This past weekend I traveled with collaborator/Justseeder Mary Tremonte up to Meadville, PA to take part in the annual 8 Hour Projects exhibition at Allegheny College, curated by Darren Miller. Rather than approach the opportunity with a full-blown thesis, Mary and I worked playfully and loosely with imagery from American game-hunting culture and themes of predator/prey relationships in North America.
Earlier in the week, I took several of Mary’s drawings and rendered multiples of them in black and fluorescent adhesive vinyl. Mary made a pattern from an image of a leg-hold trap that I recently used for a design in an upcoming AK Press calender – the idea was to make a large tessellation of the image, wallpaper-style, by screenprinting directly on the wall. When we found out we had our own room in the Megahan Gallery, things got a bit sillier as we decided to switch out the flood bulbs in the track lighting for blacklight CFL’s which would coordinate with fluorescent vinyl and printing inks!
14 artists participated in the event, a day-long session involving a wide range of artists and practices and a steady stream of students and other visitors asking questions and, in some cases, participating in production of some of the work. The whole deal was a blast, many thanks to Darren and Allegheny College (and the Penny Bar) for hosting us!
