the Zero Sum Art Project

The Hourglass

2008-02-25T06:45:00.000-08:00

What do a metronome, a wilting bouquet of flowers, video software, and one very tired piece of paper all have in common? They are elements in the next round of the Zero Sum Art Project. Appearances to the contrary, things haven't stopped with ZSAP, they just went underground for a while, to give me a chance to catch up with commitments that got set aside during the frenzy of the Blogger Show. But stay tuned, there's more to come. . .

Zero Sum Art Auctions, Week 4 of the Blogger Show

2007-12-10T08:34:00.000-08:00

Saturday's opening reception for The Blogger Show at the Digging Pitt Gallery here in Pittsburgh was a lot of fun. It was great meeting a few of you there!

The Zero Sum #33 auction, ending Thursday night, 12/13, at 10 pm Eastern time.

The Zero Sum #34 auction, ending Friday night, 12/14, at 10 pm Eastern time.

The Zero Sum #27 auction, ending Saturday night, 12/15, at 10 pm Eastern time. This is the second time this print has showed up on the walls in the exhibition; it's the second print in a tiny edition of 2.

The Zero Sum #35 auction, ending Sunday night, 12/16, at 10 pm Eastern time. I've been doing a lot of collage work with cyanotypes, and this one was a deliberate departure from those - I wanted to push some paint around here.

The Zero Sum auctions running this week:

2007-12-04T18:25:00.000-08:00

The Zero Sum #29 auction, ending Thursday night, 12/06, at 10 pm Eastern time.

The Zero Sum #30 auction, ending Friday night, 12/07, at 10 pm Eastern time.

The Zero Sum #31 auction, ending Saturday night, 12/08, at 10 pm Eastern time.

The Zero Sum #32 auction, ending Sunday night, 12/09, at 10 pm Eastern time.

This Week's Zero Sum Auctions

2007-11-26T14:03:00.001-08:00

If it's a Thursday, Friday, Saturday or Sunday night, you should stop in and check out the latest Zero Sum Art Project auctions. Here's the most recent crop:

The Zero Sum #22 auction, ending Thursday night, 11/29, at 10 pm Eastern time.

The Zero Sum #26 auction, ending Friday night, 11/30, at 10 pm Eastern time.

The Zero Sum #27 auction, ending Saturday night, 12/01, at 10 pm Eastern time.

The Zero Sum #28 auction, ending Sunday night, 12/01, at 10 pm Eastern time.

The 4 Zero Sum Art Auctions currently running. . .

2007-11-20T10:45:00.000-08:00

Zero Sum #20

The four Zero Sum auctions that are currently up and running are Zero Sum #15, ending on Thanksgiving (bad planning on my part there), Zero Sum #17, ending Friday, 11/23, Zero Sum #20, the etching you see here, finishing Saturday, 11/24, and Zero Sum #21, another etching, ending Sunday, 11/25.

Look for an auction ending every Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday night at 10 p.m. from now until mid-January, with the exception of a week off for Christmas, as part of The Blogger Show at Digging Pitt Gallery, here in Pittsburgh PA.

One year of the Zero Sum Art Project

2007-11-19T06:39:00.000-08:00

Today is the one year anniversary of the Zero Sum Art Project. On November 19 of last year, the first Zero Sum Art auction started with this piece:

Zero Sum #1
The project started with whatever free materials I could find to make and package the first piece. This little drawing was made on Anti-Defamation League notepad paper with a Heart of Georgia Technical Institute pencil and a Radisson Hotel pen. The opening bid was $1.77, which was the initial amount that the project went in the hole for the eBay fees and postage. It ended at $22.72, which gave me my first opportunity to spend the profits and add to the studio.

When I first started the project I was imagining that it would be more an exercise of trying to make something out of nothing - I didn't expect that spending the money back to zero would be a large part of the process. Adding still life objects and more exotic materials, a growing exploration of photographic processes, and now an exhibition in a commercial gallery space have all grown from the challenge of juggling the cycle of surplus and deficit.

As of today, after 22 sales, the balance is $51.49. I've got two weeks to spend that back to as close to zero as I can get. I'm looking at adding a new kind of litho plate to the mix. . . That balance comes from an income total of $1912.65, with costs of $1861.16. If you want to see how it all breaks down, you can see the day to day account here.

The first three auctions of ZSAP in the Blogger Show

2007-11-16T09:00:00.000-08:00

For the duration of The Blogger Show, from now until mid-January, a new Zero Sum auction will start and end every day that the Digging Pitt Gallery is open. If it's a Thursday, Friday, Saturday or Sunday night, at 10 pm Eastern time, and you're near your computer, tune in and see how it's going. Here are the first three:

Zero Sum #9 auction, ending tomorrow night, 11/17, at 10 pm Eastern time.

Zero Sum #14 auction, ending Sunday night, 11/18, at 10 pm Eastern time.

Zero Sum #15 auction, ending next Thursday, 11/22, at 10 pm Eastern time.

Zero Sum #9 in the Blogger Show

2007-11-10T17:37:00.000-08:00

Zero Sum #9

A couple of hours ago the doors opened for The Blogger Show's Pittsburgh venues, at Digging Pitt gallery, Digging Pitt Too, and the Panza Gallery. These three shows will be up until January 12. The opening receptions for the Digging Pitt and Digging Pitt Too shows will be on Saturday, December 8, from 6-9 pm, and the opening reception for the Panza Gallery will be on Saturday, December 15, from 6-9 pm.

My contribution to the show will be a frenzied rotation of works from the Zero Sum Art Project. The first six pieces are up on the walls now. Each day that the gallery is open during the exhibition, a new auction will begin from the Zero Sum Art Project. These auctions will run for a week. So, every Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday night from here until January 12, you will find a new piece from the Zero Sum Art Project being auctioned off on eBay. Every week I will take out the sold pieces from the exhibition, and replace them with the next artworks on the auction block. It will be a different show every week. Visitors to the gallery will see a small slice of the project, but they will see it in "the flesh". Online viewers will see the work through the pixellated haze of the computer monitor, but they will be able to see all of the work in the project in one place. So it's an odd blend of "virtual" and "real" worlds.

The first piece, that will start its auction at 10 pm tonight, will be Zero Sum #9. You can find the Zero Sum auctions, once they start tonight, here.

Zero Sum #26

2007-11-02T20:38:00.000-07:00

Zero Sum #26
cyanotype and acrylic

Here's Zero Sum #26, essentially a painting on top of a cyanotype base. I love the ghostly blue of the dangling plane - it reminds me of the odd blue glow one sees from the street when people inside are watching television. . .

the "raw" cyanotype for Zero Sum #26

This is the first image in the Zero Sum portfolio that was pulled from a bunch of cyanotypes that I made with the help of Justin Kasulka. I worked up a bunch of transparencies of images that were either photographed from the Zero Sum box and odd object collection or collaged on the scanner, and then shipped them down to Texas, where Justin worked his magic with chemicals and exposures and made the cyanotypes, printing them on my favorite heavy printmaking paper. In terms of the project, it was a nice challenge to buy the chemicals and paper and pay for his time over the course of several Zero Sum sales earlier in the year.

This piece will be sold during the Blogger Show. It will be on display at the Digging Pitt Gallery here in Pittsburgh during the week that it is up for auction on eBay. Once it is sold, it will be replaced in the show by the next piece for sale. Every day of the exhibition that the gallery is open will have a corresponding auction ending. It will be a nutty rotation of artwork over the 2 month run of the exhibition. We'll see if I'm conscious when it's all over.

Tomorrow night is the opening of the New York City component of the Blogger Show. My contribution to that part of the exhibition is Zero Sum #24, which will be sold after the NYC show comes down.

Zero Sum #25 is the last piece that will be auctioned on eBay prior to the Blogger Show. Once the Blogger Show gets going, you'll notice a new expense in the pricing of the work - the 30% gallery commission!

Things will get fast and furious towards the end of next week - stay tuned!

Zero Sum #25

2007-10-25T08:53:00.000-07:00

Zero Sum #25 started with the etching of the moon - I was thinking that it would be a nice backdrop for some photographs in the Zero Sum box, but as I worked on it I became more and more attached to it as an image on its own. So it became an enormous moon-rise over both Paris and Hot Springs, Arkansas. As this image seemed hopelessly romantic and sentimental, I added the various bits and pieces of text to the bottom of the image to tone it down a bit. But this seemed to only send the image rocketing towards nostalgia on top of romantic and sentimental. So I added the more clinical "Figure 1: the Moon", turning it into a textbook example of how the Moon can be used in a romantic, nostalgic image. In other words, turning the image into a model, consistent with the exploration of models and facsimiles that have become such a part of the Zero Sum portfolio, and mirror the odd model-like quality, with all of its inaccuracies, of the Project itself.

Zero Sum #25 will go up for auction later tonight on eBay, as is the eventual fate of all the Zero Sum artworks. To add a bit of drama to the auction, I should point out that the current Zero Sum balance is over $20 in the red. The auction starts for the measly amount of $8.61 (see the auction for the full reasoning behind that odd number). Usually, if the auction finished with one bid of $8.61, then the Zero Sum Art Project would break even, and the next artwork is made in similar fashion to this one. BUT, with the Zero Sum Art Project participating in an exhibition in the Blogger Show (see the previous post for details), I've piled up $20 in shipping costs to get Zero Sum #24 to the gallery. So this is a do-or-die auction for the Project! If the ZSAP balance remains below -$5.00 for two weeks, the project collapses. Time will tell!!

Zero Sum #24 in the Big Apple

2007-10-24T13:14:00.000-07:00

Zero Sum #24 has been shipped off to the Agni Gallery in New York City, as my contribution to the New York component of the Blogger Show. The show opens November 3 and runs through November 30, with an opening reception from 6 - 9 pm on the 3rd. This piece, Zero Sum #24, will be on display for the duration of the show, after which it will go up for auction following the same rules as all of the other Zero Sum pieces. The starting price will include a new expense, though - the 30% of the profits that are earmarked for the gallery.

A much larger and more involved exhibition of the Zero Sum Art Project will be seen in the Pittsburgh component of the Blogger Show at the Digging Pitt Gallery. This show will run from November 10 - January 12, with the opening reception on December 8, from 6 - 9 pm. That's the opening I'll be able to attend, by the way, so I might see you there! During the course of the show I will rotate 32 different pieces in and out of the gallery. Every day the gallery is open after the first week (being Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday of any given week) I will have an auction end. Every week during the days the gallery is closed I will swap out the sold work and hang the next pieces. It'll be nuts. But hopefully, it'll be an interesting kind of nuts. All of the work will be sold as part of the Zero Sum Art Project. You can follow it all here or over at my blog for the Fiji Island Mermaid Press, and you'll be able to see the show grow online at the Zero Sum Art Gallery at FIMP.

Zero Sum #23

2007-10-05T08:54:00.000-07:00

Here's Zero Sum #23, a collage made up of an etching, acrylic paint, and two vintage postcards. You can see a larger version of the artwork, read a description of some of my content concerns, and even buy the thing, by visiting this auction on eBay, where you'll also learn why the starting bid is only $11.87.

If you surf on over to the Fiji Island Mermaid Press blog, you will find a little animation of the etching proofs that preceded this collage, which is kinda nifty.

But here I just want to direct your attention to something of very little importance or relevance: that postcard with the cherub spilling the coins from a hot air balloon is a Christmas card from 1911. It's a common gripe to hear that we've become far too materialistic concerning Christmas these days. I just want to point out that it's not exactly a recent development. Here's a card from the second decade of the 20th century in which Christmas is celebrated as a time when money rains down from the sky. Let's face it - we've always been greedy and selfish, it's just us.

Zero Sum #22

2007-09-14T09:37:00.000-07:00

Here's Zero Sum #22, the second Zero Sum etching to use solarplate. I'm really delighted with the very rich velvety blacks that I can get with the combination of transparency and aquatint screen I used to expose the plate.

This piece will go up for auction starting on Sunday night. This link will take you to the Zero Sum auctions. If you go there now, you'll find Zero Sum #21, if you go there next week you'll find #22. So there you go.

Zero Sum #21

2007-09-10T07:34:00.000-07:00

Zero Sum #21
intaglio and chine-colle
8" x 10" image

So here's Zero Sum #21. Another editioned print, in another tiny edition of 2. #1 of 2 is being sold now, and #2 of 2 will be sold during the Blogger Show.

As I describe in the auction listing, I'm really excited about this piece, as it brings together elements that I have gathered over the course of the entire project to date. The still life objects in the image include the head of a quail purchased after the sale of Zero Sum #6, a little plastic astronaut from Zero Sum #11, and a globe bank from #16. The box that they were photographed in was built with the proceeds from Zero Sum #16 and #18. The solarplate used to create the intaglio plate from the photograph comes from #13, and the mulberry paper and archival rice starch adhesive for the chine-colle were purchased just after the last sale, of #20. So Zero Sum #21 really takes advantage of materials and imagery that have been developing for the last eight months or so.

I'm going to have to talk about that box one of these days - I'm really excited about it too. It made its first appearance in one of my Fiji Island Mermaid Press books-of-the-month, before it started appearing in the Zero Sum imagery. I'm interested in the way it echoes the theater and puppet shows. It reminds me of the black box, the camera-obscura. It serves as the pedestal that displaces the little objects I'm collecting from the real world and declares them to be "still-life". It's a good box.

Zero Sum #21 also takes advantage of a new technique for me - it's my first use of solarplate, a relatively non-toxic way to do photoetching. The last time I used photoetching it was about the most dangerous stuff you could do in the printshop, so this is a nice return to photography for me.

So, check out the auction for a bigger picture of #21, check out the Zero Sum Art Gallery on FIMP to see all of the previous ZSAP artwork, and watch this blog for updates as we get closer to the bid Zero Sum Exhibition in Pittsburgh and New York and online in November.

Zero Sum #20

2007-08-23T09:37:00.001-07:00

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

2007-08-08T08:17:00.000-07:00

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.

Zero Sum #18

2007-07-13T07:20:00.000-07:00

Here's Zero Sum #18, and the bidding starts at $13.32.

If this is your first visit to the Zero Sum Art Project, you might be interested in an overview of the operation, which you can find on the Digging Pitt blog. ZSAP will be on display there in November - it'll be a nice complicated puzzle to solve, putting the exhibition together within the rules of the project.

Zero Sum #18 in progress. . .

2007-07-08T15:40:00.000-07:00

Zero Sum #18 is coming along. I had a little tin globe bank when I was a kid just like these two that ZSAP recently bought. The tide of strange junk continues to rise in my studio.

If you're interested in an overview of the Zero Sum Art Project, I recently posted just such a thing on the Digging Pitt Gallery blog. Digging Pitt is going to present ZSAP in November, as part of a multi-gallery show of artists who blog. It will be very exciting.

Zero Sum #17

2007-06-22T07:22:00.001-07:00

Here's Zero Sum #17, which is entering the flat files to join the other ZSAP artworks being held for an upcoming exhibition of the Zero Sum Art Project. You can see all of the artworks in the project to date by visiting the ZSAP gallery at the Fiji Island Mermaid Press.

This exhibition, which will open in November, is already creating some interesting logistical difficulties. I need to balance new pieces that I sell immediately to keep the project rolling forward with pieces that get set aside for the show. Framing supplies, and other exhibition related expenses, will have to be spread out over the next few months in order to get the artwork on the gallery walls. And of course, no income is actually guaranteed between now and then, so planning has to be completely contingent on sales. Add to that the inability to "bank" money, according to the "spend it in two weeks" rule, and you have a fairly absurd situation on your hands. But hey, that keeps the wheels turning, doesn't it?

dangling eyes and getting to zero

2007-06-13T07:18:00.000-07:00

Here's the first little hint of Zero Sum #17, featuring a few glass eyes attached to wires, dangling in space. The taxidermy eyeballs first showed up in Zero Sum #15 (scroll down) as bit players in that lunar drama, so I thought I'd give them their moment in the spotlight with this image.

I recently asked the Fiji Island Mermaid Press' Philosopher in Residence Paul Moriarty to take a look at the Zero Sum Art Project and offer his feedback. Amongst his numerous useful and insightful comments was the observation that from day one of the project to the present, ZSAP has never once had a balance of zero. Paul pointed out that having the statement "The target balance at all times is Zero" in the rules for the project should compel me to make a better effort at reaching that goal.

Jasper Johns, Target, 1958

I must admit, I'd been thinking of my target balance as more in the model of an archery target, with the bullseye being zero, but with the project continuing as long as I kept hitting the target itself. Personally, I think the current balance of negative $14.37 is more exciting than zero, because it makes the success of the auction for Zero Sum #16 vital to the survival of the project.

BUT. . . Paul has a point. So, after Zero Sum #16 sells, I will make a real effort to actually reach a zero balance. So how can I use gumballs in Zero Sum #18?

Zero Sum #16

2007-06-08T19:08:00.000-07:00

Here's Zero Sum #16, a nine-ish inch square mix of intaglio, paint, an old stamp and an old postcard. How to Draw Birds! The Spirit of St. Louis! Notre-Dame! A lot of paint!

You can see a slightly larger image, a few details, and find out why the opening bid is only $11.53, by visiting the Zero Sum #16 ebay auction.

Zero Sum #15

2007-06-08T08:51:00.000-07:00

Here's Zero Sum #15, which you saw coming a couple of posts ago. This one will go in the flat files for the Zero Sum Art Project exhibition that will happen in November. Stay tuned for more details on that front!

Zero Sum #14

2007-05-24T18:51:00.001-07:00

Well, I guessed wrong in the last post - here's Zero Sum #14, and it's not an image with a toy astronaut and glass deer eyes. It's ZSAP's first editioned original etching. Sometimes you just don't know what's going to come together first.

So we have the interesting new situation of an editioned print. To simplify things a bit, the edition size is only 2. One will be sold now (visit the auction to bid if you'd like to own it) and one will be sold during an exhibition of the Zero Sum Art Project to be held here in Pittsburgh in November. That show will follow all of the ZSAP rules, including the sale of the work on eBay - I'm working with a very brave gallerist! It should raise all kinds of interesting complications.

Zero Sum #14(?) in progress

2007-05-22T09:31:00.000-07:00

Here's the first hints of what might be Zero Sum #14, depending on what happens in what order in my studio. Stay tuned!

An etching in the works.

2007-05-18T09:38:00.000-07:00

Well, here's the current state of the etching plate that provided most of the raw material for Zero Sum #13. This etching will be ready to stand on its own one of these days - getting close, anyway.

Zero Sum #13

2007-05-07T12:56:00.000-07:00

Here's Zero Sum #13! With #13 I have introduced intaglio into the works - the proceeds from #12 paid for access to a local printshop. Acid, ink, tarlatans, and various nasty solvents all for one low low price! So, soon we're going to have to sort out how editions are going to work in the Zero Sum Art Project. It should be interesting. The first etching will be somewhat similar to the image above, as it is a collage of proofs from an ongoing plate.

You want it for your own? Just visit the ZSAP eBay auction and get bidding. The opening bid is $7.55. Visit the auction and find out why.

Zero Sum #13 in the works

2007-04-30T18:39:00.000-07:00

Well, #13 is coming right along. If you scroll down the blog a bit, you'll notice that this is a close relative of #11 and #12 - the monkey skull is still having its moment in the spotlight. But there's one major change - #13 incorporates intaglio. The sale of #12 produced quite a little windfall in the Zero Sum accounts - $200 - and most of that went to paying for time at the etching studio at the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts. So for the foreseeable future I'll have access to all kinds of nasty chemicals to make etchings. Of course, editioning prints will add another layer of complexity to pricing the ZSAP artworks, but this is all about seeing how convoluted things can become while following a few simple rules. That and seeing how much odd junk I can fit into my studio. The cheesy plastic astronauts are new. . .

And as far as the ZSAP accounts go, I'm happy to report that the current balance is 46 cents - just about perfect.

Zero Sum #12

2007-04-08T18:50:00.000-07:00

Here's Zero Sum #12 - you can see a larger image and find out why the bidding starts at $9.34 by visiting the Zero Sum #12 auction on ebay.

If you wanted to wander through a little Zero Sum history, you might note that the monkey skull and drawing mannequin were purchased with proceeds from the sale of Zero Sum #8, the NASA postcards arrived after Zero Sum #10, and the postage due stamps that provide the countdown were purchased with Zero Sum #6 money. The paint and paper has been kicking around the studio since Zero Sum #3.

I just recently won a lot of vintage glass taxidermy eyeballs with the proceeds from the sale of Zero Sum #11. I can't wait to get my hands on them. I'm guessing that somewhere down the line the Zero Sum Art Project is going to have to head in the direction of sculpture. . .

Zero Sum #12 coming soon. . .

2007-04-02T05:19:00.000-07:00

Zero Sum #11

2007-03-16T19:03:00.000-07:00

and here's Zero Sum #11!

You can visit the auction for #11, bid, and become part of the ongoing Zero Sum process. Bidding starts at $8.77 - see the listing for how that particular opening bid was calculated.

Zero Sum #11 in progress. . .

2007-03-12T13:23:00.000-07:00

Here's the monkey skull that was purchased with the proceeds from the sale of ZSAP #8, and the beginnings of what will hopefully be ZSAP #11. Stay tuned. . .

Zero Sum #9. . .and #10?

2007-02-23T11:58:00.000-08:00

If you were to visit ZSAP's current eBay auction, you would see that Zero Sum #10 was being sold.

Now, if you've been following ZSAP closely, you might have noticed that we jumped from auction #8 to auction #10. The rules for the project say that all of the sales must occur on eBay, so why the jump? Zero Sum #9 is being held back, to be sold at a later date. One of the interesting things about setting yourself up with a set of strict rules to follow when it comes to art is that you often are lead in directions that you wouldn't have predicted when you set up the rules. As I've been making the work and selling it piece by piece, I started thinking about the possibility of the Zero Sum Art Project finding a brave, forward-thinking gallery space that is willing to mount an exhibition of ZSAP artworks, while following all of the ZSAP rules, including conducting all of the sales through eBay. The exhibition would be an overview of the evolution of the imagery in the project, as influenced by the rules under which the artwork was made. It would have the unique quality of being an exhibition that exists in a specific commercial gallery, but was also available to anyone, anywhere, who is willing to bid. This will further our exploration of the mysterious alchemy that creates value in art. Ebay is a value-neutral environment, or even one which removes value from art, as it is completely unfiltered critically. Anyone with 35 cents can try to sell their work. A commercial gallery adds value to the artwork, as it represents a juried situation where time and resources have been invested in presenting artwork that is presumed to be valuable and will bring a good return for the risk taken by the gallery. By giving the artwork the cachet of a gallery setting or the uncritical setting of the eBay auction, you will change its perceived value. An exhibition that brings BOTH of these things together will be an interesting experiment.

But how did this new goal spring from those initial rules? Basically, when I started this project, I envisioned a very slow start, sort of nursing a seedling along until it became a hopefully robust plant. As the seedling was a tiny drawing made from the most mundane of materials, I imagined that the resources I would have to work with would continue to be somewhat meager. As it turns out, every auction has produced enough profit that the studio has far more supplies in "art materials" than are needed to simply replace those used by the previous piece, and I am slowly beginning to purchase my own 19th century dime museum of props from which to draw and collage. So the project logo, meant to suggest an empty money sack, may be empty of funds but it is filling with resources. I did not imagine at the outset the luxury of being able to make more work than was necessary to keep the project alive according to its strict rules of selling and spending. So, hopefully, an exhibition of works that will chronicle the growth and evolution of the imagery of the ZSAP artworks will be possible. To see whether the exhibition can exist in a bricks and mortar gallery, and simultaneously sell on eBay, will be an interesting experiment in and of itself.

There you have it. If you surf your way to the Zero Sum Art Gallery you'll find #9, in its rightful place in the sequence. The mundane titles are designed to allow a viewer to see how the artwork in the project has evolved. As of #9, they will no longer be an accurate indicator of the sequence in which the artwork was sold.

It wouldn't be any fun if ZSAP didn't just get more and more complicated, would it?

From the ZSAP Reading List. . .

2007-02-18T07:20:00.000-08:00

", , ,the economic context in which art was and is produced, distributed and consumed becomes part of the works themselves. The art historian Michael Baxandall has demonstrated, for intstance, that the way in which painters were rewarded during the Italian Renaissance directly influenced the execution of the painting. Patrons of art paid for each depiction of an individual and for the pigment used. The most expensive pigment that existed at that time, lapis-lazuli blue, thereby became a symbol of distinction. That is why the Virgin Mary can be identified in paintings from this time by way of the color of her gown."

both the quote and the suggested illustration, a detail from Piero della Francesca"s "Nativity", are from
Olav Velthuis' "Imaginary Economics: Contemporary Artists and the World of Big Money"

So, what are the stamps all about, anyway?

2007-02-12T13:28:00.000-08:00

So far with the Zero Sum Art Project, I've done a pretty thorough job explaining the rules of the project (see the boxed section in the middle of this page for those rules). The rules are, of course, completely arbitrary, but the experiment is only really interesting if I stick to those rules as closely as I can. But why would that be "interesting"? That points to the goals of the project, as opposed to the rules. The rules are fixed, as long as the project runs. Part of the fun is seeing what can happen within those rules - what exactly is allowed? The goals, on the other hand, may shift around a bit as I explore this terrain and see what the possibilities are. So I thought I would take a few posts over the next week or so, and explain the goals of the project as I see them at this point.

One of the goals is to create a studio environment that is as open as possible. The working process, the financial process, the progression from one image to another - all of these things will be made visible to the viewer, unlike a gallery exhibition where the selected work for view, if successful, seems to suddenly spring together as a coherent exhibition when the viewer enters the gallery. With ZSAP, you'll see all of the tangents and false starts and interesting digressions as the body of work evolves.

So, transparency, both in the pragmatic dollars and cents and the more ephemeral evolution of the artwork, is one of the projects goals. There are others that we will talk about later, but transparency is a good start. With that in mind, I thought I'd tell you about one tiny aspect of these images I've been making: the postage stamps.

You may have noticed that old postage stamps are a favorite collage element of mine. I thought I might tell you a few of the reasons I like to use them so much.

I'm a printmaker. Stamps are prints. I like the way they look, as tiny engravings, especially when they've been cancelled. A cancelled stamp is a combination of a relief print and an engraving. They are beautiful little collections of marks that add richness to an image made with pencils and brushes.

I like the color of them. The older stamps tend to be monochromatic, which make them very potent as little spots of color in a composition.

I like the fact that they are confusing in their sense of value. This echoes the whole nature of the Zero Sum Art Project - what is a thing worth? Stamps had an initial monetary value, like a piece of currency. They are cancelled, which negates their value. But people have decided that they are an interesting thing to collect, so they regain their value, perhaps many times more than their "face value", as they age and become desirable. When I insert them into an artwork, I destroy this accumulated value as a collectible, but perhaps add value to the artwork due to the visual interest of the stamps. A nice little series of additions and subtractions, mirroring the idea of taking materials that cost a certain amount of money, and using them to make "art", which, based on the "success" of the artwork, either increases or decreases the value of the materials.

I like the numbers. The postage due stamps are particularly useful here, as they are typically just a number - kind of little Jasper Johns paintings. Numbers imply sequences, and I like to use the stamps to imply a series of instructions or directions, a sense of order. One recurring theme in all of my artwork is how we make sense of things, how we create order from chaos. Eventually I'll talk about the idea of "models" as structures we use to understand the world, but suffice it to say that sequences refer to order and logic, even if that order is artificially forced on an unruly situation.

And finally, they hold a lot of nostalgic value for me, as I was a nerdy little stamp-collector as a kid. That's not an element that shows up in the artwork, but it probably is a factor in determining how they ended up being a part of the art.

So, as far as I can tell so far, that's what the postage stamps are about.

Zero Sum #8

2007-02-11T11:51:00.000-08:00

It's Zero Sum #8! Get all the vital stats, and even consider buying the thing, by visiting the Zero Sum auction on eBay!

Zero Sum #8 is close to hatching

2007-02-09T13:55:00.000-08:00

Zero Sum #7

2007-01-27T08:58:00.000-08:00

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

2007-01-24T08:15:00.000-08:00

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

2007-01-12T20:47:00.000-08:00

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!

2007-01-10T16:39:00.000-08:00

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.

Zero Sum #6

2007-01-09T20:22:00.000-08:00

Zero Sum #6 is currently up for auction on eBay. Check it out!

Slow Man At Work

2007-01-07T11:41:00.000-08:00

Zero Sum #6 coming soon. . .

Temporary technical difficulties, please stand by

2006-12-28T21:19:00.000-08:00

The Fiji Island Mermaid Press mothership, fimp.net, host of the ZSAP images and pages, is moving to a roomier server in order to provide you with even more images and pages and such in the future. Unfortunately, for the next day or two, most of my pix on the web and the FIMP website itself will be out of commission. Tragic, yes, but necessary. It will all be sorted out soon, don't worry.

tricky stuff, art. . .

2006-12-22T15:23:00.000-08:00

Andy Warhol, Brillo Box, 1964

"Art cannot reveal the truth about art without snatching it away again by turning the revelation into an artistic event"

from Pierre Bourdieu, "The production of belief: contributions to an economy of symbolic goods" from The Field of Cultural Production", as cited in Paul Mattick's "Art and Money" in Art In Its Time

Studio Contents, Part 5

2006-12-21T11:51:00.000-08:00

Well, I've spent the ZSAP balance back down to nothing, actually less than nothing, at -$1.10. How was that cash invested? The following was added to the Zero Sum Studio:

one small model airplane
one 16 oz jar of acrylic matte medium
one roll of artist's tape
one white nylon bright #12 brush
one 2 oz tube of Pthalo Green acrylic paint
one 2 oz tube of Cobalt Blue acrylic paint
one 2 oz tube of Burnt Sienna acrylic paint
one 2 oz tube of Cadmium Yellow acrylic paint
one 2 oz tube of Burnt Umber acrylic paint
and six sheets of BFK Rives white paper.

The studio's cup runneth over! But, the balance is below zero. So we're all good.

ebayaday

2006-12-19T09:39:00.000-08:00

This auction by Charles Fairbanks is brilliant.

It's part of ebayaday, an art exhibit in which eBay is the gallery.

The project describes itself as:

Curated by Rebekah Modrak, Aaron Ahuvia and Zackery Denfeld, ebayaday consists of 25 auctions (one debuts each day) in which the entire eBay listing (item for sale, descriptive text and imagery and placement within chosen categories) is the artwork. Works presented in the show exploit, redefine or underscore eBay’s potential in the exchange of ideas, objects and money.

The Zero Sum Art Project applauds!

Zero Sum #5

2006-12-18T10:01:00.000-08:00

Get all the details, and even bid on the thing, by visiting the Zero Sum Art auction!

from Paul Mattick's "Art In Its Time"

2006-12-15T13:58:00.000-08:00

Paul Mattick, "Art In Its Time", from the introduction. . .

"With no apparent use-value, the work of art seems to acquire its exchange-value simply by the expression in money of the art-lover's desire. The miracle is that these objects can achieve prices higher than those of any other human products. This well-known paradox suggests a problem with the distinction of the aesthetic realm from that of the everyday. And a moment's thought suggests that art as actual thing exists nowhere but within the "everyday life" from which its cultural construction separates it. The artist must pay rent on the studio, buy paint, seek dealers and buyers; his or her product, if it succeeds in entering the stream of art, will find a place in a home, a museum, a reproduction in a book or postcard. The work of art, to have a chance of entering that stream, must show its kinship to other things called art and so to the social world in which artists and art have their places."

So much of that is of interest to the ZSAP, especially the very last sentence.

Studio Contents, Part 4

2006-12-13T15:55:00.000-08:00

With the successful conclusion of Zero Sum #3, the ZSAP studio had some income to get rid of. So the following items have been added:

a tube of Titanium White acrylic paint
a tube of Ivory Black acrylic paint
a tube of Cadmium Red acrylic paint
a tube of Ultramarine Blue acrylic paint
a White Nylon Bright #8 brush
a White Nylon Round #6 brush
2 General's 6B charcoal pencils
a 22" x 30" sheet of BFK Rives White paper
a small bottle of Sobo white glue.

So, you might be able to guess that Zero Sum #5 will be a painting (or, at least, a mixed-media drawing). And the palette will be a slightly limited one. Yellow's way over-rated anyway. Who needs all three primary colors? Not this artist!

I'll soon be putting up an archive of images, studio contents, and running totals on the FIMP website, to accompany this play-by-play blog and the eBay "me" page.

And, just so you can tell everyone around the watercooler when you're talking about ZSAP at work, the current balance is -1.02.

Zero Sum #4

2006-12-10T20:06:00.000-08:00

You guessed it, it's Zero Sum #4! Bidding starts at $5.03 - find out why by visiting the Zero Sum #4 auction on eBay!

In case you were wondering

2006-12-09T06:13:00.000-08:00

what the can of white spray paint was for:

Less Wiggle Room

2006-12-07T17:59:00.000-08:00

I was looking at the original goals/rules for the Zero Sum Art Project, and I felt that I should tighten something up. When I set this up I said "Should the project stay in the red for several consecutive sales, the "studio" will collapse". Now that I'm in to the back-and-forth of making and selling and spending, that seems like way too much wiggle room. So, for those of you keeping score at home, here's the new rule:

Should the Zero Sum Art Project's balance remain below -5.00 for longer than 2 weeks, the project dies.

and

The Zero Sum Art Project is not allowed to keep a positive balance of more than 10.00 for more than 2 weeks.

So there you go. I can't keep anything in reserve, and I can't stay in the hole. Gotta keep things right on the edge, or the whole business folds.

With today's purchase of a can of spray paint, the Zero Sum Balance stands at -.97. See the entire fiscal history here.

Studio Contents, Part 3

2006-12-05T20:35:00.000-08:00

Well, several items of a rather mundane but necessary nature have been added to the Zero Sum Art Project studio:

(12) 10" x 13" envelopes,
(1) roll of clear shipping tape,
(1) roll of Scotch Tape,
as well as the much more exciting toy plane mentioned in an earlier post.

The current balance is $1.16, awfully darn close to the zero target. We want to keep this thing as perilously close to financial collapse as possible.

Zero Sum #3

2006-12-04T20:03:00.000-08:00

Zero Sum #3, pencil on cream Rives BFK

Learn everything you might want to know about this drawing, and while you're at it place a bid on it, by visiting the Zero Sum #3 auction.

Toy Plane: Zero Sum Art #3

2006-12-04T11:05:00.000-08:00

The most recent addition to the Zero Sum Art studio contents is this toy plane ($5.33). This will be the subject of Zero Sum Art #3, a pencil drawing on cream BFK Rives heavyweight paper.

The subject matter/imagery for the first two Zero Sum Art images was "found" - free, in a sense, to complement the found/free nature of the materials used. Now that the project is "in the black" and running a surplus, it seemed that the next image should be of something purchased, to complement the materials being used, and to help bring the balance back to our target of zero.

The plane is a model of something real. This project is a model of sorts. Both are absurd, and are instantly recognizable as simply tiny replicas of real world things or situations. And yet, we learn about the real world through models, full of inaccuracies and approximations.

Studio Contents, Part 2

2006-11-29T05:25:00.000-08:00

Well, after Zero Sum Art #1's sale, the Zero Sum Studio has added:
one 4B pencil
one "Tuff Stuff" eraser
two sheets of BFK Rives Heavyweight Cream paper
two sheets of glassine
and one piece of chipboard.
There's enough left for a box of envelopes, I think, and that should get our balance back to zero.

In the black.

2006-11-27T12:20:00.000-08:00

It's Cyber Monday, and after the sale of Zero Sum #1, the Zero Sum Art project is in the black. As the project's target balance is zero, I've got some spending to do. Unlike Zero Sum #1 and #2, it looks like #3 is going to be made with materials that are actually purchased instead of scrounged. I'll keep you posted. If you want to see the running tally, visit the Zero Sum Art eBay "ME" page for all of the financial play-by-play.

Zero Sum #2

2006-11-26T15:27:00.000-08:00

Zero Sum #2, front, ink on cardstock.

Zero Sum #2, back, reproduction of Winslow Homer's "The Fog Warning"

The pen and pencil drawing is a portrait of Robert Foulis, inventor of the steam-powered foghorn in 1853. It's just possible that the fisherman Homer painted in 1885 is listening to a Foulis foghorn.

Since Zero Sum #2 was made before the successful completion of the Zero Sum #1 auction, I had to once again use scrounged materials. As it looks like #1 will make a profit, odds are #3 will be made with slightly more extravagant supplies, as the goal is to always keep the Zero Sum Studio teetering at a zero balance. Gotta spend that income!

Zero Sum #1

2006-11-24T11:24:00.000-08:00

Here's Zero Sum #1, drawn in pencil and pen on its anti-defamation paper, ready for shipping, securely held in place on chipboard by Ziggy stickers, ready to be tucked in its jaunty yellow envelope.

For all of the details, a better view of the drawing, and to jump right in to the project, visit the auction for Zero Sum #1.

The opening bid was set at $1.77, which includes the insertion fee of .35, the gallery fee of .35, the cost of first class postage at .63, a projected paypal fee of .34, and a final value fee of .10. As of this writing, the bidding is up to $6.07, which will mean a raise in the final value fee and paypal fee, but will leave a profit to be spent. Will the Zero Sum Art Project splurge on nicer shipping materials - thicker chipboard, a roll of tape, some mailing envelopes, perhaps? or will we go straight to improving the art itself, with some nice archival drawing paper, for instance? Stay tuned. . .

Studio Contents

2006-11-24T11:11:00.000-08:00

The Zero Sum Art Project is attempting to build from the ground up, starting from nothing and seeing where we can go. Here's the contents of the Zero Sum studio, Day 1:

- a cardboard box from Fed Ex Express (from something sent by the cell phone company)
- four sheets of cardstock (packing material from some baby-related item)
- a pad of blue-tinted paper given to me by the Anti-Defamation League in some fundraising junkmail
- a sheet of Ziggy Christmas labels, also sent in junkmail
- a "Heart of Georgia Technical Institute" pencil
- a "Renaissance Hotels" ballpoint pen
- a bright yellow envelope left-over from a greeting card.

This is the primordial soup from which Zero Sum #1 emerges.

The Zero Sum Art Project: Goals.

2006-11-23T07:53:00.000-08:00

Art is a form of alchemy, taking base materials and turning them into something precious.

How a work of art rises above the mass of everyday objects to become a valuable artifact is often a source of great interest, both in and out of the art world.

The studio practice of the artist is frequently seen as a romantic, mysterious endeavor, separated somehow from the everyday world.

The goal of the Zero Sum Art project is to create a financially isolated studio environment, in which every cost and every profit is documented and made visible to the viewer, and see if it is possible to create a self-sustaining studio practice. I have been looking for a long time for a project that would make use of eBay AS the artwork, not simply as a venue for selling artwork.

To this end, I have created an account on ebay, zero_sum_art, that will allow me to conduct the art "business" in as transparent manner as possible.

Any money spent on materials and fees and any other specifically art related expenses will be directly tied to the money brought in by the sale of the artwork, and this relationship will be accessible to the viewer at all times. The starting bids for all auctions will be based on the fees associated with the auction and the cost of materials in the artwork for sale (for purposes of this project, all of my "time" is "free"). The first artwork for sale has been made purely from free materials - mostly items that were sent as give-aways by charities requesting donations, or pens and pencils given away as promotional items. Any "profit" from sales will be spent on improving the materials that go into the artwork, or the shipping of the artwork. Should the artwork fail to make a profit, the materials used to make the next piece will remain very humble. Should the project stay in the red for several consecutive sales, the "studio" will collapse.

I will keep a running tally of costs and profits, available on the "me" page of zero_sum_art.

My target "balance" will be Zero. Anything coming in from sales will go out in expenses.

Starting solely with the most humble of scrounged materials, we will see what can be grown from them. Will a flourishing art terrarium be created, or a tank of art sea monkeys, destined to become a lifeless portfolio cluttered with little brine shrimpy corpses? Only time will tell.