AMERICA - (you broke my heart) Flag study #1

about the piece:.

While creating the Apollo Mirror this summer I became very obsessed with listening to Marvin Gaye's What's Going On, especially the Detroit Mix. It is a true masterpiece and maybe the most intelligent album ever created both on a music and social level.

Poverty, lack of jobs, quality industry moving out of our country, terrorism, education, hatred, fear, lives devoted to social media, ignorance, exploitation, gun violence, people in power abusing their positions, greed, war, pollution, lack of choices in presidency. This is what fuels the piece.

creating the piece:

I used my signature work of runny fried eggs as the foundation for this piece.

I wanted to make the piece as large as I could and chose to scale it at 8 feet by 4 feet so I could use a full sheet of plywood as my backer to mount the work to.

At this scale size the fried eggs replacing the stars measure out at 3 1/2". I cut a maple board into 50 squares then turned yolk portion on the lathe. I then band sawed out the rough outside shape before hand carving and shaping with gouges and rasps outdoors at Schuylkill River Park in Philadelphia.

Each individual egg has been treated as a sculpture upon itself. When you get close to the eggs you will view scratched rasp marks which I love.

The rustic stripes are made from oak boards that I cut down from pallet skids used for transporting goods. Each one was hand chosen for its unique texture/ grain that has been created naturally through wear and tear.

I used denim that I slightly distressed for the backer of the eggs as it also provided a vintage flag feel to the piece.

Creating the drips on the egg is jazz although not random. There is a definite control to the amount of drip and its travel.