the Zero Sum Art Project: January 2007

Zero Sum #7

Zero Sum #7

Zero Sum #7 is finished, and its eBay auction is up and running.

If you've been following the goings-on here at ZSAP closely, you might have noticed the earlier purchase of printmaking supplies - ink, a brayer, a gouge, a baren - and here's the first fruit of those purchases. Unlike my usual work in linocut, this is printed by hand instead of on my press. My thinking here is that anything that goes into the artwork should be traceable to purchases made from profits from the sale of the artwork, and a $1200 press is certainly not one of those purchases. Basically, if I didin't buy it with ZSAP funds I only allow myself to use things around the house that pretty much anyone would already own - a table, a lamp, etc. A specialized piece of equipment like my printing press is out of bounds. You gotta be able to recreate my results - it's the scientific method!

But, aside from all of that, I like the inconsistencies that come with hand printing when working with mixed media. It's more visual information to add to the mix.

ZSAP back in the black

As of Sunday and the successful sale of Zero Sum #6, the Zero Sum Art Project is back in the black. Actually, after the negative balance was accounted for, ZSAP was left with $78.39 to spend, and according to the rules, I've got to spend that down to less than $10 in the next two weeks. We always have to hover around zero! Well, the first $37 of that was spent on those fine stuffed quail you see above. Now, dead birds aren't usually something I would want, much less buy, but the imagery that is starting to evolve with the project is just saying "you need dead birds" to me. So I figured they would be less diseased if I bought them stuffed than if I collected them off of the street. Anyway, squeamishness aside, these were purchased on eBay, so I don't actually have them yet. . . I'm checking that mailbox!

One thing I'm striving for is to make the whole studio process, along with my attempts to follow this set of rules that I invented for myself, as visible to the viewer as possible. Hopefully both the materials and the imagery will evolve, and you will be able to track that evolution. Now, for the time being, I've reached a point where the need for materials is pretty slight - things like tubes of paint, or ink, or whatnot. So, to obey the "must spend it" rule, much of the proceeds will probably go towards acquiring objects of one sort or another that will influence the imagery in the artwork. I'll try to make as many of these purchases on eBay as possible, so that you can follow what I'm looking at and attempting to buy. If you go to the "advanced search" box on eBay, you can do a search by bidder - it's a really nosey little feature where you can see what an individual is bidding on. Anyway, just type zero_sum_art into the bidder's name, and you can see how I'm trying to get rid of the money. It's a strange feature of ZSAP that spending the proceeds is one of the problems to be solved!

See all of the artwork in an ever-growing cyber exhibit

I've created a gallery on the Fiji Island Mermaid Press website to document the Zero Sum Art Project. Here you can easily see all of the artworks to date, as well as the various lists and statistics that are accumulating around the project. Check it out, and if there's anything else you would like to find there, please let me know.

Studio Contents, Part 6, and a project threatening balance!

After the very successful completion of the sale of Zero Sum #5, the ZSAP studio purchased a set of stencils, and ordered a bunch of printmaking supplies, with the idea that the next few images will probably combine printed and drawn and painted and collaged areas, continuing in the direction of the past few drawing/paintings. Well, the bill for the printmaking supplies came today, and the UPS portion was a whopping $24.95, which left the Zero Sum account at -$8.39! (all of the details can be found on the Zero Sum Art ebay me page.)

So. . .

We've got two weeks to get that closer to Zero, or the project collapses!

Zero Sum #6 (see below) will go on auction tomorrow night, and will run for ten days, and we'll just see if we're still in business after that.

Anyway, the following items have been added to the Zero Sum Studio:

a set of number and letter stencils
a 6" brayer
a tube of oil base block printing ink
a linocut cutter and gouges
a baren
and a 24" x 36" sheet of linoleum.