This one begins from a box-set of fifteen French-language instruction 45s. They’re in a crate of records my landlords are tossing. Their place——upstairs from mine——is about to become a demolition, then construction zone. It’s been in the works for years; now it’s happening.

I expect to spend a lot of time elsewhere in the coming weeks.

First thing I do is toss the records. I’m not interested in brushing up on my French; the Russian’s keeping me plenty busy these days. What I liked was the box and the grey record sleeves. I knew when I saw them that I could make something out of them.

I’d like to teach myself some rudimentary bookbinding for these collage books, but in the meantime, a container like this box will do nicely.

The sources, as ever, are old sketchbooks, homework assignments, aging construction paper, and scavenged neglected books. I use several airplane drawings I made when I was about fifteen.

I bought a bunch of new tagger markers at the art store recently. I never got into graffiti and doubt I ever will, but these markers are amazing. The marks will cover any irregular surface. I love the occasional drips too.

I made fifteen two-sided pictures. Here’s the whole thing. The built-in advantage of this format is that the viewer can rearrange the order any way they please. Like a choose-your-own-adventure minus much narrative. My crummy homemade version of Chris Ware’s Building Stories.

A couple months ago, I sold the first of my six collage books. All but the Mersanes Benz one are available. No reasonable (or unreasonable) offer refused.

Drop me a line if you’re interested.