#pmfvii

Seventh Annual Publication and Multiples Fair, April 9th & 10th 2016, Baltimore Design School, 1500 Barclay St., Baltimore MD

by Michael Shattuck

When I hear the question "Is X dead?" where “X” equals any number of things, punk, print, poetry, the Internet, what-have-you, I try to square that with what I’ve read about how the possibility of ending is what enables meaning. Just over a week into April, the weather suggests the possibility of breaking out a nice scarf for observing winter’s annual hemispheric extinction bursts.

Meanwhile, packs of murals depicting animals with the worlds and stars spliced onto their backs stalk the building’s perimeter.

So, inside. We begin with a sizable room. A sizable room with bodies and impossibly high windows for light.

Delineate the platforms, rows of surface area to form the outlines of mixing space, the uproarious social exchange and traffic, and suffused with politic (we got more in back). Food-stuff and coffee proceeds go to the house. Inhale the vital bizarre pageantry like churning peacock feathers, multitudes of aquamarine and indigo eyes, layered over layer.

A technically finite stretch packed with uncountable objects of painstaking love and care so now where do you really start. It’s a big tent.

Not merely symbols on paper of every size, on cardboard, woven fabric, and clay pots and silver studded chains and emerald plants and racks of encased magnetic tapes. Hand sketched, stitched, sanded, laser cut, spray painted, silk screened, and kiln blasted.

1,000 analog plateaus. Why this medium onto which you stamp your life and energy?