~calamity strange~

.highest bidder.

thursday = highest bidder

(yes, i know i just posted this photo last week.)

day four in my series of explanations of the parts that make up the ‘boxes’  which are officially known as “found object assemblage” pieces currently on display at chimera arts in santa cruz. from the heretics and heathens show april 1 - may 28, 2011

all of them made entirely from things i owned and have unearthed out of the nooks and crannies where i hide and store all the little things i collect.

• the wooden crate was the by-product of a purchase of a bunch of vintage bottles at a barn sale way out in corralitos. “barn sale” sounds so much more interesting than “garage sale” and in that particular case it really was.  i bought the bottles, the boxes were included.
• the box is lined primarily with “sold” tags that i bought several years ago when i participated in the santa cruz cultural council’s : open studios art tour.  i realized immediately that i didn’t need a hundred of them, of course, but they are such a pretty, rich red! (ask me some other time to tell you why i probably won’t ever participate in open studios again…)
• what you probably can’t make out in the photo are the seven deadly sins  and some of the other little statements about satan which are tucked in there and coincidentally are an exact match to the bloody rich redness of the tags.  sometimes you just have to get up real close and look carefully, there’s a lot that’s easy to miss when looking at art.
• behind the figure there is the cover and binding of a book about the devil
• there is also an old part of a dart-board, that i literally found lying next to a dumpster. yeah, i’m a garbage collector, whatever, i’ve always liked the bullseye motif.
• the silver cup in front is another piece from one of my uncle’s sports trophies that i mentioned earlier this week.
• at the base is a saw blade, that was actually used in one of my first sculpture pieces that i created as an assignment when i first went back to college after having babies and was trying to figure out what i wanted to do with my life (i sort of figured it out here later).   it was already painted and tied up with string.  i just glued it down ‘as is’ and added some shiny bits.  i wish i had photos of all the art pieces i’ve made over the years.
• on top of the blade, and covered in penny wrappers, is a small square stretched canvas- that i’ve had lying around in my studio for years.  it’s got an eyeball painted on it under all that paper.
• the nun doll is the only item in the entire show that i actually purchased during the several month obsessive art grind that led up to the opening of the heretics and heathens show.  i do have a bit of a weakness for Ebay.

©kelley richardson 2o11