The Pearl Pictures -- An Extended Cinematic Universe

“This is the particular theme of the pearl pictures, a gentle stillness of stature. The shape is vertical. The figure appears, tender and immaculate, out of the cleft shadow of the cumbrous furniture; it is rooted in it, rooted, as we see at last, utterly unmoving, to the floor. And besides this upright shape, this pillar, we come to know another, its antithesis that nevertheless easily and equally combines with it. It is the shape of a bell... More essentially we remember it as the shape of rounded shoulders which is often the stooping shape of preoccupation, of a woman bent attentively over a table. It has a feminine quality of self-possession..." - Lawrence Gowing  Vermeer, Oakland CA: University of California Press

One of the 20th century’s leading Vermeer experts was the English artist and writer Lawrence Gowing. Knowledgeable on both Vermeer’s historical and artistic context, one of Gowing’s most noteworthy contributions to The Discourse was defining the concept of the “pearl pictures” within Vermeer’s work. 

Named for their luminous approach to light, the “pearl pictures” are a group of Vermeer’s mid-career paintings noted for their similar subject matter and composition. They each feature a single woman at a table, facing a window in the left-hand corner of a room, engaging in a discreet activity, while either wearing or handling pearls.

Goring would initially identify four quintessential pearl pictures - Woman Reading a Letter, Woman with a Pearl Necklace, Woman Holding a Balance, and Woman with a Lute. Other scholars often group Woman Reading a Letter at an Open Window and Woman with a Water Pitcher into the pearl pictures, although their inclusion is not universally agreed upon.

Now, when I say that I’m a Vermeer fangirl, what I really mean is that I’m a pearl picture fangirl. Like Gowing, I am captivated by this series and its extended cinematic universe. All those bell-shaped women, like bowed tulips, gracing the canvas with their quiet introspection and soft self composure. Through repetition, you can watch as Vermeer hones his craft across the series. Whittling his visual language down to a precise, pointed simplicity.

“Even by Vermeer's standards, the scenes of these works are organized with exceptional economy utilizing a table with a single woman, a meager still life, a few carefully chosen props, a map or painting on the background wall and one or two chairs” 

This is the apex of Vermeer’s art. The pearl pictures feel like individual celluloid frames clipped from a film reel. They are the pregnant pause preceding the action. A woman lost in her internal world, depicted in the half-second before the viewer’s entrance upon the scene. In them one can anticipate the interruption, the broken concentration to come. How the angles of her body and face, startled out of their self reflection, will snap back like a rubber band. Shifting their orientation under the requirements of a woman being perceived. 

The way Vermeer captures this moment before the re/action feels intimate, familiar and also ripe for a feminist reading. And so the pearl pieces have become the centerpiece of my Vermeer studies.

In the art studio, bent over my work table by the window, I toil alone with my pearls and my pictures. A paper bell, a silk tulip, I pantomime the actions of Vermeer’s solitary female figures, perfecting them through my own repetitions. I feel a deep kinship with them. Yes, much of it is rooted in our shared gender. But there is an important divergence – I identify with the subjects of the pearl pictures because being an immigrant is a terribly lonely business and I see myself in their solitude and self containment. 

In a way, my Vermeer studies are a pregnant pause of sorts. They represent the moment between being an American artist and an American-Dutch artist. The lonely, solipsistic work of figuring out who I am and what I want to create in this new place. I am the half-second before the re/action. Waiting for what comes next in this journey of making art in the Netherlands.

Tot ziens!
🎨🎨🎨

Of Sphinxes and Pearls - An Exploration of the Works of Johannes Vermeer

“A legend grows around a grain of truth, like a pearl.”– Peter S. Beagle

A painter without an origin story is but a sphinx without a riddle. In the realm of myth, the sphinx’s riddle is the source of her power, the vehicle she uses to send tongue tied travelers to their deaths. If she loses or lacks a riddle, her ferocity is reduced to the level of a declawed housecat mewling for more milk. Therefore, to call someone a riddle-less sphinx is to point at their hollowness without fear. To call out their toothlessness with a full throated and pearly white grin. 

“You cannot kill me in any way that matters.” 

“You cannot make art in any way that matters.”

Johannes Vermeer, that famous painter of Dutch interiors and Dutch interior life, is one of the most elusive sphinxes of the art world. So much so that he is often known as “the Sphinx of Delft” due to the mysteries shrouding his life and practice. There are no notebooks, no journals, no sketches, no resumes or work histories, no early or in-progress works, and few contemporaneous accounts. His story is but conjectures wrapped in myths wrapped in legends, as all that’s survived are 36 paintings and the scantest of biographical details.

The sphinx sits and paints

Tall as the crooked church leans

Against delft blue skies

Which makes it difficult to infer concrete biographical meaning in his work. Who and why and how Vermeer painted; all this information has been lost to the sands of time. In fact, for two centuries his work also languished in obscurity– attributed to other, more famous artists – only to be plucked from anonymity by Théophile Thoré-Bürger’s scholarly excavations. So without a biographical lens onto Vermeer’s work, how can we answer their riddles and come to understand his origin stories? Through his historical context.

The cut and cloth of a dress, the architecture and decor of a room; we can still interpret Vermeer and his work through the trappings of his era – specifically that of the merchant class during the Dutch Golden Age. And for me, one historical/cultural detail especially catches my eye– the presence of pearls in Vermeer’s work. Of his 36 paintings,18 feature pearls. They adorn ears and necklines and updos. They pour out of boxes and lay scattered on tables. Preposterously large and threaded in great quantity, they speak to an opulence emblematic of Vermeer’s specific era.

Rare and exotic, pearls were brought from Asia via the same trading routes and colonial holdings as the infamous Dutch spice trade. This evolution in capitalism and economics – aided by Dutch independence in 1648 – helped propel the merchant class to prominence in Dutch society. The very same class that Vermeer (nominally) and his collectors belonged to. And capitalism, ever abhorring a vacuum, would require new and expensive class markers to match this new era. Hence pearls became somewhat synonymous with this moment in Dutch empire, going “viral” among an upper class hungry for luxury goods.

“Just as the tulipmania craze saw Dutch elites paying exorbitant prices for tulips, the Dutch Golden Age saw the elite similarly pining for pearls.” 

Vermeer, by using pearls so consistently in his work, is positioning his figures in this same time period and economic space. For adorning his figures in gold and gemstones would have been too aristocratic and old fashioned. Just a few years out from the 80 Years War, this would have stuck out like a Hapsburg chin in the new Dutch society. And on the flipside, leaving his figures unadorned would have rendered them indistinguishable from the maids who served them. Too earthy and humble to enjoy the class-based leisure that his figures often exude.

So Vermeer's pearls function quite effectively as symbols of a certain class of wealth during the Dutch Golden Age. Was this about capitalizing on the class vanitas of his audience to sell work? About making social commentary in a rapidly changing country? About telling his or his family's biographical stories? The sphinx's lips remain sealed.

Why I Can't Get Vermeer Out Of My Mind...

There is no painter more Dutch than Vermeer. The other greats? Most casual viewers think Rembrandt was Italian (I did for embarrassingly long). And Van Gogh is far too French-adjacent (despite all those early peasant paintings). And beyond that? There’s Mondrian and Bosch and a sea of long-dead Jan and Frans and Hans named painters. But the national imagination and artistic reputation rests in outsized part upon Vermeer and his slim thirty-six surviving works.

A painter of middle class domestic spaces and the women who inhabited them, he is of course most famous for his “tronie” style portrait Girl with a Pearl Earring. Her face stares out at you from a hundred Amsterdam souvenir shops. Right next to the windmill magnets and the clog keychains. Like the scent of weed, she drifts throughout the cityscape. Inescapable. Elusive. 

One of the most famous faces in art, there’s a reason she’s referred to as the “Mona Lisa of the North.” But more on that particular story another day…

But The Girl is a bit of an anomaly in Vermeer’s oeuvre, despite her immense contribution to it. Vermeer infamously played with the gaze but was rarely so direct with it. While some of his figures do look at the viewer – interrupted in mid-act, mid-sentence, mid-thought, mid-flirtation – the direct, perceiving gaze of The Girl is a bit of a rarity in Vermeer’s work. More frequently, he positions us, the viewer, in the role of voyeur; watching women in their personal moments of self reflection and interaction. We see them drinking, conversing, reading, writing, playing music, but generally we are not included in these acts. As silent and passive witnesses to their quietude, our presence is bought with the art patron’s coin. A currency outside the usual economies of the private family space. 

This familiar and familial painting style – colloquially known as genre painting – represented a huge departure from the suffering Christs, self-aggrandizing patron portraits, and quaint landscapes of other European masters. A staple of the Dutch Golden Era, genre paintings were created all over the Low Countries, but few examples are as captivating as the intimate simplicity of Vermeer’s women. 

The art historian Lawrence Gowing would even go so far as to christen a subset of Vermeer’s genre paintings “the pearl pictures” for their similar compositions and enigmatic, individual beauty. He would hold these paintings - each depicting a single woman at a large table facing towards a left-hand window while engaging in some discreet activity – as the pinnacle of the artform. 

“The lady of the pearl pictures inherits a rich accumulation of meaning. Sometimes it seems that half the imagery of the genre tradition hangs about her, invisible.” - Lawrence Gowring, Vermeer, Oakland CA: University of California Press, 1997

Within this strict compositional guideline we see a visual language distilled to its purest qualities, to the interplay of light and color and melancholy detachment. “Yet she is usually alone, waited on only by the light. Daylight, the window itself, is indeed a presence in the room.” 

As an immigrant to the Netherlands, studying Vermeer is part of how I’m artistically acclimating to my new country. Learning the stories and brushstrokes that make up Dutch art history. But my love for Vermeer runs deeper than mere historical relevance. I am also drawn to the solitude and sense of quiet containment in his subject matter – and how this reflects my own experience of being female and restarting life in a new country. 

There are days where I’ll be working in my studio or tending to my house and I’ll catch a glimpse of a familiar posture or gesture or expression – familiar because I’ve seen them depicted in the dozen Dutch art history books cluttering my coffee table. The resemblance is uncanny because the emotional component is uncanny. I love the Netherlands, but the nest I’ve carved out for myself here is lined with a deep solitariness. Which is different from solitude, mind you. There is none of the emptiness, the unhappiness. Just quiet. The quiet of an art studio and a garden. Of tea kettles and chicken coops and sun-drenched naps. Of owning too many cats and not having enough local friends. 

Vermeer’s is an art of everyday intimacies, single film cells clipped from the reel of time, left scattered across the floor, as relatable now as they were in the 1650’s. I'm excited to share my artistic and intellectual journey through his work. To share what that work has meant to me on my immigration journey.

Ho Ho Ho Dome - a HO Scale model of Black Rock City

Not all my projects end up on my portfolio site. One that hasn’t so far is the Ho Ho Ho Dome - a hot chocolate bar with a HO scale model of Black Rock City that I’m building for Burning Man 2021.

It was recently featured in the Burning Man Journal, you should check it out!

BRC Multiverse: Create Home Away From Home At Home

Urban Camo Seed Bomb Part 5

The latest Urban Camo Seed Bomb. Well, actually this was the first one I painted – I just didn’t get around to documenting it until now. Now it lives on an onramp embankment in East Oakland. A sad little spot full of weeds and trash; it seemed fitting and perhaps a more fertile locale than a sidewalk tree well.

Urban Camo Seed Bomb Part 4

Right now I’m working on some non-bottle cap Urban Camo Seed Bombs. I’m not sure how I feel about this particular one, it’s not quite working for me. Perhaps it’s because I “cheated” and used watercolor pencils and gouache to achieve the metallic quality? Also, I’m not a classically trained painter – I actually hadn’t painted in over nine years when I started this series – and this particular seed bomb was difficult. There’s something simple about painting logos and text. Having to accurately render non-graphic objects was a challenge.

Anyway, I’m constantly seeing condoms and condom wrappers on the ground in my neighborhood so I figured this was a fitting addition to the series.

Urban Camo Seed Bomb Part 3

“Meh, I could have done better”. For nebulous reasons this particular Urban Camo Seed Bomb doesn’t do it for me. I realize it’s unrealistic to be madly in love with my entire portfolio but as a perfectionist it’s difficult feeling underwhelmed by my work. It just smacks of defeat and sadness and being stuck in the artistic equivalent of the line at the DMV.

So in the interest of “redeeming” this piece and my feelings around it, I placed it in one of my very favorite spots in Fruitvale – the remains of the Old Fruitvale Hotel. Boarded up for years (decades?), the hotel is a favorite spot for taggers, the homeless, and people looking to dump trash.

A simple example of 19th century stick architecture, the Old Fruitvale Hotel was built in 1894 when “Fruit Vale” was an unincorporated neighborhood of small cherry and apricot orchards (it was annexed in 1909). The oldest extant commercial building in Fruitvale, the hotel stood directly across from the Fruitvale Station (train not BART, although it’s near that too) and serviced riders on the Southern Pacific , Interurban Electric Railway (IER), Key System, and California Railway lines during different points of it’s existence.

Oh, the sights those blind, boarded up eyes must have seen! The railside greetings and goodbyes, the passing of the torch from transit system to transit system, the rise and decline and promised return of a beautiful and complicated neighborhood. Such lovely secrets, such a lovely state of decay, and such a “meh” little seed bomb tucked away at it’s feet.

After about a month in inclement weather it became obvious this seed bomb was tucked too far under the eaves for successful disintegration/germination. A week later it was gone. Turns out that interesting places attract attentive eyes and that tiny slips of urban art rarely go unnoticed for long. Back to the Ideal Placement drawing board!

Urban Camo Seed Bomb Part 2.0

 Both of these Urban Camo Seed Bombs disappeared within one week. The Pyramid Brewing cap is from the Bay Trail near the High Street Bridge. The Holiday Shiner cap is from the freeway onramp at 40th Avenue and 12th Street.

I really wonder where these go. Are my neighbors collecting them? Are magpies and crows scooping them up? Are dogs wolfing them down? I guess I’ll never know. But in the future I should probably aim for more covert seed bomb placement.

An Irreverent Homage Of Sorts

As we established two weeks ago - I broke an in-progress Faberge Egg Seed Bomb and was very, very angry. So angry that I went out this weekend and had my nails painted to match the lost egg. We all grieve in our own unique ways.

An Irreverent Goodbye Of Sorts

BURIAL SERVICE FROM THE BOOK OF COMMON ART PRAYER

In sure and certain hope of inclusion in the permanent collection and 15 million years remembrance through our Lord Andy Warhol, we commend to Almighty MOMA our art piece the Tsarevich Fabergé Egg Seed Bomb; and we commit this art piece to the list of lost artworks; paint to paint; egg shell to egg shell; poppy seed to poppy seed. Artforum bless him and keep him, Artforum make his pages to shine upon him and be gracious unto him and give him good reviews. Amen.

Sometimes you’re so angry you can’t take crisp pictures.

I’ve been working on a new series of egg-based seed bombs painted to look like Imperial Faberge Eggs. This mid-level art catastrophe was to be the Tsarevich Egg.

Rest in pieces little Faberge Seed Bomb. I’ll see you on the other side of the art portfolio.

Two days before shattering on my floor

Fauxberge Eggs Pt 2

 

“…my family despised Faberge objects as emblems of grotesque garishness.”
― Vladimir Nabokov

What does it mean to destroy your own art? To have that destruction be writ into the very bones of it’s conception and execution? (no pun intended) I’ve spent five years and counting making seed bomb simulacras of trash for the Urban Camo Seed Bomb series – I’m used to turning my art over to the rains, the winds, and the trash collectors. But what if I’m tired of passive submission; of fading and melting and other synonyms for a gradual slide into non-being? What if I want to dream big, to let those dreams edge into darker terrain, to Fuck. Shit. Up.

Inspired to take the themes of the Urban Camo Seed Bomb series in a more dynamic direction; I thought on destruction, value, and taboo; as well as their inverses creation, unimportance, and social acceptability. How is cultural importance conferred and what crises are caused by the non-consensual revocation of that status? The more I thought, the more I kept coming back to the works of Peter Carl Faberge. I remember the 1996 Faberge show at the de Young and the captivating, glittery insincerity of it all. Those charmingly vacuous objects d’art branded with a name that personifies elegance, excess, luxury, and their negation; the beauty of the object irretrievably mired in the fate of their owners. The last gasps of an empire can be heard in their presence and it turns out that eggs, like tsars, don’t do well up against a wall.

So I decided this new series would artistically explore that hard, severe moment where worth and status are severed from their vessels. No more lengthy disintegrations and ephemeral wastings. This would be about the moment where metaphorical eggs meet metaphorical walls and (every)thing becomes lost in that not-so-pleasant exchange of greetings. Towards this end I would create a series of seed-filled eggs painted to resemble Faberge’s and smash them in an empty Fruitvale lot. This arc from cultural object –> delicately painted rendition –> shattered mess –> blossoming flowers would serve to highlight the arbitrary status of Worth through a crisis point of wanton, uncomfortable destruction – with a bit of deferred transformative growth (albeit on a different value axis) promised at the end.

Speaking of deferred results…

It took six months between finishing the last egg and scheduling Fauxberge Revealed (which I perhaps too cleverly named after Faberge Revealed, the international traveling exhibit of Faberge Eggs). I needed to say goodbye, and after a year of touching paint to fragility I was still intimidated by the subject’s vastness. I needed a better handle on it’s relationship to my art and life in order to let it all go and say,

“This may look delicate but it will only break by choice, never by accident, and I choose to break it now.”

It took six months of studious procrastination to design a show as full of crystaline contradictions as the eggs themselves. For when your art commits suicide, what kind of note does it leave? And how does one craft a eulogy brimming with cheerful optimism and positivity to mark the occasion?

It took six months to finally answer this – you dedicate it to the things you proved stronger than. I never expected to make it through 2010 – I planned to buy a fabulous New Look dress and toss myself in the bay in a dramatic gesture worthy of Kim Novak in Vertigo. Eighteen months later, when depression reared it’s head once more, I sat in the dark listening to trains and contemplating less cinematic acts of conscious self negation. So for Fauxberge Revealed I stole the outfit from one personal crisis moment and the location from another because three years on, I simply refuse to break. Those ghosts cannot pick at my cracks, cannot find a foothold in the life I’ve made in the interim. I am stronger than my art, my goodbyes, my stubbornness, and the constellation of inspiration points that went into this series – and this is where I make my stand.

“This may look delicate but it will only break by choice, never by accident, and I do not choose to let it break. Ever.”

So I wiped away the tears, put on my party dress and egg bandolier, invited 50+ people to meet me on a corner in Fruitvale, and handed them a map to the eggs. In hindsight, I should have pushed people further into the neighborhood or better integrated the eggs into the surrounding civic infrastructure. Afraid of breaking either my friends or my neighborhood, I contracted the exhibition field from 4×4 to 2×3 square blocks; altering the show’s sense of immersion and discovery.

Since all my art is a love letter to place, I feel like this last minute revision amounted to turning “I love you Fruitvale! Let’s make beautiful things together!” into an emotionally avoidant “I really like you a lot! But I’m not really ready to call this a relationship!” The neighborhood deserves more faith in its strength and gentleness; in its self determinism around breaking and brokenness; in its status as an important creative site. By questioning my trust in it, I failed to do it justice in that regard.

However, some measure of my “meh” was redeemed by collecting all the eggs into my bandolier and leading the crowd to the train tracks like some tsarina-turned-1950’s-beauty-queen-turned-cult-leader. This image is worth a dozen painted eggs to me.

And the actual breaking of the eggs? I did not cry, I did not lose my nerve, people seemed equal parts horrified and charmed, and it was a fitting tribute to things destined to break and destined to remain unbroken. I’m not sure where to take my explorations of value, ephemerality, and artistic seed bombing next – I suppose 2015 has an answer in store for me?

Until then, I’m keeping an eye on the train tracks – not for a way out, but for a sign of beautiful beginnings.

 All in all it was just another poppy sprouting against the wall…

Fauxberge Eggs Pt 1

 

For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

- Newton’s Third Law

If the Urban Camo Seed Bombs were an exercise in patience and observation, the Fauxberge Egg series is an exercise in instant, almost violent, gratification. Eight hollowed eggs filled with California Poppy seeds and painted to resemble Faberge Eggs; they’re destined to be shattered on the streets of Fruitvale, scattering their seeds and (hopefully) leading to a crop of spring flowers. A direct response to my previous seed bomb series; I’m continuing to work with themes of art as renewal, the impermanence of the art object, and the arbitrary nature of “worth”. Building on that conceptual base are the additional tensions of passive versus active destruction and precious trash versus trashing the precious.

Now to meet the eggs! 

Imperial Coronation Egg and Pansy Egg

The Imperial Coronation Egg was a gifted to Empress Alexandra Fvodorovna in 1897 to commemorate the coronation of Tsar Nicholas II.

The Pansy Egg was gifted to Tsar Nicholas II from Empress Alexandra Fvodorovna in 1899.

 Rose Trellis Egg

The Rose Trellis Egg was gifted to Empress Alexandra Fyodorovna by Tsar Nicholas II in 1907.

Rosebud Egg (dedicated to Conor Fahey-Latrope) 

The Rosebud Egg was gifted to Empress Alexandra Fyodorovna by Tsar Nicholas II in 1895. It was the first egg Nicholas gifted to her.

Clover Leaf Egg  and Twelve Panel Egg

The Clover Leaf Egg was gifted to Empress Alexandra Fyodorovna by Tsar Nicholas II in 1902. It is considered too fragile to travel and is one of the few Imperial Eggs to have never left Russia.

The Twelve Panel egg was gifted to Barbara (Varvara) Kelch-Bazanova in 1899 by her husband Alexander Kelch. It is the only non-Imperial Egg I painted.

Twelve Monograms Egg

The Twelve Monograms egg – Also called the Alexander III Portrait Egg – was gifted to the Dowager Empress Maria Fyodorovna in 1896 by her son Tsar Nicholas II.

Renaissance Egg

The Renaissance Egg was gifted to Empress Maria Fyodorovna in 1894 by her husband Tsar Alexander III. It was the last egg he would gift her.

All my portfolio pics were shot by the wonderful Randal Alan Smith. You should consider him for you Bay Area art and product photography needs. http://randalalansmith.com/

Urban Camo Seed Bombs Part 1.5

This is what the Corona Cap looks like after eleven days outside; including four days of rain. All detail has dissolved away and the bottle cap has physically split in two – the top of the cap separating from, and sliding off, the bottom.  Can poppy seed sprouting be far behind?

Urban Camo Seed Bombs Part 1

A little backstory on this project…

Between working, sleeping, and socializing I split my time pretty evenly between Oakland and San Francisco. Given that most of that time is spent in SOMA (where I work) or Fruitvale  (where I live) I have a passing familiarity with urban blight and the underutilization of green space. The specific issues – and by “issues” I mean observable symptoms not their underlying causes – in each area differ immensely. In San Francisco, urban space is a cage – the grid-like layout of it’s streets and the box-like architecture of it’s buildings marching up and down hills like prison bars or long teeth. With buildings pressed up against the sidewalk and one another there’s a dearth of front yardage, a dearth of tree wells and a general dearth of visually accessible greenery. However, this series is not about that specific set of urban issues. Sorry San Francisco, this series is very much about Oakland’s relationship to space.

In Oakland, urban space is simultaneously expansive and isolated. Lacking the motivation to grow upwards, everything spreads and languishes in uninspired apathy. Houses are cushioned by yards, businesses are cushioned by parking lots, and the streets are cushioned by tree wells. Which is not to say that any of it counts as well utilized space. Sure, there’s a great feel of openness and breathability to Oakland; but the cost of maintaining that open, urban space expands exponentially with the size of the space in question. If relatively wealthy San Francisco cannot properly landscape a tree well how do you expect relatively impoverished Oakland to properly maintain an empty lot, a small park, or the yard of a foreclosed home? How does a neighborhood who’s tax base (or political clout) doesn’t support adequate litter removal contain residents/landlords financially capable of landscaping their yards and tree wells en masse? Realistically, these things aren’t happening because Oakland is huge and sprawling and economically disadvantaged. “City coffers fall apart; the tax base cannot hold; Mere neglect is loosed upon public space.” 

So how did I get from Oakland-has-lots-of-underutilized-open-space to the concept of the Urban Camo Seed Bomb? And what is an Urban Camo Seed Bomb anyway? Simple; when walking through my neighborhood I see more litter than plant-life and that wasted opportunity makes me sad. To combat this under-utilization of green space I’ve made a series of seed bombs painted to look like common trash – the idea being that my “trash” will blend in with the actual trash, dissolve in the rain, and eventually sprout flowers. So how are the Urban Camo Seed bombs constructed? The seeds I used are from the California Poppy and were chosen due to their relatively easy germination, their suitability for the region, their showy blossoms, and their status as the official California state flower. The seed bombs themselves are made from recycled paper, water, and flour that’s either pressed into moulds or flattened between bricks and painted using non-toxic water colors. Below are two of the dozen or so completed Urban Camo Seed Bombs. These are the Fancy Pants Art Portfolio shots.

And these are the Placed In The Urban Environment shots – specifically an abandoned tree well on San Leandro Street in Oakland. I walk by this spot every day and love the bottle cap mosaics. So much Heineken and Corona but not a single, solitary scrap of greenery! If successful, this project should help change that (although hopefully not so much that the mosaics no longer show).

In hindsight that shade of blue is off.

One of these is not like the others.

And how has this little experiment gone? Within 48 hours both bottle caps were gone. Within an additional 24 hours the Corona cap came back but was severally mangled – it’s paint smudged and it’s body crushed. Within another 24 hours it had disappeared again only to reappear once more the following day. At this point I can only conclude that my neighbors are playing tricks on me.

LESSONS LEARNED 1) Bottle caps need to be pressed into the soil both as camo and as protection from the wind. The Corona cap was pressed into the soil whereas the Heineken cap was not – I’m wondering if this had something to do with their differing fates. 2) Pick more secluded spots. If people see an art they will take it. While a certain amount of Seed Bomb FAIL has been factored into this project it would be nice if not ALL of them disappeared. 3) My neighbors are either the best or worst people ever. Keep a close eye on them…

Sad and mangled - after it's first disappearance.