Counter display with Pops - 2010
One of a first set of three prototypes - 2008 - acrylic on wood block pop & ink jet wrapper
FINE ART YOU CAN TRUST
I try to make art that has a bit of twist to it. Even though it is possible to make real lollipops, they just don't last. Sure they are yummy for a while, but these little sculptural novelties will never go sour.
The image way at top is how they ended up for my Visual Chew show in 2010. I made a batch of 17 acrylic pops on wood. The wrappers are silk screened with a cut out plastic window and the boxes were silk screened as well. The blue images above is one of a set 3 of the first prototypes that I made.
On the back of those wrappers I had a little bio I wrote of Jackson Pollock. I thought that not everyone would know who he is and hence not totally get the concept and slight play on the name. He is one of my favorite artists and this is what I wrote: Jackson Pollock(1912-1956) He was an American expressionist painter who had a controlled and systematic method to his dribbling and splattering of paint onto huge canvases laid on the floor. These paintings broke the mold of representational art and in his use of new techniques, demonstrated the artist's physical involvement with the work.
For the silk screened wrappers I had to forgo the write up thinking that the type would be pretty tiny and I was unsure of my silk screening skills. ( Yes I printed these!)
Below are some of the wrapper design ideas I was toying with after those prototypes and after I decided that I wanted to silk screen them. With the earlier prototype wrapper I had printed them off my ink let. I was not about to try and reproduce all those colors and shading.
I knew that I always wanted to use the old popsicle wrapper design for these Pollicks™ and they would not have been complete without the collectable wrappers to trade in for exciting prizes. My screen for printing could only hold 4 wrappers so I only designed 4 backs.
The idea for Pollicks goes back to 2006 and you can see how my original conception of the lettering has remained pretty much in tact. The first wrapper idea in the sketch is fully realized below. I really do miss the multi-colored lettering in the design.
Display from Visual Chew show at Martha Street, 2010. Photo by RonD.
This past summer my friend Ken Gregory was into making candy for a project of his and he offered up his help in realizing an edible multi-flavored PoP! Thanks Ken. The middle though, is a hard candy like the outside dribbled part. One day I will figure out how to make a nice Nougat for these little canvases and to fully realize what I envisioned this edible version to be.
