lots of words

Fetishes, inspirations and oddball highlights in my ongoing obsession to juxtapose materials, represent situations, and tell stories with images and objects:

FETISHES

Free objects, natural and man-made, that you can find on the ground. Also: things people say when they say them authentically and specifically.

INSPIRATIONS

ee Cummings, Andy Warhol, Laurie Anderson, David Bowie, Dr. Seuss, John Cage, Bill Viola, David Sedaris, Karen Finley, John Cassavetes, James Turrell, Giant Robot, Public Enemy, Huang Xing Li, Kim Addonizio, Maya Angelou, Jill Scott, Lauren Hill, Chris Ware, Joe Chiapetta ('till he went all Jesus), Julie Doucet, Optic Nerve, Lily Lau Lee, Love and Rockets, Yummy Fur, R. Crumb, Harvey Pekar, Yoko and John, Eckhart Tolle, Pema Chodron, Francesco Clemente, Gurumayi Chidvilasananda, Caroline Valasek, The Carnegie Mellon Museum, The Mattress Factory, my multitalented family of musicians, glass artists, canoe-makers, woodworkers, painters, poets, storytellers, big sillies and fantastic grandparents.

HIGHLIGHTS

- Escaping a nanny job and its tyrannical employer to explore South Egypt at age 22.

- San Francisco. Eight years of it. Somewhere along the line screwed up my knee and found myself crippled for three years. Bored with Perry Mason re-runs, I bought a bunch of paint at a yard sale and made a mess.

- The School of the Art Institute of Chicago's MFA program where I created complicated projects that required teams of helpers to do things like hack holes into walls to install video monitors and water pumps; shows that required approval from the fire marshal due to certain electrical sculptural elements; other shows that involved custom upholstery, industrial signage, and an exploration of spontaneous, videotaped, performance which meant hundreds of hours in sound and video-editing bays until 3 a.m., returning home via loud trains in freezing subway stations.

- Venice, CA. brought brilliant ideas for life works requiring large amounts of funding which led to creating my own design business and turning me into a branding expert and teacher who, in the wee hours and on trips to the bathroom, between caring for a 3-year-old, continues to sketch concepts on post-it notes. For God's sake, when will it end?

Thanks for visiting virtually.

—tjungle