WHAT I DID DURING THE PANDEMIC by Donald J. Trump

The coronavirus emerged four months ago in the United States, and today we attain the gruesome statistic of more than 100,000 Americans dead from Covid-19.  That's more than the number of Americans who died in the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Iraq War and the Afghanistan War, combined.  We are the planetary hot spot and the death toll continues to rise.

In honor of this achievement, I'm sharing a little zine I made for family and friends  (I'd say "enjoy" it, but that's really not the right word, is it?)   In his own words:

Mail Art

A motley collection of 4x6 mail art, some created for the annual National Collage Society postcard exhibition, some for friends, and some that have not yet found a home:

Broken

Cassandra

Domestic Ties

Where

Whirled Collage Day

Sometimes

“Sometimes” is a unique artist’s book I created earlier this year from a repurposed binder and plexiglass panels.  The panel images are heat-transferred, and some of the panels have additional images printed on tissue paper adhered to the reverse.  The book is bound accordion-style with hemp twine.

This book is about process.  I wanted to make a book with transparent pages.  And I wondered if I could heat transfer images with a household iron onto plexiglass.  The more I thought about it, however, the more likely it seemed that the whole effort would end in a Major Fail of melted plexi.  So, I procrastinated for a long, long time.  Years.  Eventually, however, I got tired of worrying about what might happen and plugged in my iron.  When I finished I did have a LOT of melted plexi…but I also had some interesting pages.  It’s not what I planned, but I like what I got.

So, this little book is a reminder:  maybe just stop worrying and give it a go: 

Sometimes you just have to try it.

Even if you know it won’t work.

I Love the Little Fishies

I Love the Little Fishies is a unique altered book created in 2018 in collaboration with my good friend Sabine Remy, a German collage artist.  The book is part of an on-going project Sabine has pursued for a couple years in which she and a collaborator/friend work on two identical books, ending up with two different altered books.  She calls it the "Unequal Twins" project and you can see more of these projects and other works on Sabine's blog here.

The vintage books are all part of a German series of popular pocket-sized books called Insel-Bücherei that feature lovely decorative paper covers and include a huge array of subject matter.  This book was about fish; Sabine modified the book text into an accordion structure and added lovely collaged images and some hanging fish.  I added some more collage and then hand-cut a little rhyme across the tops of the pages:

I love the little fishies, every she and he,

there are no better playmates in the deep blue sea.

Money Makes the World Go 'Round

Working on my third quarantine book.  This one is about money and I'm having fun defacing some currency, apparently a crime under Federal law.  Don't tell the feds.

The Age of Reason and Enlightenment is Over

"The Age of Reason" is the second book I’ve made while in isolation at home because of the Covid-19 global pandemic.  As I wrote the final text on April 19, 2020 at 4:30 pm, President Trump was on my television continuing his practice of lambasting journalists at his daily press conference and congratulating himself over and over on his incredible performance as President of the Greatest Nation on Earth.  At that moment there were more than 746,300 active confirmed cases across the United States (the highest total of any nation on earth).  Worldwide, more than two million people were infected with the virus. People were (and are) dying all over the world and my President was busy stroking his ego with his tiny little hands.

This book was created from two damaged Victorian-era photo albums.  I grafted the celluloid cover from one album onto the interior photo block of another and created additional photo mats to match the wonderfully detailed pages from one of the albums.  The album contains 10 cabinet cards (altered with collage and paint), several antique memorial cards, and a series of seven text cards:

The age of Reason and Enlightenment is over.
The time of Peace and Harmony is terminated.
The culture that valued creativity and originality has changed its mind.
The time for Reflection and Contemplation is no more.
All feelings of Love and Trust are cancelled.
Calmness and Serenity are gone.
The days of Innocence and Goodness are forgotten.