I love gum. I need it in my mouth about 78% of the time. I also love looking at the ground as I'm walking. I don't know why- always have. I've actually found some pretty good shit thanks to this habit, i.e. $100± bills, non-winning lottery tickets, more sand dollars and arrowheads than you would believe, lucky (and unlucky) pennies, fascinating rocks... One thing I've always thought was interesting are the blackened wads of gum, flattened by time and tennis shoes, each with their own unique shape and story. The marks they are are so archival. And you know? For every time I've see an off brown patch of paint rolled upon a brick wall to mark the death site of a great (or not) piece of spraypainted street art, there are ZERO times I've seen a person scraping discarded gum from the sidewalk. This is where my idea was born. A couple years ago when I was looking for a non-scary way to get into the street art world as a contributor, I decided that I was going to use gum as my medium, and not only would it be, like, totes cute and original, but it would pretty much live as long as the sidewalk. Anyway, I used my idea for the final project in my New Media class last semester at Columbia. These are the first two; the view of my street from where I sat on the sidewalk, and a Sol-sort-of face I did as a warm up. I've only done one since then, it's Galaga-y. I plan to be a little more conceptual in the near future.
