Well-Aged Art

French Map, mixed media on canvas 24”x24”

Now that the I am no longer making a piece of art every day for the 2011 Project, I am taking advantage of the time to clean, reorganize and get my studio in order. Every few years this needs to be done. I am uncovering all sorts of things, including art I did and I sort of forgot about. One such piece is this French Map from 2006.

I have friends who spend every summer in France with family. I miss them when they’re gone, but they come home with all sorts of good things at the end of every August. One year they brought back a huge stack of French road maps for me.

I imagined that my friends spent the summer going on evening walks in that little French town. They kept an eye out for unlocked cars. That autumn everyone in the town began to realize their maps were mysteriously missing from the glove box, yet nothing else was taken from their cars. It could lead to a winter filled with suspicion, gossip and speculation throughout the village. No one would have believed that the nice couple that lives in San Francisco swiped all the maps for an artist named Tofu. Well, it makes for a good story.

The result was a map of France made from France. I remember being disappointed with the results at the time. Now, that the piece has aged for over five years I am seeing it in a different light. I found it buried behind other work this week. I think I like this one.