Difficult to get back in the writing mode after doing so much art recently. The Boos collage series *may* be over. Not saying it is but I’m not saying it isn’t (but it is?). The Nautlius City gallery is filled to the brim with new collages. But *now* I get to interpret them (!). When to start? I can hear Hucka D. say, “now!”.
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So let’s look back. And I’ll employ Hucka D. to aid my interpretation as usual, an important role of his on this and past blogs. I have a couple of collages to fine tune but nothing major like with collage 03 LINK. I can do that as I go along.
Hucka D.:
It begins with a dirty little wet seed. A car, perhaps a buick but perhaps not. Lying in a driveway under a tree, unused probably. Broken. A dirty little broken wet seed.
bb:
Thanks for beginning Hucka D. And his is what unboxed Boss Moss is pointing to in the very first collage of the Boos series. Let’s back up briefly and explain the name.
Hucka D.:
It will take you several minutes to get ungroggy so I’ll continue. Boos is the name of a Jasper County village. Like Rose Hill before it. Like Hidalgo, like Yale and Wheeler, like Gila, Latona, Lis. Newton, of course. And then Jasper itself. And let’s not forget Falmouth, the most importantest of all so far. Then you also have proper names Sam Parr, Embarass, and Stonethrow coming from the immediate Newton area. Now we have Boos. The latest of these are organized by a single gallery building. Why do you have names coming from Jasper County, Illinois? Why? You have no connection to that county in real life. Oh, you have one. Dean was from that county. But that came after the whole idea was well on its way. You would name *all* of your collage series after place names in or immediately near this Jasper County. Let’s take a look at a map.
bb:
Do we have to?
Hucka D.:
Yes.
Not that one, although that shows the details of the names of series around Newton, the ones in the Red Umbrella and the latest created before Boos. Okay, actually that is a good one to start with. Then expanding out…
Ah, I found it:
bb:
That’s an interesting one to look at.
Hucka D.:
Give us a minute. We can update now.
So the order, according to the chronology of the series and adding in Greenup and Oblong, are:
(Greenup), Rose Hill, Yale, Newton, (Oblong), Hidalgo, Wheeler, Jasper, Gila, Latona, Lis, Falmouth, Sam Parr, Embarras, Stonethrow, and now Boos. That’s 16 collage series named for places in and around Jasper County, 14 within the county itself, including all the more recent ones. Beyond Oblong, that is, and that came from 2007.
bb:
So Boos is about the same distance from Newton, the county seat, as Falmouth to its north. A good comparison for Boos would be Gilatona-Lis to begin. Obviously Boos isn’t on the scale of Falmouth and its 61 collages, but it’s not far off of Gilatona-Lis’ pace with the 36 or so. Another way to see Boos is as a type of mini-Falmouth.
Hucka D.:
Good. Gilatona-Lis ends with a bang (4 part collage — first of of the tetraptychs). Boos, if it is complete, ends more with not a wimper, let’s say, but a dwindling, a more gentle leaving. “All Together Now”, just like the ending song of the “Yellow Submarine” movie, one of your favorites.
bb:
The movie, yes.
Hucka D.:
Per your advice we won’t name the main town involved in the Boos collages. We’ll call it T-Town.
bb:
Maybe Thornberry, like the toy avatar actor(‘s name).
Hucka D.:
Thornberry it is.
(to be continued)
Sunklands 