A few evenings ago, I made an Eno Fest supplies
run to the home of my good friends Scott and Amy Durso. Scott and Amy live near
Jordan Lake, and it was Amy who just last Fall alerted me to the bonanza of
tires neatly stacked on the boat ramp, booty, as it turned out, from a bank
blitz by Fran Di Giorno, with the Army Corps of Engineers driving the get away
pantoon.
(LINK TO PREVIOUS POST)
Scott and Amy have been nice enough to allow me temporary storage of
these tires in their lovely forest, using a trailer as an all too fitting container for
this pile ;)
While Scott and Amy tried to warn me about the substantial
risk of copperheads in the pile, I have to confess that my real focus that evening was not
the snakes I should have been watching for, nor the tires that I should have
been loading. Instead, I was captivated by a tiny little fellow who seemed to
have made my pile of tires his home, or at least his man-cave- what we call
here a ‘fence racer’.
Well the fact that that day was Summer Solstice the longest day of the year, worked
well in my favor, and well against his, because I hunted and harassed that poor
fellow around and around and around those piles of tires well into the damp and
dimming night. I think he would have agreed that it was probably the longest day of his year!
“Man, are you still followin me? What do you WANT FROM ME?!” He seemed to ask, as he eyed me accusingly. I tried to explain that all I wanted to
capture was his image, his jagged, scaly skin, and serpentine curves, played
out elegantly against the scaley, curving surface of the tires. To capture him
crouching in the cool cavernous curves of tire architecture. Didn’t he know, he
was a coup de gras!
Finally, once I felt satifyied that I had sufficiently
drained the evening of its last drops of sunlight, and distilled from this
scene the best images that I was going to get with the equipment and patience
that I had, I resumed my sorting and collecting of tires, careful as I could
be, not to let these behemoths roll over on him.
At some point, I was relived to hear a plop in leaves behind
me, and see him scamper over to the base of a small dogwood tree. While he
seemed a little exasperated, as if to say “fine, have your stinking tires!” it
was somewhat relieving to see him returning to this other, native home of his,
whose winding grooves are perhaps a little bit softer, more ancient and more
delicate, like him. But no, I can’t blame you buddy, I think tires are cool
too!
TIRE PRINTS
(Two found object prints, from the same site, of very
different sorts)
CALLOGRAPH
While I was collecting tires at Scott and Amy’s, I came
across an interesting phenomenon, two, very different, Tire Prints.
Now, tire printing is not a completely new concept. Tire tracks in the sand etc.
But this is a kind that I have never seen, or rather, never
paid attention too…
The first of these was I guess what I would call a Natural
Callograph. In printmaking, to make a callograph, the artist uses a large
mechanical wheel to press various textured objects into the ‘ground’ or layer
of resist on the plate, before the impressions are etched. This can be a lot of
fun!
In this case, ‘the ground’ was literally, the ground! A tire
at the bottom of a stack of tires, had, pressed by the weight of those above
it, left the tire’s radio-symmetric cupped impression in this surface.
The plants beneath had blanched from lack of luck and light,
and a long earthworm had taken up residence there in.
Additionally, while removing this tire, which happened to be
one with a lot of river water still left captured inside of it, some of this
rusty, orange water seeped up, filling, and following the groove left by the
tire, and creating a bright orange ring!
I wish that knew how to follow through, and create an actual
print from this embellished surface. For the time being, this digital
impression will have to do…
MONO PRINT
For some reason, this had a very specific ‘impression’ on
me, some kind of primal Rorshac of Anima.
This was infact the impression of a tire and its wheel hub left on a sheet of plastic covering the tires to keep them from become a misquito nursery. Pine needles had piled up on the plastic, acting as the slow weight of a printing press, pressing it down on the tire. Condensation collecting under the tarp appearently aided in making this image.
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| "I'm an artist too!" One more denizen of the Moncure Tire Mines |
Speaking of prints, I worked my favorite shot from the series of the lizard into a poster.
I'll post it to my Speyedr Graphix & Illustration blog asap, and provide a link.
