Zero Sum #20

Zero Sum #20 goes on sale tonight. Here it is, hot off the press. Actually, as etchings are printed on paper that has been soaking in water for about an hour, it's more cold and wet off the press, but the ink still has that nice new etching ink smell. It's an 11" x 14" intaglio, full of nice rich aquatints and glowing burnished highlights. You might recognize the birds from Zero Sum #16 - that was a collage that included a proof from this plate. Well, the plate's finally done. The edition size is only 2, one for now and one to be sold when the Zero Sum Art Project is part of the Blogger Show at Digging Pitt gallery. Stay tuned for many more details concerning ZSAP's attempt to bridge the gap between bricks-and-mortar and cyberspace.

If you want to see a larger image, and perhaps bid on this etching, visit ZSAP's auctions on ebay, after 10 pm Thursday night. . .

Zero Sum #19

Zero Sum #19 is a bit of a departure from the previous artworks - a sculpture of sorts! I've been doing a lot of photography with the still-life objects that have been accumulating in the Zero Sum Studio, and this seems like a natural product of that work. The shell of this box is an actual camera, a "Kewpie" No. 2 made by the Conley Camera Company sometime between 1917 and 1922. I enjoyed using the vintage postcard - an old photograph - inside the camera body. Flying in to Paris is Charles Lindbergh aboard the Spirit of St. Louis, a flight he made in 1927, so it's conceivable that his arrival could have been documented by a spectator using just such a camera as our Kewpie here. As in previous Zero Sum collages, I've used paint to sew the image together, blurring boundaries between the photographic, the collage, and the drawn. The glass eye refers to the single glass eye of the camera itself. We are so willing to believe that a photograph is a faithful representation of the world, though it is really quite false - the world just doesn't look like that, unless you are a single eyed, completely immobile viewer. History, model-making, story-telling, and the way we organize and make sense of things. . . the directions the Zero Sum artwork seem to be taking.

You can see many more views of this object, and even bid on it (bidding starts at $17.55), by visiting the Zero Sum Auctions. The auction starts late Thursday evening.