Live at the un-install....discussing the "Bancos" piece

As I visited my piece showing at the SF Mission Cultural Center “Death by Installment Plan”  show one last time and got ready to un-install it – several people asked me if I  would explain some of the themes and thoughts behind what I had created… This alter was inspired by a piece made earlier this year of Benjamin Franklin – I’ve been delving for some time now into a visual conversation about the transiency of currency. I wanted to explore and discuss the ramifications of the financial tragedies we’ve experienced over the last years. 

As I mention in the video I tiled the roof of the structure using old statements from the three failed banks that did not make it thru the latest economic down-turn…a house built on unstable commitments, laced with drops of blood are for the carnage of the economic travesty rocking our Nation. Sprinkled with “faceless” dollar bills, marigolds (representing the sun gods), a calendar to note 30, 60 and 90 day overdue bills and finally a skeleton crushed under the house of a failed mortgage. These images work together to illustrate the pain, suffering and in-humanity of financial hardships. That money is so very transient and yet can affect so many real aspects of our lives.  You leave a piece of yourself inside each home you've occupied so inside the structure I laid fallen dollars, un-collected  payments, a corpse and broken down leaves and marigolds representing loss, death and devastation of the financial crash.