Title: Here’s The Thing
Medium: Graphite, conte, ink, digital collage, personal writing
Dimensions: 5.5 in. W x 7 in. H, 10 pages
Date: 2019
Personal essay reflecting on creative practices.
2022 reprints of this book are the result of a 2022 Creative Support for Individuals grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board. This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund.
Click here for transcript of written content.
Click here for audio recording of written content.
Alt Text: Cover. In black paint at top third of image, jagged text reads "Here's The Thing." Below a smaller subtitle script is a large square frame, the portrait of a man in a winter coat, drawn in splattered black inks and graphite lines is in the frame. He is screaming, hands up near his face, the digits malformed into twisting horns and stalks. All subsequent pages use these materials.
Alt Text: Interior endpaper spread. Splattered white ink of various transparencies across both black pages, akin to blood spatters, dividing cells, or pockmarked skin. This texture is repeated in black, very lightly, in background on all following pages.
Alt Text: Left page, square frame in center of page depicts a human head, screaming, upside down, sprouting insectoid legs. Two eyes on stalks emerge from neck of head. Right page, three frames, overlaid, depict the remains of a body wearing glasses in snow, a hand reaching into another man's mouth, and a a man lying dead on a table, gunshot wound in his forehead.
Alt Text. Left page, four frames: a hunched form coated in black liquid; a man crying out in pain, holding onto the stump of where a hand once was; a bellowing, bloated face, eyes and mouth distending; a man with tentacles emerging from his mouth. Right page, single frame of, fused to the side of an older man's face, a massive, fanged and roaring mouth.
Alt Text: Left page, single large frame, containing drawing of Keith David, wearing a heavy winter coat, looking both exhausted and suspicious to the right. Right page, same setup, with large frame containing drawing of Kurt Russell, also exhausted and suspicious, looking to the left.
Alt Text: Left page, single image frame, containing drawing of screaming man with distorted hands as described on cover. Right page, the same white ink on black paper, fleshy pattern described in second Alt Text description page.
Alt Text: Back cover. Surrounded by loosely brushed, black paint border, is frame roughly size of bottom two thirds of page. Inside frame is the same screaming, multi-legged head described on third page of Alt Text descriptions.