P-2

The following are various projects comprising a larger body of work ruminating on a propeller blade from the P-2 Neptune, a Cold War era military aircraft flown by US armed services from the 1940s through the 1980s. I acquired this propeller blade in 2013 and have since then been learning about the P-2, the companies that built it, its service history and its relevance to the NYC area. This body of work includes numerous prints, sculptures, web projects, drawings and other artworks. Additionally, in 2016 as a component of the project I purhcased a number of shares in US-based defense corporations that contributed to the production and mission of the P-2. These long-term investments are intended to generate income that can someday be used to support the presentation and production of this body of work. I really don't know what purpose of this investment is yet, but it felt necessary as a way of expanding my investigation.

Offset Tapestries

These works are double-sided offset-print assemblages bearing layers of images gathered from my research into the P-2 propeller blade, its production and history, and the fate of P-2 airframes. All imagery was printed on legal format Permalife archival paper using a Multilith 1250 sheet-fed offset press. There are 10 sets of prints comprising this project. Each set can be assembled into a tapestry and then disassembled to be overprinted again. As each tapestry is disassembled, its subsequent iteration gets a little bit smaller. The titles refer to the set number, iteration number, and side shown. The paint referred to below is tinted to specific Federal Standard 595 colors that were used on the final paint scheme for US Navy P-2 aircraft. I chose Sherwin Williams paint because you can ask them to mix FS colors at any retail store, and also because Sherwin Williams sells a lot of paint to the federal government. Edition as accumulation, production as destruction, etc.

Offset Nets

These works are the remainders from "P-2 Offset Tapestries" when they are disassembled. The nets track the process of assembly and disassembly, and are the only physical record of an overwritten iteration of one of the tapestries. I like how they're just the edges of something else, or maybe they're a network. The edges are the most interesting colorspace in my messy offset process.

Ken's Prop

This is a webpage documenting a phone call I had with a long-time P-2 mechanic who helped me identify my propeller. It's also a sonic artwork in which the text is playable in different voices at different pitches. The background image is a "film" composed of images of each sheet from one of the Offset Tapestries described above. The is in the public domain, hosted by Wikimedia.

UTX Bootleg

This is a webpage cloned from content from the now-defunct United Technologies corporate website. In 2020, after a series of mergers and subsidiary reorganization, United Technologies merged with Raytheon. Most of United Technologies aerospace businesses continue to operate as Raytheon Technologies.

Windsor Locks Driveby

This work is composed of a series of inkjet prints on Tyvek coated with Sherwin Williams FS-37875 "Insignia White" interior latex acrylic paint. The images were taken surreptitiously from my car driving through the Hamilton Standard propeller factory complex in Windsor Locks, CT. Hamilton Standard was acquired by United Technologies, and is now part of Raytheon Technologies. This work can be installed in any arrangment to suit the site of installation.

Lonely Warriors

This is a gouache drawing based on a diagram from the appendices of the book "The Lonely Warriors: Case for the Military-Industrial Complex", by Stanley Baumgartner, 1970. The substrate is a collaged edition of offset prints, designed to be large enough to enclose one propeller blade from a Lockheed P-2 Neptune.