Eye Lids
I worked as a billboard painter for about four years. The paint used came from gallon cans of enamel. Each had a lid that would ultimately, through a series of events, accumulate a variety of unintended marks.
Sometimes we -the painters- would use them as small palettes. Other times we used them as ash trays or sail them across the factory like a frisbee. People would step on them, fork lifts would run over them, coffee would be spilled on them. Regardless of how, marks were made. They became very interesting.
I began collecting them and bringing them back to my studio. I would stare for a while, then glue down a plastic google eye.
The only deliberate manipulation involved in the process of this collection was the placement of the plastic eye. The resulting effect, prompted by a particular personality and the eye of a painter, says more about coincidence than anything else.
A subtitle for this collection could be "Frivolous Little Monsters" because a certain danger exists in giving some things more attention than they are due. However, an undeniable and not all together useless pleasure
can be lost in not appreciating a little frivolity.
There are well over 300 of these. Below are a few.
