Today's studio closeup is of some past work that I had hung on the wall prior to the flood. There are a couple other survivors that stayed upstairs and I kid you not, I had just carted the rest of my work downstairs a couple weeks before the flood. Luckily, most of the work that was down there, I had taken slides of it, so perhaps I'll dig those out and share here if I'm brave enough.

My next move was going to be storing all the recent dioramas I had worked on downstairs as well, but something just told me no, and I was procrastinating BIG TIME but I wasn't sure why. Perhaps it was the thought of "paper" in the basement becoming warped or dirty that kept me from moving it down there, I don't know, but I am now so damn glad I procrastinated on that. During the aftermath of the flood, and after we were allowed back into the house, I hauled hundreds of my dioramas into a temperature controlled storage unit. Lesson learned. Now NOTHING is stored down there or ever will be again.

On a happier note, this piece was a prelude to a song Aaron Johnson and I had been working on during Sweet Jelly band times called "She's Just A Weed". I had this crazy notion that I wanted to make artwork for the songs we were writing at the time. Peter Gabriel's "US" album featured amazing artwork per song next to the lyrics inside the CD jacket and I know that's what inspired this grand illusion of mine.

Instead the piece itself turned into what you see here. I ended up never making artwork for "She's Just A Weed" but I am in the midst of making a diorama museum piece for that tune in modern times for therapeutic reasons.

The sticker on the back is left over from a show my dear friend Morgyn Stranahan and I had at her old art studio in Milwaukee - that night was such a blast! She's an amazing artist and an amazing person. It was the first time my artwork was going to be viewed by people I didn't know in a huge crowd situation and I was super nervous. What I was doing wasn't pretty lighthouses, flowers or birds that people naturally relate to and want to see, it was definitely conceptual and the focus was on color and storytelling.

Please enjoy this look into the past.

Piece Title: A Moment of Your Time (diptych)
Media: Acrylic and Collage on Canvas Board
Year: 2000
Size: Two 5"x7" panels - 1/4" apart