stencil, waterborne and urethane automotive paint, metal flake on oak-cradled aluminum
24 x 24 x 2
2023


This model is gonna stay anonymous, instead, im gonna tell you about Tina.

Tina worked in the local and only drug store in the area where i grew up, Grimms Rx. You know the one right next to the bakery and the barbershop at the bottom of the hill by the railway tracks. Grimm’s Drugs was the kinda place you could buy a Mother’s Day card, pick up your Rx, rent a VHS tape, and buy replacement tubes for your TV set. They had baseball cards, candy bars,  magazines and they had Tina at the counter.

Now from the above you may have pickup i live in a half-horse town to be sure, and growing up in the height of Reagan “conservatism’ with my only exposure to music was from the folk mass and the Christian-contemporary ‘music’, Tina with her 6-inch burgundy spikes and bubble gum took my breath away. I’d fumble, hands shaking with my paper route tip money to buy the contraband BMX magazine and try to look up at her face.

Tina was proof that there was a life outside the ‘focus on the family’ landscape i was raised in.

My senior year in high school Tina came back as a student teacher, those days she was rocking more of a “who’s that girl” platinum look, but i recognized her instantly. While still remaining terrified of her ( and all girls, shit most boys too if i’m honest), we struck up a polite friendship and she made me a couple of mix tapes. As you might have guessed these mix tapes were not the standard fair of Oswego kids ( EG: REO, foreigner, journey, bad company). No, it was all punk, post-rock, new wave, art rock, and industrial. I was in love.

Tina, you will always hold a place in my heart for being so kind so such a scrawny, weird little nerdy art loner. 

‘and we are all just waiting for something worth waiting for ‘
stencils, automotive paint on oak-cradled aluminum
24x24x2

Pictured with “past the point of caring”

quote on the painting by Nicole Alexandra Blackman from ‘Dogma ‘