Since June of last year, I’ve been meaning to experiment with rubbings in my art.
After running off a few in the tribune tower lobby today, it seems like they need something more. Maybe…
- Make a collage by making rubbings of several things on one sheet, or…
- Incorporating the rubbings into other mediums, or…
- What else?
There’s just some sort of spark of an idea waiting for rubbings. I really like the ideas lying underneath a rubbing… being there having an intimate relationship with an object/location, a tactile replica of something… there’s something more to explore here. Suggestions/ideas are welcome.
I saw what you did and I liked them. Maybe they need to be larger. Maybe darker, more black, less grey. Contrast in other words. Who knows. I still think the answer is some matting and a frame! ;”> A collage might take away from the uniqueness of each rubbing. Like the “13” you did. GREAT! I can totally picture that in an 11″ x 17″ frame with a nicely-cut matte, Matt.
i commented on your first rubbings post. i still think rubbings are cool. aye, that’s the rub.
Scanning in the rubbing and blowing it up really big does make them look more interesting. It really brings out the tactile qualities that are interesting. However, you do lose that one-to-one scale replica of the original. In a way it becomes more like a photograph, because of the scale change. (hmmm, so that’s one idea worth exploring, what else could there be…)
here’s the answer. i’m giving away free art here. any body want some? it’s all free. you’re doing rubbings. analyze the process and throw a twist on the process by challenging a step in the process. In this case you are taking a sheet of paper; placing it over an object; rubbing the pencil over that object. the result is an interpretation of that object. a different look. the only way the viewer can tell what your object was was to view the rubbing and decipher. Here’s what you do. Do your rubbing like you normally do. Then and only then do you find an object of the exact same size. perhaps it is man-made to replicate the shape of your rubbing. Pair the two items (rubbing and new object) together and wham-o … you are instantly challenging the nature of the rubbing. people will ask: did the rubbing come from that? if not, then how is it related to the rubbing.
oh so that second object looks like the original that i did the rubbing from? Huh, so there is just a fine difference between the rubbing and this fake original. neat! Did you have this idea before I made the post on rubbings? OR did the rubbings post prompt this idea from your head?
i was very tired yesterday. i was ready to pass out. i forced the idea to oozed out of my ears. i wanted to respond cuz there’s so many things that can be done with this rubbing thinger. i took a 2.5 hour nap when i got home. then that japanese game show on spike tv lifted my spirits. i like mentioning one little blurb about the blog post, then ramble on about something that doesn’t relate to the blog. i think that’s fun.
and what’s up with laura’s post? “i commented on your first rubbings post.” you’re holding us back laura. c’mon. tell us what you commented in matt’s first rubbing post. is this second rubbings post not good enough for you?
You forced the idea to ooze out of your ears? crimey. Usually I force ideas out of my nose when i blow my nose. Y’know how the Egyptians would pull the brains out of the mummy’s nose, well it only makes sense that ideas would come out of your nose then. Laura is being very slick and making us click on the previous link to the post so we can read and adore. It gives the spudart.org website more clicks and more clicks are welcome. But! the spudart.org site believes that clicks are not all that important, I highly praise easy reading for my viewers over clicks and “hits”. That is why now every user who clicks the “Notify me when someone replies to this post” box will get the full comment in an email, and not merely a link. You can read the comment in the email, andif you decide to respond, you click the link in the email. Otherwise, you’d get all these duplicate emails with duplicate links and it’s very frustrating. spudart.org does not believe in frustration of this kind. Frustration of other kinds can be welcome, but it really depends.
and for your convenience, here is the infamous laura post: “that is really cool. when i was in girl scouts, we used to go to the cemetary and make rubbings of the tombstones. sorta odd, now that i think about it…”
I read tom’s post from June 26, 2002 “Hey, Matt! You could sell them on ebay!” this would be very interesting. I would pay for rubbings from around the world. rubbings do something that photographs can’t. they have touched the actual surface of the subject matter. How cool would it be to have a rubbing from an ancient Mayan temple? And imagine a rubbing from the floor number from an elevator where the planes crashed in the World Trade Center. Imagine how valuable that would be now. Matt, Tom and I could put together a website of rubbings and sell them to the public. I imagine that the Wrigley Field and Sears Tower rubbings would be the most popular. I wish I took rubbings of all the places I have visited. That would be neat. Photos are nice, but they are missing the tactile quality that rubbings communicate. I picture the rubbings website being all grayscale. All the graphics are done with pencil. The idea of a website featuring rubbings is interesting. A photograph of rubbings. I established earlier the difference between rubbings and photographs, but with the website, you are combining the two. It’s a crazy marriage of media. And the rubbings we sell on the website would have a photo next to them of the object and maybe a bigger picture. Like if i do a rubbing of part of the wall at wrigley field, i would photograph that slice of the wall and then i would photograph the general area where the rubbing was at.