moving through

Art doesn't just imitate life. It is life. Sometimes--rarely-- there are glorious moments when everything comes together, as planned, and the art I make looks just like what I envisioned before starting. Other times, it's one thing after another.

Right now, the bump on the road to fame and fortune is duct tape.

© 2010 BJ Parady

Plain, simple, common duct tape. One uses it to tape off a silk screen, so that the ink doesn't seep around the edges. It takes me about 15 minutes to completely tape a screen, which apparently is then supposed to last a long time if you let it cure 24 hours--during the process of silk screening, you use a lot of water and scrub a lot. Mine has been loosening up on the screen as seen above.

I've tried retaping. I've tried letting it set longer before the first use. I've tried a different role of tape--albeit one I already had. Nothing seemed to matter. And when I googled the interwebs looking for a solution, it seemed like I was the only one with this problem. I tweeted. I complained on my fan page.

Why go to all this work? Look what I can do with a silk screen:

© 2010 BJ Parady

And that's from the very first time I tried deconstructed silk screens on my own. I have things I want to do with this process.

One of my 'fans' (that term does sound a little pompous, doesn't it?) suggested colored Duck brand Duct tape from WalMart. The rolls I already had were the same brand, but the traditional silver (from back when duct tape was used for taping ducts). So I bought a colored roll, based on two ideas--maybe the colored one gets more glue, or maybe the glue dries out with time and I needed fresh tape.

I've now taped one screen:

© 2010 BJ Parady

I chose black because even though I liked the bright colors, I figured that if it works out, color would be distracting to the screening process. It's now curing...I'm keeping my fingers crossed.