Pop Stoppages 2014-23

Pop Stoppage: whirring_#400

Pop Stoppage: rang_#399

Pop Stoppage: clove_#398

Pop Stoppage: thirstily_#397

Pop Stoppage: nuzzling_#396

Pop Stoppage: dame_#395

Pop Stoppage: meatfaced_#394

Pop Stoppage: jackets_#393

Pop Stoppage: hurried_#392

Pop Stoppage: canteen_#391

Pop Stoppage: pitches_#390

Pop Stoppage: bookies_#389

Pop Stoppage: brakes_#388

Pop Stoppage: jog_#387

Pop Stoppage: honour_#386

Pop Stoppage: horseback_#385

Pop Stoppage: squire_#384

Pop Stoppage: gruff_#383

Pop Stoppage: rocky_#382

Pop Stoppage: topboots_#381

Pop Stoppage: motto_#380

Pop Stoppage: boast_#379

Pop Stoppage: ba_#378

Pop Stoppage: proudest_#377

Pop Stoppage: youth_#376

Pop Stoppage: embarrassed_#375

Pop Stoppage: strongroom_#374

Pop Stoppage: stowing_#373

Pop Stoppage: bound_#371

Pop Stoppage: pocketbook_#370

Pop Stoppage: coat_#369

Pop Stoppage: settlement_#368

Pop Stoppage: financial_#367

Pop Stoppage: step_#366

Pop Stoppage: hasty_#365

Pop Stoppage: gentiles_#364

Pop Stoppage: stale_#363

Pop Stoppage: garish_#362

Pop Stoppage: many_#361

Pop Stoppage: sharp_#360

Pop Stoppage: fussily_#359

Pop Stoppage: angry_#358

Pop Stoppage: strife_#357

Pop Stoppage: jockeyed_#356

Pop Stoppage: sorted_#355

Pop Stoppage Series: hue_#354

Pop Stoppages 2010-14

Pop Stoppage Series: copied_#353

Pop Stoppage Series: shady_#352

Pop Stoppage Series: mocking_#351

Pop Stoppage Series: wearing_#350

Pop Stoppage Series: letters_#349

Pop Stoppage Series: mummery_#348

Pop Stoppage Series: morrice_#347

Pop Stoppage Series: knock_#346

Pop Stoppage Series: prostrate_#345

Pop Stoppage Series: fifteen_#344

Pop Stoppage Series: futility_#343

Pop Stoppage Series: touched_#342

Pop Stoppage Series: signature_#341

Pop Stoppage Series: sloping_#340

Pop Stoppage Series: headline_#339

Pop Stoppage Series: glasses_#338

Pop Stoppage Series: misty_#337

Pop Stoppage Series: unreadiness_#336

Pop Stoppage Series: witness_#335

Pop Stoppage Series: grandmother_#334

Pop Stoppage Series: burying_#333

Pop Stoppage Series: pencils_#332

Pop Stoppage Series: books_#331

Pop Stoppage Series: bundled_#330

Pop Stoppage Series: answer_#329

Pop Stoppage Series: riddle_#328

Pop Stoppage Series: scoffer_#327

Pop Stoppage Series: lies_#326

Pop Stoppage Series: hearts_#325

Pop Stoppage Series: craven_#324

Pop Stoppage Series: dear_#323

Pop Stoppage Series: tranquil_#322

Pop Stoppage Series: scaly_#321

Pop Stoppage Series: dragon_#320

Pop Stoppage Series: underworld_#319

Pop Stoppage Series: sloth_#318

Pop Stoppage Series: strategy_#317

Pop Stoppage Series: Siamese_#316

Pop Stoppage Series: saint_#315

Pop Stoppage Series: Aristotle_#314

Pop Stoppage Series: sunk_#313

Pop Stoppage Series: Lycidas_#312

Pop Stoppage Series: land_#310

Pop Stoppage Series: caress_#309

Pop Stoppage Series: wholly_#308

Pop Stoppage Series: pawnshop_#307

Pop Stoppage Series: aware_#306

Pop Stoppage Series: profile_#305

Pop Stoppage Series: glee_#304

Pop Stoppage Series: silly_#303

Pop Stoppage Series: classmates_#302

Pop Stoppage Series: swallowed_#301

Pop Stoppage Series: palms_#299

Pop Stoppage Series: mind_#296

Pop Stoppage Series: battle_#294

Pop Stoppage Series: sent_#292

Pop Stoppage Series: nimbus_#290

Pop Stoppage Series: upwardcurving_#289

Pop Stoppage Series: "struggled_#287"

Pop Stoppage Series: "supermen_#286"

Pop Stoppage Series: "toothless_#285"

Pop Stoppage Series: "uebermensch_#284"

Pop Stoppage Series: "gone_#283"

Pop Stoppage Series: "bleeding_#282"

Pop Stoppage Series: "pole_#281"

Pop Stoppage Series: "rotto_#280"

Pop Stoppage Series: "pier_#279

Pop Stoppage Series: "spilling_#278"

Pop Stoppage Series: "paunch_#277"

Pop Stoppage Series: "chest_#276"

Pop Stoppage Series: "rilling_#275"

Pop Stoppage Series: "elderly_#274"

Pop Stoppage Series: "swollen_#273"

Pop Stoppage Series: "photo_#272"

Pop Stoppage Series: "veering_#270"

Pop Stoppage Series: "drowned_#269"

Pop Stoppage Series: "days_#268"

Pop Stoppage Series: "businessman_#267"

Pop Stoppage Series: "boatman_#264"

Pop Stoppage Series: "jobs_#260"

Pop Stoppage Series: "odd_#259"

Pop Stoppage Series: "jealous_#258"

Pop Stoppage Series: "queen_#257"

Pop Stoppage Series: "crazy_#256"

Pop Stoppage Series: "italian_#255"

Pop Stoppage Series: "able_#252"

Pop Stoppage Series: "unkind_#251"

Pop Stoppage Series: "measured_#250"

Pop Stoppage Series: "salt_#249"

Pop Stoppage Series: "seems_#247"

Pop Stoppage Series: "Olivet's_ #246"

Pop Stoppage Series: "fly_#245"

Pop Stoppage Series: "striving_#244"

Pop Stoppage Series: "tacking_#243"

Pop Stoppage Series: "ruler_#242"

Pop Stoppage Series: "southward_#240"

Pop Stoppage Series: "stolewise_#234"

Pop Stoppage Series: "amiably_#231"

Pop Stoppage Series: "wintertime_#230"

Pop Stoppage Series: "built_#229"

Pop Stoppage Series: "bleak_#226"

Pop Stoppage Series: "grasses_#224"

Pop Stoppage Series: "secretary_#220"

Pop Stoppage Series: "rent_#217"

Pop Stoppage Series: "ferns_#215"

Pop Stoppage Series: "dare_#213"

Pop Stoppage Series: "disrobed_#209"

Pop Stoppage Series: "emptied_#207"

Pop Stoppage Series: "rebellious_#206"

Pop Stoppage Series: "putting_#199"

Pop Stoppage Series: "garments_198"

Pop Stoppage Series: "truth_#196"

Pop Stoppage Series: "changed_#194"

Pop Stoppage Series: "holdfast_#191"

Pop Stoppage Series: "forearm_#187"

Pop Stoppage Series: "slipping_#185"

Pop Stoppage Series: "west_#177"

Pop Stoppage Series: "faintly_#175"

Pop Stoppage Series: "wondering_#170"

Pop Stoppage Series: "bonesetter_#169"

Pop Stoppage Series: "bogswamp_#164"

Happy Fifth Birthday, Inhabitat!

Inhabitat spends most of the year envisioning a well-designed green future and last night's party – at Green Spaces, Manhattan – was a pure celebration of that pursuit. Congratulations to Jill Fehrenbacher and the team.

Tinsquo appreciates Inhabitat’s recognition that beauty sustains spirit.

Event: Pop Stoppage Assemblage at Green Spaces

Currently, to my delight, I've installed a mural-sized assemblage of Pop Stoppages at Green Spaces in Tribeca. Structured as a place where social change happens, Green Spaces is an incubator for sustainability-minded entrepreneurs, providing office space to green startups and a hub for visionary exchange.

The Pop Stoppages were born of a desire to construct works in an environmentally neutral manner – upcycling refuse into art. In recognition of the Green Space venue, the installation embarks on an expansion of this idea into a process project called Net-Zero Art.

The assemblage aims to be sustainably constructed; it is as chemically benign at the end of its lifecycle as is manageable in this transitional moment. For example, the wood support is a salvaged piece of molding from Build It Green (Yes, I carried an eleven foot long board on the subway from Astoria), the vellum support is 100% natural fiber and no adhesive is used to attach the individual works. They are held in place by small slits cut in the vellum. Even the acrylic paint is ‘fixed’, effectively sequestered, in the work.

The yet-undiscovered prize in my quest to attain Net-Zero Art remains an eco-acetate to protect the entire construction. (We were able to source chemically benign deicing pellets but not clear film rolls). Fortunately, it – and the whole construction – is reusable.

In celebration of this work, Green Spaces and I will be hosting a Chill Night on April 21 – 6:30 - 8:30pm – to contemplate the possibilities of the moment and to change the way you think of 2-liter soda bottles for evermore. Consider yourself invited! Please stop by.

Green Spaces is located at 394 Broadway 5th floor between White and Walker. Ring the buzzer.

Thanks to Annie Powers for her photo. She’s a Brooklyn-based photographer who’s available to document art and does a great job with humans, too. Check out her Out and About series.

Leveraging Pop

It may be no mistake or simple happenstance that Damien Hirst’s sure-to-be-legendary auction coincides with what appears to be the collapse of the economic system. Albeit surrounded by the trappings of spectacle and the marketing of cynicism, consider the success of the sale as a rush to invest in the tangibly intangible possibility of acquiring something priceless.

With similar hope, today’s post represents my own attempt at a flight to quality as I endeavor to make the most of time and the means at my disposal – or, to be more literal, the means of others’ disposal.

Process Post: Retrofits

Today’s post consists of one-time wanting pop stoppages since retrofitted to weather storms of criticism.

For purposes of comparison and intrigue the thumbnail pop-up windows offer access to each work’s original, pre-retrofit state. (note: The first three retrofits lack images of their prior state because I hadn’t yet recognized the value in documenting them, but feel they deserve to accompany their brethren).

One especially interesting thing about this little reclamation project is that I could only arrive upon a satisfying composition through additive means, since I couldn’t remove or alter the earlier, fixed state. This was the project’s liberating restraint.

"liliata_pop_stoppage_#62"

"strike_pop_stoppage_#61"

"knees_pop_stoppage_#60"

"prayed_pop_stoppage_#59"

"while_pop_stoppage_#57"

"rattling_pop_stoppage_#56"

"horror_pop_stoppage_#55"

"hoarse_pop_stoppage_#54"

"ghostly_pop_stoppage_#53"

"agony_pop_stoppage_#52"

Since the the Pop Stoppages' explanatory post has scrolled off the front page, here's a fresh link to Recycling Pop.

"secret_pop_stoppage_#51"

"ghostcandle_pop_stoppage_#48"

"bend_pop_stoppage_#47"

"shake_pop_stoppage_#46"

"staring_pop_stoppage_#45"

"glazing_pop_stoppage_#44"

"shirts_pop_stoppage_#43"

"children's_pop_stoppage_#42"

"squashed_pop_stoppage_41"

Since the the Pop Stoppage Paintings' explanatory post has scrolled off the front page, here's a fresh link to Recycling Pop.

"reddened_pop_stoppage_#38"

"fingernails_pop_stoppage_#37"

"shapely_pop_stoppage_#36"

"autumn_pop_stoppage_#35"

"hob_pop_stoppage_#34"

"roasting_pop_stoppage_#33"

"sugar_pop_stoppage_#32"

"filled_pop_stoppage_#31"

"approached_pop_stoppage_#30"

"tap_pop_stoppage_#29"

"brain_pop_stoppage_#28"

Since the the Pop Stoppage Paintings' explanatory post has scrolled off the front page, here's a fresh link to Recycling Pop.

"beset_pop_stoppage_#27"

"nature_pop_stoppage_#26"

"muskperfumed_pop_stoppage_#25"

"away_pop_stoppage_#24"

"folded_pop_stoppage_#23"

TINSQUO's Third Anniversary

Today, the third anniversary of tinsquo’s launch, seems a worthy – or at least traditional – moment to review some of the notable posts and developments of the past twelve months:

• A good portion of the year was engaged with the painting that would become Returning Wounded. The publication of the painting’s corresponding time-lapse video, prompted a leap into the wild, democratic bazaar of human expression known as YouTube.

• With the project Addressing de Kooning, I engaged in a little public service graffiti – posting informational plaques on the street recognizing Willem de Kooning’s principle New York City studios. The project was an education in what constitutes the public square in today’s Manhattan: light poles. The installations share space with van-for-hire ads, offers of Spanish tutoring and concert promotions. The surrounding flyers come and go, but amazingly – and in an inspiring example of civil civic discourse - the Addressing de Kooning posters continue to remain intact and unmarred.

• My magazine painting discipline experienced a spontaneous eruption when, out of the blue, the figure receded and in its place rose mountain ranges to the horizon. (This landscape emergence finds further articulation in the new oil painting rapidly nearly completion. Stay tuned.)

• Some of my favorite drawing titles: “outlier on the range,” “itinerant semblance,” and “gee willikers to power.” Another favorite, “premise en scène,” was a title held in reserve for years, but, as with the pop stoppage paintings, I no longer valued being a custodian of a taunting potentiality.

• For reasons that elude clarification, the drawing, “out and about proxemicist,” feels like a destination arrived.

• Word paintings (or what I call paintings – to date, they’re graphite on paper) had been a site staple the first and second years but went mostly mute during this last orbit. As concerns words, I guess, there’s been “nuff said.”

All my best to those of you who’ve written, commented and viewed tinsquo with interest these past three years. As to the future, the only thing for sure is that anything is possible.

"enjoy_pop_stoppage_#20"

"boy_pop_stoppage_#19"

"terrible_pop_stoppage_#18"

"sing_pop_stoppage_#17"

"heard_pop_stoppage_#16"

"girl_pop_stoppage_#15"

"birdcage_pop_stoppage_#12"

"drawer_pop_stoppage_#10"

"dancecards_pop_stoppage_#9"

"secrets_pop_stoppage_#8"

"sun_pop_stoppage_#7"

"tide_pop_stoppage_#6"

"drone_pop_stoppage_#4"

"no_pop_stoppage_#2"

Process Post: Recycling Pop

Since 1999, I’ve been building and rebuilding a soda bottle ziggurat above my kitchen sink.

The recycling bins for the tenement building in which I reside provide a real-time archeological survey immediately outside my apartment door. Every time I emerge from my abode, I am greeted with a trove of nominally recyclable refuse. Sometimes, egress is impaired by these discarded scraps of what consumer culture can’t consume.

This bevy of abandoned raw material-at-the-ready is compelling for an artist/scavenger. The objects bear an aura of authenticity that comes from the absence of any presumptive claim of value – save for the street industrialists who ply in the refund trade.

I wonder if we will be known to future peoples by the objects preserved in our museums or the objects preserved in our landfills? Perhaps the distinction won’t hold. Will petroleum bottles – currently invisible on account of their ubiquity - be the defining pottery of our epoch?

My recycling bin "dig" began in a fit of pre-millennial fever when “magazine paintings” – like “custodian weave” – arose from a practice of using reclaimed magazine pages as a painting support. Liberating me from any stricture of perceived scarcity, these pre-printed pages presented a populated tabula rasa as the iconic “blank canvas” - a nod to neutralizing media overload through will and focus.

From such a perspective, two-liter plastic soda bottles also proved a fecund artmaking resource. In peeling off the plastic label I discovered the glue strip would resist, tearing in unpredictable, strangely graceful ways. The sharp line of the tear was like a Matisse cut-out born of chance akin to that of a Duchamp stoppage.

When glued onto color field paintings, these torn shapes were an inversion of the magazine paintings’ populated tabula rasa – here, it is the line that is populated with mercantile ephemera. In sum, this way of working yielded a complex visual image with minimal apparent effort, using the means available.

So seven years ago, I made a sketchbook series. I learned the nuances of different brands and the secret of “aging” bottles – weakened adhesive affects each label’s tear the greater the distance from its bottle’s vintage.

Tearing the label from its bottle proved meditatively integral to the composition process, so instead of merely accumulating torn labels I began stockpiling entire scavenged bottles – storing them “in-house” – atop the kitchen cabinets, eventually constructing an installation that reached to the ceiling and topped out at just under a hundred bottles. When Mayor Bloomberg halted (temporarily) much of the NYC recycling program, this pop bottle ziggurat assumed treasure status.

Then, as can happen, life intervened; time passed with no second series. Roped into place, the plastic bottle structure was an ever beckoning makeshift barometer - popping and groaning each time the radiator kicked on or the oven was in use.

At times the expanding bottles exerted so much pressure that they would break their bonds and fly, falling around the kitchen in a petroleum-laced avalanche. But I always rebuilt the ziggurat, knowing someday I would return to them.

Today is someday. I no longer value being a custodian of taunting potentiality. What will follow for the next few weeks are the chronological results of making this the right time to work through each vintage of my pop holdings.