Spoon Popkin

These fetish drawings combine many of my favorite subjects: nudes, costuming and live drawing.

I am doing a LIVE drawing session with Command Baltimore on April 15th, 2023.

When I chose to return to "guyswithiPhones" in 2019, no hint of the coming pandemic was in view. A subject I’ve turned to over the last decade suddenly took on a new meeting. No longer a study on the male gaze, it became a study on survival. How do we express longing and desire in a world where physical proximity can kill us? Perhaps this community learned from HIV/AIDS that virtual reality was the safest reality. As a single friend text me “all dicks are virtual now“. This is sexuality at a social distance.

The focus of the "Guys with iPhones" continues with "the gaze". These images were taken by the subject, as documenter, alone, mostly in bathrooms (possibly the most personal space in existence) to be shared with a very specific audience. There is a fractured relationship to "the gaze" here. As he looks at himself in the mirror, he is both subject AND photographer. His image is reflected back from the mirror into the iPhone's camera lens with his desires laid bare. The image is then transmitted via satellite to the website, where it is then swiped up by the final viewer on their own iPhone to be interpreted anew. The internet makes limiting the intended audience impossible, giving me free rein to view to these men's most personal desires.

 I find the egalitarian aspect of the yearbook format liberating. Every person get exactly equal treatment - race, religion, sex, nationality, popularity- none of these factors change the simple black and white pic that is your final representation. I especially love that this Baltimore yearbook seems to be incredibly diverse with sikh students (what's their bun/turban called?), girls with huge Farrah flips & guys with amazing, carved M.C Hammer hair. It showcases the best side of Baltimore's multi-cultural population in the 1980's.

The focus of the "Guys with iPhones" continues with "the gaze". These images were taken by the subject, as documenter, alone, mostly in bathrooms (possibly the most personal space in existence) to be shared with a very specific audience. There is a fractured relationship to "the gaze" here. As he looks at himself in the mirror, he is both subject AND photographer. His image is reflected back from the mirror into the iPhone's camera lens with his desires laid bare. The image is then transmitted via satellite to the website, where it is then swiped up by the final viewer on their own iPhone to be interpreted anew. The internet makes limiting the intended audience impossible, giving me free rein to view to these men's most personal desires.

The Ballad of Sharon & Zebedee is based on an extensive found collection of letters, tapes and photos. The detrius of an entire life discarded. It includes oil paintings, ink wash and sound.

"Wet Dreams" harkens back to early childhood roaming in the woods. Finding a cache of rain soaked Playboys tucked under a log, the mysteries of woman were revealed in a 1970's way. Meaning, completely mysterious and tan lined. The repetition of this model's form, perfectly symmetrical from front to back, turns into a mountainous landscape.

I just love monkeys. Their attitudes of not giving a damn are something to aspire to.

Pure testosterone. Muscle strata laid bare. Like a Bodyworlds exhibit with a skin suit.

A found 8-track diary recorded in 1967 has inspired a series of paintings and installations over the years. Her favorite activity is acting like a teenager and she names herself "Avon Minisure". Clearly a mishearing of the popular Avon miniatures then being sold door to door. She's a real teenage nut.

With "Wall of Poodles" I re-created a family album of a couple who no children, but many Poodles. 

 I have returned to the yearbook as a subject many times over the last 20 years. I find the egalitarian aspect of the yearbook format liberating. Every person get exactly equal treatment - race, religion, sex, nationality, popularity- none of these factors change the simple black and white pic that is your final representation.

Comparing my father's HIgh School Yearbook, New Utrecht, in Brooklyn, NY to the contemporary HS students of "Mee Ma" and "Poly Crackers", they are already adults in a time before teenagers.

The moment before a kiss. The tension created in the tight space between humans.

Most of my found photo based works are about the relationship between the subject and the photographer. It's their looks being captured in that one moment by the camera lens that I'm focussed on. I first recognized what had been capturing my attention about the found photographs when I got a black velvet painting copy of Salvadore Dali's Jesus on the cross. In that painting the viewer is put into the position of being God looking down on Jesus. This ah-ha moment made me see that my paintings were putting the audience in the position of becoming the friend or relative who snapped the original photo.

First we ask passers by to pen anonymous love letters to people they have never met. Addressed to "someone who loves stars" or "girl in striped socks", they are open ended as to their destination. The mail carriers go out in search of the recipient.  Everyone is pleased and excited to get a love letter. It may be time to revisit this social performance experiment.

HAVE YOU BEEN WRONGED? ARE YOU OWED AN APOLOGY? IN 3 MINUTES TELL US THE TALE AND WE WILL GIVE YOU YOUR OVERDUE APOLOGY

In 3 minutes or less you tell the tale of an event you felt you were owed an apology for that never came. We then give you that apology. You keep your apology for when you need it and when you are ready, pass it on to someone else who needs one. 100 apologies were given at this location over 4 days.

My performance work centers on contextual audience based installations. Without the participants the work could not exist. There is often an element of emotional catharsis. Be it the unburdening of a secret pain, desire to give love or the gift of a moment of peace, it is this recognition of the connection and commonality of all people that resonates for me. It may be said that the true subject of this work is the human heart and that the time at which the piece is created is only the beginning of it's full existence.

A series of daylight observatories were constructed and participants invited to lie down & relax. Previously undiscovered constellations were viewed: chocolate disappointment, deer in headlights, handlebar mustache.... Many found themselves so absorbed and calmed by the new discoveries they drifted off to a meditative sleep in the middle of the crowd, Privacy in a public place.

6 Celestials of 3'x2'x3' were placed in a ring 20 feet in diameter.

A survey of cell phone use (dependency, fear of cancer, dreams, intimacy) was conducted via said cell phones while portraits of the subjects were drawn.

Transmodern Festival, Baltimore, MD 2008

In our society we’re bombarded with messages on how to become the perfect you. It suggests that if you’re not living up to your fullest potential, you are a disappointment, a failure.

The great American myth is that anyone can grow up to be president. If you have the dedication & willpower, you can be anything. Luckily, if you don’t have the strength to do it on your own, there’s a host of people waiting for you to pay them to tell you just how to do it.

“Inspirational Soundhenge” is culled from my collection of found self help tapes. These were found in the trash & thrift stores- where I’m sure the now successful business people of America had deposited them. There actually is some good advice on these tapes, but also mysterious tidbits as “A marriage has eyes, but also eyelids”.

The full effect of the white noise from all this inspiration coming at once is alternately peaceful and terrifying. The sound may soothe as waves on a shore until Susan Powter calls out to "stop the insanity!".