NO MORE WIRE HANGERS!!!!!!!!!!!

As part of my job as a human being who likes to recycle things from the trash, I've discovered that my artwork translates rather easily to using wire hangers. As you can imagine here in the city, there is always a fresh supply of wire hangers that people throw out from their dry-cleaning. Over the years, I've turned them into, horses, rabbits, bugs, skulls, pumpkins and all kinds of Christmas ornaments but my favorite subject matter for these wire sculptures is my dog Tildon. I've been visualizing this piece for a while now and decided it was time to actually break out the wire cutters and get to work. Part of the challenge is that I like to restrict myself to using only 1 wire hanger per sculpture. In a piece that i have no idea how much wire I may or may not use like this one, I completely bend out the entire wire hanger including the hooked and twisted together parts. They don't always work and most of them include a few re-bent sections, but when they do work out, they look like this.

TILDON SLEEPING WITH LEG EXTENDED (Even when he's sleeping he likes to keep his ears up to make sure he doesn't miss out on anything)

BERUBE HOLIDAY CARDS THROUGH THE YEARS

I started printing up my own Holiday cards in 1995, having been to design school but never taking a printmaking class I decided to teach myself how to print linocuts. I can't quite remember exactly what inspired me to work with linocuts other than the fact that I believed by using this medium I would be forced to work in a less detailed fashion than what I was used to doing with many other mediums including, graphite, pen and ink and acrylics. As you can see with time, I found a way to work around that perceived notion of a"less-detailed" medium.

Not knowing what the proper tools were in order to do an actual linocut, I bought a piece of wood-backed linoleum and when the time came to actually cut the image out, I grabbed what I was used to working with, an xacto-blade and got to work cutting out my first piece. That became the 2-color self-portrait holiday card I created while still living in Boston in 1995.

I continued to work like this until I moved to NYC the following year and just happened to meet Javier Cintron, a brilliant artist in his own right who at the time was working in the printmaking workshop of Bob Blackburn. Through Javier, I discovered that there were proper tools to cut linoleum with and places where they actually had printing presses to print editions out on. I'd sneak in when Javier was monitoring the shop and work on my own projects while observing the rest of the artists. Eventually when I became comfortable enough with the environment, I became a monitor and as part of the job, I was allowed to use the presses during my shifts.

As time passed, I was able to purchase my own medium-sized press and the rest is history. I'm pretty sure at this point I have a few hundred images printed up over the years.

The following prints represent the work I've created as Holiday cards as well as gift tags between 1995 and this week. I look back at the images and I'm amazed at just how personal and revealing they really are. Although the subject matter changes each year, they have all become self-portraits allowing a glimpse into my state of mind at the time of creation.

I hope you enjoy checking the images out and HAPPY HOLIDAYS TO ALL!!!

1995 - SELF PORTRAIT


1996


1997


1997 - GIFT TAGS


1998 - NEW YORK'S INFLUENCE (One Of My Favorites Too)


1998


1999 - (A BUSY PRINTMAKING YEAR)








1999 GIFT TAGS


2000


2001 ( A Very Sad Year Here In The City)


2002


2002 - GIFT TAGS


2003 - SANTA CLAWS


2004


2004 GIFT TAGS


2005 - BETHESDA FOUNTAIN / CENTRAL PARK (Image Part of "1-A-DAY" Series)


2006 - ROBOSANTA (Image Part Of "A FACE A DAY" Series)


2007 - HOLIDAY WHIRLING DERVISH

HOLIDAY CARD - STEP 3 & 4

Alright, I decided to finish up the card so you're going to get all of the last bits of the process here.

SECOND CUTTING OF LINOLEUM



PRINTED IMAGE OF SECOND CUTTING



COMBINED PRINT - FINAL IMAGE
"The Holiday 2007 Whirling Dervish"




And on another note completely unrelated to my Holiday card, I got to share the elevator at 11 west 42nd today with none other than MS. MARTHA STEWART and her assistant and I got to eavesdrop on their conversation too. It went something like this. MARTHA: They were using chainsaws at 4 this morning removing the branches from the yard. ASSistant: That's a great way to wake up. And then the conversation moved on to the days business, the best part was when Martha was discussing either a stylist, makeup artist or some other worker elf and she said, (Insert Name Here), just won't do, look at this, (she motioned to her hair), mediocre hair, mediocre photos, and this is most likely going to be a cover......

HOLIDAY CARD - STEP 2

Here's the first layer of printing for this years Holiday card.



We finally got a little bit of snow/sleet/rain last night. It was beautiful to look at for a really short time as it's 37 degrees and already almost all melted away. Oh well, maybe next storm!!!

2007 HOLIDAY CARD - STEP 1

Some years it's more of a battle than others regarding when I decide if I'm going to make a holiday card or not. Some years it's an easy decision, I have plenty of ideas, I'm inspired and I make time to come up with a pretty sophisticated image, get it done, get it in the mail before December 25 and all is well in the world. Other years, like this year, the desire is there, but the heart isn't always there. Without going into details, it's been a trying fall/winter so far and that has definitely affected my frame of mind regarding exactly what, and if so, when I would create a holiday card. Finally 2 nights ago, I decided to take the plunge and commit myself to getting a card out there.

The best thing about my present frame of mind is that when I feel like this, I find it's more rewarding to just grab a piece of linoleum, start drawing directly on to it, make a few minor revisions, cut it out and start printing it without a whole heck of a lot of planning ahead of time. This usually provides a "Holiday" image that's probably not the first thing a person might think of when they think, "Happy Holidays". And I can pretty much guarantee that if you do receive this card in the mail, it will truly be the strangest "Holiday" card you do receive this year.

I'm only printing up an edition of approximately 30 this year, if you happen to read this and you're interested in receiving one, let me know. My holiday card address list shrinks every year according to interest, (mine and theirs), so I should have a few extra to pass along.

Below is the first step after drawing the image on to the linoleum. I figure out how many colors I'm going to print and I cut out the first layer to reflect the areas I want represent the papers color, (white), and I leave the areas of linoleum I want to be printed the first actual ink color. This year it's going to be green and black. Can you guess what it might be?

I'll post an image of the first color printed either later tonight or tomorrow, you may be able to figure it out at that point.

SIAMESE FARTING FIGHTERS

SIAMESE FARTING FIGHTERS - PRINT


Can you tell it's been a rather quiet week. The best I can come up with for a post is my new linocut print titled, "Siamese Farting Fighters", pretty self explanatory right? It's part of the Berube Bug series I've been working on for many years now but most importantly it was created specifically for a mail artist by the name of Ryosuke Cohen who puts together limited edition compilations of images sent to him from other mail artists around the world. Called "Brain Cells", I've been fortunate enough to have received 2 of his previous hand constructed/printed compilations and decided it was my turn to reciprocate and participate by sending Mr. Cohen one of my original linos for him to use in an upcoming Brain Cell.

POSTCARD SENT TO RYOSUKE COHEN


POSTCARD WITH LINO ATTACHED


BRAIN CELL #683 - RYOSUKE COHEN


BRAIN CELL #689 - RYOSUKE COHEN

ANOTHER CRAZY WORK WEEK

Last weeks hike in Connecticut was exactly what my body and soul needed and it was a great way to begin my week back in NYC. This week reminded me of why this time of year is both loved and hated in vast amounts. It's the time of year when Holiday installations go in all over the city, showrooms need to be installed for market, and I work 13, 14, 15 hour days and get an insufficient amount of sleep. The flip side is that in turn all of the work affords me the possibility of paying rent and having something extra for the gift giving as well as providing the truly uplifting thought that I just might be able to do some international traveling in the spring.

The pics below are from one of the showrooms I worked on this week.

Stay Warm if you're in the Northern half of the country!!! I think it's finally Winter here in NYC. (Maybe even a little snow tomorrow).