Upcoming show.....

 

I just bought my tickets to Prague! I have been invited to show at DOX, the contemporary art museum  there. The show opens on June 4 and will run until November.

My installation will be on a high wall similar to the one shown above (UICA, Grand Rapids, 2016).

Questions, questions.....

 The following is a a first attempt to answer the questions of a redditor. They are coming faster than I am able to answer them, and I am going to propose that he call me and that I answer the questions by phone. I'll try to figure out a way- maybe video?- to present them here and on reddit.

Jerry, I've been trying to synthesize your process from posts, videos, interviews, etc, from over the last 12 or so years, but some questions remain. I'm posting them here per your suggestion to make them available for a wider audience. So I guess I'll just jump in...

New panels are each given a "center" around which the artistic operations are executed. How is the location of the center determined?

Many panels, but not all, have heavy dashed (often circular) lines around the center. And maybe around other points. And sometimes in expanding(?) concentric patterns. Sometimes these lines or fields overlap. I've seen you say that they don't really represent a physical in-world element and that they're a graphic element to the art. Basically, I'd like you to unpack how these forms work. When do they appear and when don't they? When are there multiples? When do they overlap? When are they true circles vs. "beans" or other less regular forms? If they're something your cards refer to, what are they called?

The dashed lines were originally just design elements. But then, in response to questions from redditors, I added to the reanimated human fantsay by saying that the dashes represnted invisble fences limiting newly arrived reanimants to the immadiate area around that town.

Do the first appearances of the void have the word "incursion" printed on them or is that something else?

That was the original term for The Void.

The latest Map news

 

The newest element in the execution of the Map is the tilting of the axes on which the collage work is based. A good example is shown in this image. The village of Kateville has been tipped slightly to the right or clockwise in response to a black card. (Red cards instruct me to tilt the axis to the left.)

I've had word of a possible European show this summer. The details aren't firm yet, but I will post them here as soon as they have been established. I'm thrilled to have the potential of another show after the long pandemic drought.

I continue to sell on eBay and Etsy and invite you to take a look at the listings. There are currently over 100 on the two sites combined. As I say in the text for the listings, I see their sale and placement to be the final step in the creative process. Actually, in my fondest dreams, there may be an even further step: the re-combining of the original panels in a huge exhibit some time long after my demise. Who knows?

Thanks for your interest and continuing support!

Where we are now....

 

You probably know by now that Jerry's Map was born in a front office of the Hoover Ball Bearing Company on South State Road in Ann Arbor in August, 1963. By the time I put it away in 1983, never thinking that I would take it up again, it had grown to about 800 panels.

The total number of panels, at latest count, was 3792. 

The sale of retired, archived original panels continues, and, to date, we have sold 860 of them. We continue, on Etsy and eBay, to find permanent homes for the remaining 1500 which are currently available for sale. 

The newest change in technique in the execution of the Map is to cock the axes for the 1-inch collage layer. The instruction cards tell me how many degrees to tip the main axis either clockwise or counter. Watch for it to show up in the daily Twitter postings!

Update!

 

Since I resumed selling on eBay and Etsy last December I have sold 615 original Map panels. I am thrilled! In a couple of weeks I will turn 79, and, while I am in pretty good health, I realize that I will be slowing down and that, one day, I will no longer be able to work on this project. Since I don't want my four kids to be saddled with disposing of the thousands of panels, I am anxious to do what I can to make sure that as many panels as possible will have found homes with poeple who care for them. My ultimate dream is that one day, long after I am gone, these thousands of panels will get reassembled in a monster show. So, stay tuned!

And many thanks to those of you have become foster parents to my beloved Map!

How I choose the panels for sale on eBay....

 

If you have been following the Map listings on eBay you may be wondering how we choose the panels to list there.

You may already know that when changes are made to a panel they are made on an inkjet copy and not on the original. Each set of changes is referred to as a "generation" of that panel. "Generation" might also be called an iteration.

The retired panels are used to make up sets of the Map. Currently there are six sets, three of which are complete. The first set is the Studio Set, the one being actively worked on by me. The next set, Exhibition Set 1, or Ex 1, was the first complete set to be exhibited at MassMoCA in 2012. Ex 2 and Ex 3 are also complete and are being arcvhived. Ex 4 and 5 are incomplete and atre being added to as panels are retired.

When a retired panel is not needed to help complete the last two sets it goes into a file of "Panels available for sale."

So....(we're getting there...) I use a set of cards (natch!) to go through the "sale" panels and select the ones to be offered. I choose two new panels to replace each one that is sold. 

Got it?

Jerry on Twitter and Instagram

If you've been following me on Twitter or Instagram you know that I have been posting those 16-panel composite sheets. I started at the top of the Map and am working down in bands from left (West) to right (East). The goofy looking post above was from today and represents a floater, an outlier, at the far northeast corner of the Map. It dates back to a period when I was adding sheets that were not contiguous to existing sheets.

In further news: my wife has been making cloth face masks, and we have been distributing them to friends and relatives. If you would like one email me at biggouda@aol.com. They are free.

And, if you want to support that project as well as the Map, you can take a look at the items for sale on Etsy. Many have them have just been reduced by 20%!

Thanks for your support, and stay well!