technical exercises, which normally would be done in a specified order, according to a curriculum.   But, of course, these are not really technical exercises.
 
This latest one is a combination of a self-portrait with one of  two diagrams I often improvise on the chalk board during class to illustrate the difference in tension between when one touches the border of an image with subject matter vs. when one doesn’t.   This phenomena may best be learned by comparing Matisse’s famous image of "Dancers" with his similar image of "Musicians."  In some beginner classes I will ask students to make similar little compositions (technical exercises).  But here the circles are photographs of chess pieces and oranges submerged in the snow and digitally combined.  As I made them, I thought of them as little pucks or petri dishes…which I suppose plays into two of my themes…play and (recently) germs.
 
The fun part of this image (for me) is the fact that although I balanced it, in a formal sense, due to the positioning of the face the viewer may be very tempted to turn the image 90 degrees. Thus, the failure of the technical exercise…even though one may follow all the rules of composition, there are other aspects at play. Form is only one aesthetic component of an image—subject matter and content also have their place. This image pits the balancing of form against the desire to consume content in a familiar way.  My hope is that people viewing the image on social media will turn their phones to the side and then maybe the screen will automatically adjust in a way that foils them…making the image interactive, and a bit of a frustrating game.
 
Once again I have included wingdings, this time to confound and/or overdo the stated goal of the image to activate the picture frame. The message in the wingdings (if decoded) reinforces their purpose in this regard. However, the wingdings also have their usual decorative role here as well.  By decorating the border, they help transform the entire image into what I believe is something like the back of a deck of “Jason Hunter” themed playing cards, or even Tarot cards. The images on the backs of cards are usually either formulaic (like the front) or so independent that they do not signify their relationship to playing cards in any way (pictures of buildings, landscapes, animals, etc.).  Somehow, I think the wingdings and other decorative qualities of the composition all work together to suggest this image is the back of a card.  And, if it was, you could easily turn this Jason Hunter playing card 90 degrees to examine the portrait.

​I have created three more Rubber Glove Angels by attempting to reproduce the accident that led to the first one. I have found that when I create something by accident, and then try to recreate the process, it’s never quite the same. This case was no different.  In some ways, the recreations never live up to the original. On the other hand, they are often far more polished.   I think some of this is probably psychological…the original accident achieves an additional level of significance precisely because it was a surprise.  Attempts to do it again seem contrived.
 
However, as I said previously, I make work that is contrived. It is contrived because it tends to be deliberately created rather than spontaneous. I don’t consider contrived a dirty world and, therefore, I appreciate these new, polished, and more deliberate Rubber Glove Angels.  I may even create a few more the next time it snows.
 
Creating these images is fun and playful in terms of the process and I believe several of the images themselves look playful in one way or another.  They seem to me to look like strange, organic creatures…maybe like the odd little characters in many of the paintings by Joan Miro. The best part about them is that they are kind of like a Rorschach test in that people tend to see different things in them. That act is, in itself, a playful undertaking…like lying on the ground and finding images in the clouds. The viewers of the Rubber Glove Angels seem encouraged to be more active in their interpretation. I have noticed so far that they are less likely to ask what my intention was, and more likely to volunteer what they think it looks like.  In doing so they take agency and complete the artistic activity that began when I made the image.  

This image came about as I was looking around my house (as usual) for ideas for a new machine.  Looking out the window I saw that the pile of snow on one of the flower boxes looked like a load of bread.  Bread is a very topical subject now since many people, locked down in their houses, have been obsessing over baking it…and even more so over sharing their images of the final product.  So, I figure now its my turn.
 
All that was required was to change the colours of it and presto…there was a loaf of bread sitting right there on my porch rail.  Of course, the question remained…how did it get there?  Well clearly, I built a machine that baked bread both inside and outside your house!  I envision this machine as kind of like an air conditioner.   Its sits on your window sill but instead of making the inside colder it can make things on either the inside or outside hotter.  This is the kind of leap of logic one can make living in a world where there are so many complex things that understanding becomes irrelevant. I noticed recently that commercials use the logic I have been using here on a regular basis.   A popular cleaner advertisement showed someone spraying the cleaner on giant red pill shaped germs and, through the power of digitization, they all vanished!  
 
This image still deals with transparency but to push things a bit further I did something different.   I went back to a more direct exploration of the concept of inside and outside…which, it is worth noting, is certainly there in an exploration of transparency.   I therefore used the same technique to begin the creation of the machine as I used with my earlier image, Two Sides Away From My Front Door.  Then, as I continued to edit the image, I made sure to emphasize the direct use of transparency within the composite of the machine.  I also repurposed my plug coins from the Dirty Money image as some sort of radiation warning and included some wingdings letters which, for a change, I will share…it says “Danger Due to Fake Radiation.”

The first Rubber Glove Angel was an accident.  I am not a big fan of the modern art propensity for “accidentally” creating art because it came with a very narcissistic side narrative that artists possessed some sort of divine inspiration or magic by which this was done.  My art is highly planned, perhaps even contrived (a dirty word in modern art). That’s not to say that I don’t work through a process and often end up with something not exactly like what I set out to make.  That’s to be expected.  When imagining new art, one’s mind is not inhibited by a little thing I like to call, “reality”, and so it is not uncommon for the process to involve shifts from what was envisioned. But this one was an accident.
 
I was working on a new imaginary way to bake bread (sorry, spoiler alert…coming soon).  As part of that project, I photographed some gloves in the snow on my deck because I was planning to incorporate them into the image.  I loaded the photograph of the gloves on to the computer and, as planned, it was a very high key (white)  image.  I was tweaking the levels (contrast) and while doing so I decided to see what it would look like if I balanced the histogram so it had a normal curve (as if it was not a high key image).   In a photo of this nature this often brings out colours you did not see originally (they were just faint tints within the white).  The snow turned blue and the rubber glove turned yellow-orange.  This was close to a colour dyad and there was an instant simultaneous contrast.  So I though “maybe I can use this version…I will just abstract it by turning part of it into a mandala (taking a square of the image and copying it 4 times to make it symmetrical).  As soon as I did that, I saw this face looking at me.  For a while I thought, “I don’t make art this way”. I contemplated ditching it…but I really kind of liked it.
 
So, I reflected on what I had done.   I had created imprints in the snow with gloves and then made them symmetrical in photoshop.  Symmetrical imprints in the snow…hmmm, sounds like snow angels.  Hence, Rubber Glove Angels were born.  They are playful, can be done from home, and involve some of my favourite subject matter.  So, I decided to make a new rule: Whenever there is a fresh snowfall, I will stop my current project and go out and have some fun in the snow, making Rubber Glove Angels.