Documenting the package project

Longtime readers of this blog may remember that in 2011 I did a regular art project in which I made bundles or packages of stuff that I found lying around in the studio or on the street.  Although I had set up a blog specifically to record my daily art projects, for some reason I never posted my packages.  I had rationalizations: it wasn't technically DAILY art because I only required at least one package per week, and I hadn't gotten around to doing a good job of photography.

Years passed, and at the end of August I had an impetus to clean up my act -- I am getting ready for a solo show about my regular art projects of the past.  I wanted to have my daily art blog up to date with everything I've done since 2010, and also wanted to publish a magazine about the package project.  That meant I needed to haul the packages out of storage and photograph them, which meant I needed a photography station with a better background than the green cutting mat that I had perched packages on at the time.

Fortunately I have in my possession a whole pack of foam core boards (yes, the corners are all bashed in, but that wasn't a problem with this particular use) and many yards of black cotton.  So I made a photo booth:

Here I'm shooting my sketchbooks from 2016, in which my daily art was drawing, but the same setup worked great for the packages.  And you will be happy to hear that the picturesque drapes and droops of the fabric became invisible in the photo, leaving just a nice lush black.

So now all my packages -- 99 in all -- are properly photographed and identified and posted to my daily art blog.  If you want to check them out, go HERE.

And here are all the packages that were made out of packaging -- all the stuff that wraps, protects, swathes and bulks up the stuff we buy.  It has always seemed criminal to me to throw all that away.  I feel much better when I can wrap it up in a bundle, stash it away in a box and call it art.