1998

The Year of Difficult and Unrealized Sand Paintings.
For some reason, in 1998, the major project I was working on for Groep T in Leuven, Belgium, was cancelled after I had spent a great amount of time doing plans and submitting proposals for a beautiful sand work dealing with what can only be termed "the Y2K Bug Craze". The sandainting was to be installed at the base of the spiral staicase shown in campus information on the Groep T website.
Everything was set, everything had been arranged by Jan Hoet and I think I even had plane tickets. Then, in an email... cancelled for no reason of substance, that I could figure out anyway. Maybe they thought I was taking Y2K too seriously or not seriously enough. It's a technology/engineering school.

Later that year, a strong, long-term relationship with the director of a San Francisco public art organization was also abruptly (again by email) ended after I submitted photos and drawings for a planned exhibition dealing with the investigation into and the impeachment of President Bill Clinton.
Well, that break was probably easier to understand considering the nature of the material.

It was just a difficult year and I wanted to, at least, post some images of those proposed works even though they were never realized and most likely never will be.

(Clicking on the image will enlarge it in a new JavaScript popup window.)

11:59:59, The Y2K Project for GroepT, Leuven, Belgium.

The Trinity - Composed of three separate sandpaintings, The Judicial; The Legislative; and The Executive. Linked by a central Eye of Providence. The planned layout would also include a video camera on the ceiling pointing down at the Eye with a wide enough field of view to get all three sandpaintings in the image. The camera would feed to a monitor hidden behind a curtain which could be opened by a gallery assistant when they felt the viewer was aware of and prepared for the image (and also of age).

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