Woven Awesome Steak! #4

Woven Awesome Steak! #4 (Chicken wire vortex weave), 2013, Graphite & acrylic on paper, 14 x 10 in.

About the Woven Awesome Steak! Series:

Late at night in the summer of 1997 I was in my studio on Polk Street feeling sleepy and worn out. I looked out the window and saw a taxi with an ad on top for some fast food chain that said “Awesome Steak!” next to an image of a big, meaty steak dripping with fat. Somehow in my daze from working for hours on end it seemed to me that that steak really was awesome. Not awesome in the sense that I wanted to go out and eat a big steak (I didn’t/don’t eat steak), but rather that the steak itself could have it’s own exuberant and awesome personality beyond simply being a hunk of dead cow. Inspired, I started drawing generic steak shapes a la old-fashioned barbeque sauce bottles and restaurant doggy bags (not to be confused with modern “to go” containers). I found the steak shape to be an excellent container for absurd ideas and patterns, and somehow over time the steak shape became conjoined with textile patterns (hence the “woven” aspect).