2011

Locust Projects Billboard Proposal, Tom Virgin & Michael Hettich

Posted by Tom Virgin

This proposal from 2011 followed a series of collaborations between Michael Hettich and Tom Virgin. After working together in the SWEAT Broadsheet Project, Hettich and Virgin with contributions from Jay Bellicchi and Evan Robarts, worked on creating a series of billboards that merged poetry, visual art, the iconography of Miami, and their mutual concerns about education. The challenge was to create something that could be “read” billboard style, at 65+ mph. Using a metaphor of fish and schools, these works were designed for use on billboards and bus backs in urban Miami neighborhoods.

“Today Is…”, an artist’s book by Tom Virgin and Michael Hettich

Posted by Tom Virgin

Today Is        3 in x 9 in x .5 in               2011

This book was a collaboration between Tom Virgin and Michael Hettich for Arthur Jaffe’s 90th Birthday. Hettich and Virgin related years of teaching experience to a school of fish. This book is one of several collaborations by the two that revolve around teaching and learning.Arches 88 is the paper used for  the accordion fold body of the work, and Unryu wrapped book boards provide the covers.

This book is an editon of 5. Evan Robarts and Fifty-Five have also collaborated on the faux Priority labels that are collaged into the book.

Your School, an artist’s book (glass/copper)

Posted by Tom Virgin
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Your School
8 in x 45 in x 3 in (open)        artist’s book    2012
“Your School” is an accordion structure book created from fused glass and cut copper drawings, bound with multiple ply waxed linen thread, and text printed on bands of Hahnemühle Ingres with a Vandercook 3 Proof Press. The book employs the metaphor of keeping a low maintenance pet (a fish) to examine multiple challenges that schools, and especially young people, are currently facing in Florida and Miami. This book is an edition of two with the second book being sewn with a codex binding.

This book came from my admiration of a friend’s creative use of non-book-like media to create a book. The glass process was enhanced by the advice and guidance of Gail Dahlberg at the Anderson Center at Tower View. The color and glass inclusions fused into window glass created a transparent structure for a very opaque situation, the state of schools. The fish metaphor came from a continuing collaboration with Michael Hettich, a “gringo Magical Realist” poet from Miami.

Your School, an artist’s book (paper)

Posted by Tom Virgin

9.5 in x 40 in x .25 in (open)        artist’s book    2012
“Your School” is an accordion structure book created from waxed Stonehenge paper, and text printed on bands of Hahnemühle Ingres with a Vandercook 3 Proof Press. The book employs the metaphor of keeping a simple, low maintenance pet (a fish) to examine multiple challenges that schools, and especially young people, are currently facing in Florida and Miami. This book is an edition of 17 with 3 artist’s proofs. This book is a scanned copy of the glass book that approximates the presence of the glass book.

It seems that most everything that I make for the last few years has been directed to teenagers. From the National Parks books that pass along places that many of my students have not been, to work that was created to record what has disappeared, my work archives my world. This version of “My School” is a larger edition than the glass book, that will allow it to live in more than two places.