Rust Never Sleeps

It’s the messing around with images and the ideas that they end up sparking that I find so stimulating and enjoyable - therapeutic even.

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This week it was a utility truck sitting on the street by Grant Medical Center.  I passed it on my way to the car and the rust lines and runs caught my attention.  I find things like this intuitively compelling and it is not until later that ideas begin to flow as to what it means to me.  

This particular image is one of decay and disintegration on a vehicle that was once shiny and new rolling off the factory floor but has been “dying” ever since.  As it rusts away a beautiful pattern emerges with orange and yellow streaks cascading down over months and years.  

The words that came to mind were from a Neil Young album “Rust Never Sleeps”.  This sent me looking for selfies in my iCloud storage and I found one of me mock shrieking in horror in a stairwell at Grant.  The darkened wheel well formed a frame for this primal scream.

I have an app on my phone that I use to work with photos I’ve taken on it.  I’ve become increasingly drawn towards the Double Exposure feature that allows me to put one photo on top of another and blend them.  It allows for a kind of story telling by extreme juxtaposition.

The inside of the truck wheel has concentric circles that look to be shock waves moving out and away from my mouth, projecting the scream.  I made that part of the image black and white.  Maybe my version of Dylan Thomas’ “rage rage against the dying of the light”.

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