Hecho En Maine

2009 - Present

My project, "Hecho en Maine" (made in Maine), has been made possible through a grant from the New York based Art Matters Foundation. In late 2008 I was invited to apply for funding for a project that would require me to run my 'routine' art practice through an international experience or filter. I proposed that I would travel to "El Rastro" (The Trail) flea market in Madrid, Spain where I would seek out and purchase the same manner of vintage ephemera and objects that I use in my stateside practice, only this time my acquisitions would be of Spanish or European origin. I would then return to Maine and manufacture at least three 1950s and '60s vintage aesthetic toy interpretations of my notions of Spain. The final stage of my proposal was that, upon completion of at least three toys, I would ship my finished fictional-vintage-Spanish creations (back?) to the flea market to be sold casually and without undue 'art' fanfare by a willing vendor.

I was awarded the grant in January 2009 and in March I traveled to the giant El Rastro flea market which operates every Sunday of the year. I was in Madrid for eight days (allowing me two chances to comb the market) during which I sought out and struck up a conversation with a vendor at El Rastro, a wonderful woman by the name of Eva Gonzalez Esteban, who exuberantly agreed to sell my 'new' old toys at her stall upon their completion and also to document for me the public response with photos and video, if possible. From my return to Maine in March until the 19th of June, I burned the midnight oil in my Portland studio to create the three toys (in multiples of 10) that you see here: El Cosaco Verde: El Hombre Domesticado (The Green Cossack: The Domesticated Man), Vuelta Ciclista: Autorretrato del Artista (Cycle Race: Portrait of the Artist) and Bolido Grande Reconstruido (Large Racecar - Reconstructed).

Hecho en Maine was made possible by a grant from the Art Matters Foundation, New York City.