Oh yeah, my Pop-Up Art Loop installation is done! About this time last week I was just getting ready to head downtown with David to build a wall and hang my prints. It was not easy, but it was fun, and we ate a lot of hot dogs. He took the above photos, as well as the below photo of Billy Elliot totally jazzed that my art was coming to town. I haven’t taken final shots of the piece yet, but I’m really happy with how it turned out. Endless thanks to David and Akemi for their help, without which I probably would have just set everything on fire and driven my car into Lake Michigan.

We didn’t finish until after 6pm last Thursday, in the middle of the monthly Pop-Up Art Walk. We’ll call that a “soft opening,” as they do in the biz. But no worries, you can see the piece on view 24 hours a day at 33 W Randolph, between State and Dearborn, and you can be sure something cool will be happening nearby for the next one, on October 7th.

Relevant Links (please visit and “Like” them where applicable)
Limited Edition by Eric Baskauskas
Limited Edition on Facebook
Pop-Up Art Loop
Pop-Up Art Loop on Facebook
Billy Elliot

I’ve fallen ill, just in time for school. Luckily today is Labor Day. Fitting, as walking to the kitchen and making toast has been pretty hard work. I watched “The Wild One” today and found it entertaining but also pretty dumb. Why couldn’t they make the pictures in color? But seriously. I guess you really can see the skill in Brando’s acting but he’s surrounded by such an over-acted caricature of everything else that you kind of have to work hard to catch his brilliance. Oh, Labor Day. The best part is when he smiles at the end.

Look at this: http://www.wired.com/underwire/2010/08/vinyl-ashes/

There goes my MFA thesis idea.

A month or two ago I was tipped off regarding a design contest being held here in Chicago for the first-ever Wells Street Fall Festival in Old Town. The prize was $500 and it seemed like an under-marketed contest, so I figured I’d give it a shot and maybe take on some light competition. I thought I’d put 3 to 5 hours in and hope to turn a handsome profit if I won but not be too disappointed in my time investment should a better entry come out on top. I know how subjective judgment can be in the realm of art/design, which is why I don’t like entering these contests to begin with. There’s just such a huge opportunity to be passed over in favor of something completely different — not necessarily better or worse — that it’s hard to fully commit to a project for fear that I’ll have wasted my time (which I obviously take very seriously). Anyway, this one seemed like a safe bet.

Of course, I forgot to take into account possibility #3: Lose to a shitty design. Now, like I said, art is largely subjective, but I think we can all agree that the winning design sucks to a quantifiable degree!

Here’s mine — you can click to enlarge it:

And here’s the winner:

You may notice that the winning design is also less informative than mine. They didn’t even include all the information that was on the contest prompt! The conspiracy theorist in me has connected two dots and would suggest that the contest wasn’t widely advertised because the organizer’s husband just figured out how to use clip art and gradients in Photoshop and the shit was fixed. Nice work, honey!

We did it! 3800 miles and a lot of crappy (see: great) motels + food without a single problem. It was pretty much everything I expected it to be. My car has never been more awesome. I’ll post more thoughts and pictures as they come to me and as the video editing begins, but the main thing I must stress is the overall consensus reached by Liz, Mike, and me: words and pictures (moving or still) will probably never fully translate what it was like to be out there on the Bonneville Salt Flats. It was the type of pure experience that can best be summed up by Mike’s short but useful observation: “Livin’, man.”

We’ll see how this affects the final narrative construction of the project. School starts on Wednesday!

Huge high fives for Mike and Liz, photo- and videographers for the whole trip and new members of the exclusive “I have driven Eric’s car across a giant field of salt” club. Great work, guys.

Akemi and I are working on a publication to go in the bathrooms at SAIC’s Sullivan Galleries for an upcoming art show. We’re collaging text and images from various home & garden magazines into our own piece, called “Passages: Number 2″ (Akemi recently finished work on another piece called “Passages“) …

We came across this advertisement and after some deliberation decided it was too obvious to put in our magazine but not too obvious to hang in our bathroom.

I had this for lunch yesterday:
Hot Dog
Black Beans
Pepper Jack Cheese
Corn Chips
Hot Sauce

I also had it for breakfast, but with turkey bacon instead of hot dogs.

John wins the contest! Victory Tax! I laughed out loud.