Introduction to The Scar Spangled Manners by David X. Pratt

An answer to a question on Facebook about this exhibit, before it was an exhibit:

Yes - I do have a collection of new work brewing and you can have a peek in the video above. The following is an answer to a friend who wanted to know more about it:

Well, it all started last fall, on a crisp and clear day. I was taking a walk with our little dog, Tisky, and I came to a spot on the road with some debris on it. The debris had fallen from the trees above and consisted of black walnuts that had been run over and crushed by cars and bag worm “nests” of webbing that had also fallen and been run over. (Bag worms are actually a kind of little caterpillar.) In one spot on the pavement, these ingredients had been mashed together in a shape that I immediately recognized as a face. (The piece titled “The Hungry Ghost in Chief” shows a photo of this.) I took a short video and photo and dutifully posted them here on Facebook. Halloween was approaching, and maybe that influenced me to start to think of what was originally just a “found face” in nature as more of a troubling, or even a little bit of a scary face. In late December, still gestating the seeds of this visual memory, I began a new painting, and somehow that troubling face got intertwined in the theme. It might sound funny, but the piece bothered me. It bothered me in at least two ways. First, I simply did not like the way the piece of art itself was coming together. I couldn’t quite get comfortable with it. This is familiar to me, because I wholeheartedly wish for the creation of art to be an alchemical process that helps me wake up and see what is going on in my habitual, reactive, associative mind. Often I will also see some part of myself come to the foreground which is frustrated with what is coming out on the canvas and that can be fuel to adjust and keep going, or to step back and take in the bigger picture or sometimes to simply register a breath and acknowledge that “I don’t like this” and to keep going anyway, much like a parent at the grocery store with three kids in tow asking for multiple items they can’t have, yet at center remains the parental knowing that we need to continue on with our quest for the intended list to be procured. So that is all included in the first way it bothered me. The second way it bothered me was that it was a troubling image - not pretty pictures like I often present to viewers. And I also felt some under-lying growls that this all related to my own dismay at the seemingly perpetual disagreements, polarization and unhinged vicious arguments that I could easily find if I scrolled through Facebook and viewed posts with political themes from those living in a place called the United States of America.

Often I would include all of this in the vitamixer that for me is the process of making art. However, this time I chose to put the canvas with its face against the wall and to not look at it for about 8 months. When that 8 months was up, I turned the canvas around and it had turned into a butterfly. Okay, so not really, but it had an aliveness to it that compelled me to continue, not only in finishing this piece, but in exploring all of these themes in successive pieces. These successive pieces are now on their way to becoming at least a dozen variations on that original piece of art. When I say variations, I mean that each one has begun with a very similar composition or foundation. At the same time, they gradually change from one to the next - a morphing parade that is still marching on.

Titles of individual works in the series include “The Scar Spangled Manners,” which is partly a nod to the knack we have for identifying with a collection of ideas that represent our “team” and then, instead of engaging in a relational, alive and often uncomfortable exchange with another human, we completely bash the shit out of that person on social media using our idea clubs and wearing our “this is me” masks, which is a process that many people worry is simply a dress-rehearsal for civil war when it could have been a part of a movement towards recognizing the other person as an actual person who also has (perhaps) beloved children and family and who also breathes the air we breathe (quite likely).

I’ll write more about this as the whole series develops, and I will probably continue to write long run-on sentences. If you or anyone else has gotten to the bottom of this writing and has suggestions of galleries or venues to be a home for such an outlandish art exhibit, please let me know - and thank you again for asking!!!

~ Dave

Often I would include all of this in the vitamixer that for me is the process of making art. However, this time I chose to put the canvas with its face against the wall and to not look at it for about 8 months. When that 8 months was up, I turned the canvas around and it had turned into a butterfly. Okay, so not really, but it had an aliveness to it that compelled me to continue, not only in finishing this piece, but in exploring all of these themes in successive pieces. These successive pieces are now on their way to becoming at least a dozen variations on that original piece of art. When I say variations, I mean that each one has begun with a very similar composition or foundation. At the same time, they gradually change from one to the next - a morphing parade that is still marching on.

Titles of individual works in the series include “The Scar Spangled Manners,” which is partly a nod to the knack we have for identifying with a collection of ideas that represent our “team” and then, instead of engaging in a relational, alive and often uncomfortable exchange with another human, we completely bash the shit out of that person on social media using our idea clubs and wearing our “this is me” masks, which is a process that many people worry is simply a dress-rehearsal for civil war when it could have been a part of a movement towards recognizing the other person as an actual person who also has (perhaps) beloved children and family and who also breathes the air we breathe (quite likely).

I’ll write more about this as the whole series develops, and I will probably continue to write long run-on sentences. If you or anyone else has gotten to the bottom of this writing and has suggestions of galleries or venues to be a home for such an outlandish art exhibit, please let me know - and thank you again for asking!!!

Often I would include all of this in the vitamixer that for me is the process of making art. However, this time I chose to put the canvas with its face against the wall and to not look at it for about 8 months. When that 8 months was up, I turned the canvas around and it had turned into a butterfly. Okay, so not really, but it had an aliveness to it that compelled me to continue, not only in finishing this piece, but in exploring all of these themes in successive pieces. These successive pieces are now on their way to becoming at least a dozen variations on that original piece of art. When I say variations, I mean that each one has begun with a very similar composition or foundation. At the same time, they gradually change from one to the next - a morphing parade that is still marching on.

Titles of individual works in the series include “The Scar Spangled Manners,” which is partly a nod to the knack we have for identifying with a collection of ideas that represent our “team” and then, instead of engaging in a relational, alive and often uncomfortable exchange with another human, we completely bash the shit out of that person on social media using our idea clubs and wearing our “this is me” masks, which is a process that many people worry is simply a dress-rehearsal for civil war when it could have been a part of a movement towards recognizing the other person as an actual person who also has (perhaps) beloved children and family and who also breathes the air we breathe (quite likely).

I’ll write more about this as the whole series develops, and I will probably continue to write long run-on sentences. If you or anyone else has gotten to the bottom of this writing and has suggestions of galleries or venues to be a home for such an outlandish art exhibit, please let me know - and thank you again for asking!!!

An answer to a question on Facebook about this exhibit, before it was an exhibit:

Thank you for asking Susan! Well, it all started last fall, on a crisp and clear day. I was taking a walk with our little dog, Tisky, and I came to a spot on the road with some debris on it. The debris had fallen from the trees above and consisted of black walnuts that had been run over and crushed by cars and bag worm “nests” of webbing that had also fallen and been run over. (Bag worms are actually a kind of little caterpillar.) In one spot on the pavement, these ingredients had been mashed together in a shape that I immediately recognized as a face. (The piece titled “The Hungry Ghost in Chief” shows a photo of this.) I took a short video and photo and dutifully posted them here on Facebook. Halloween was approaching, and maybe that influenced me to start to think of what was originally just a “found face” in nature as more of a troubling, or even a little bit of a scary face. In late December, still gestating the seeds of this visual memory, I began a new painting, and somehow that troubling face got intertwined in the theme. It might sound funny, but the piece bothered me. It bothered me in at least two ways. First, I simply did not like the way the piece of art itself was coming together. I couldn’t quite get comfortable with it. This is familiar to me, because I wholeheartedly wish for the creation of art to be an alchemical process that helps me wake up and see what is going on in my habitual, reactive, associative mind. Often I will also see some part of myself come to the foreground which is frustrated with what is coming out on the canvas and that can be fuel to adjust and keep going, or to step back and take in the bigger picture or sometimes to simply register a breath and acknowledge that “I don’t like this” and to keep going anyway, much like a parent at the grocery store with three kids in tow asking for multiple items they can’t have, yet at center remains the parental knowing that we need to continue on with our quest for the intended list to be procured. So that is all included in the first way it bothered me. The second way it bothered me was that it was a troubling image - not pretty pictures like I often present to viewers. And I also felt some under-lying growls that this all related to my own dismay at the seemingly perpetual disagreements, polarization and unhinged vicious arguments that I could easily find if I scrolled through Facebook and viewed posts with political themes from those living in a place called the United States of America.

Often I would include all of this in the vitamixer that for me is the process of making art. However, this time I chose to put the canvas with its face against the wall and to not look at it for about 8 months. When that 8 months was up, I turned the canvas around and it had turned into a butterfly. Okay, so not really, but it had an aliveness to it that compelled me to continue, not only in finishing this piece, but in exploring all of these themes in successive pieces. These successive pieces are now on their way to becoming at least a dozen variations on that original piece of art. When I say variations, I mean that each one has begun with a very similar composition or foundation. At the same time, they gradually change from one to the next - a morphing parade that is still marching on.

Titles of individual works in the series include “The Scar Spangled Manners,” which is partly a nod to the knack we have for identifying with a collection of ideas that represent our “team” and then, instead of engaging in a relational, alive and often uncomfortable exchange with another human, we completely bash the shit out of that person on social media using our idea clubs and wearing our “this is me” masks, which is a process that many people worry is simply a dress-rehearsal for civil war when it could have been a part of a movement towards recognizing the other person as an actual person who also has (perhaps) beloved children and family and who also breathes the air we breathe (quite likely).

I’ll write more about this as the whole series develops, and I will probably continue to write long run-on sentences. If you or anyone else has gotten to the bottom of this writing and has suggestions of galleries or venues to be a home for such an outlandish art exhibit, please let me know - and thank you again for asking!!!