These mixed media pieces were part of a show I did with my friend, artist and musician, Kevin M.Kerby (the M stands for Merle- no foolin'). A miniature sketch of Kevin's work appears in the photo above. His pieces depicted contraptions created when seemingly unrelated objects are combined (I think he would be okay with that description) my pieces depicted people who, although not overtly stated in the art works, would likely abuse these contraptions given the opportunity based on the other crackhead events they managed to involve themselves in. The title was Kevin's idea... he's smart with words like that.
ANYWAY... the stories of the people in my artworks were taken from a little column of weird news appearing daily on the front of the Arkansas Democrat Gazette newspaper. I had saved my favorites from this column for a few years before I noticed some trends. Many people try to break out of prision with poorly made faux weapons and a lot of people swallow things they shouldn't just to give a couple of examples. These common stories were sometimes combined into one artwork, however some of the stories were so good, they needed to stand alone.I incorporated a scan of the original story into each artwork- I will attempt here to offer a summary of each work. The images of the people are not the true individuals- on one hand there might be some legal issues, on the other- they've suffered enough shame... plus, when you think about it, most of us are only one step away from doing something equally as bizarre and stupid given the right circumstances. These are the problems of everyone... no one is completely safe from random acts of ignorance.