Blotto
digital and screenprint, 2016
These are images of crushed bottle caps that I gathered one day from an alley that lies between a somewhat unsavory tavern and the place where I worked for many years. The regulars who frequent this tavern became a part of my life, but only at a curious remove: I could hear them while working, but couldn't see them or speak to them. I lived my life in parallel to the clientele of this bar, but only in physical proximity. In all other ways, we formed no connection. My excursion into the alley to gather these caps was, perhaps, a form of non-interventionist engagement.
The inscrutable rebuses I printed on these images evoke the puzzles printed inside bottle caps of National Bohemian beer (a local favorite). Those rebuses are poorly designed, printed badly, impossible to interpret, utterly forgettable, and yet they are an absolute delight. Whether blurry-eyed or clear-headed, one must seek the counsel of others to determine even remotely plausible guesses at the "answer" of a bottle cap rebus. In that small way, these small printed failures offer a sense of community, even in a lonely place like that small, sad tavern that is so close, yet so far away.
![]()
digital and screenprint, 2016
These are images of crushed bottle caps that I gathered one day from an alley that lies between a somewhat unsavory tavern and the place where I worked for many years. The regulars who frequent this tavern became a part of my life, but only at a curious remove: I could hear them while working, but couldn't see them or speak to them. I lived my life in parallel to the clientele of this bar, but only in physical proximity. In all other ways, we formed no connection. My excursion into the alley to gather these caps was, perhaps, a form of non-interventionist engagement.
The inscrutable rebuses I printed on these images evoke the puzzles printed inside bottle caps of National Bohemian beer (a local favorite). Those rebuses are poorly designed, printed badly, impossible to interpret, utterly forgettable, and yet they are an absolute delight. Whether blurry-eyed or clear-headed, one must seek the counsel of others to determine even remotely plausible guesses at the "answer" of a bottle cap rebus. In that small way, these small printed failures offer a sense of community, even in a lonely place like that small, sad tavern that is so close, yet so far away.
