My good friend, Dara, sent me an old news article I dreamed up six years ago. I’d forgotten all about it. Since I happen to be doing laundry, I thought I’d post it.
AP—Camarillo, California, Feb 2000
Once again, Will Keightley has won the coveted Guy Whom You’d Most Likely Want to Do Your Delicate Laundry award. This year’s project is entitled, I Don’t Know How That Pen Got In There, and is on display on several of his articles of clothing, including his favorite denim shirt.Keightley is no stranger to this award, given to those who demonstrate an uncanny ability to launder clothing. This new project, though while it sounds similar, is not to be confused with such earlier works as, I Thought I Checked That Pocket, At Least Most of My Clothing is Also Blue, and the incredibly famous, I Put Bleach on My Shorts and Now Everything’s Turned White Except the Ink Stain.
Those familiar with the artist’s work will note that he has shifted his tone from earlier works. Notably, we see a move away from the blue ink of the past and more into a blacker, darker tone. It has been some time since the passage of what some critics call his “Blue Period†and his work shows a marked maturity as a result.
“I work with what’s available to me,†says the beaming artist, who claims he’s going to place his award on his bookshelf, right along next to his other seventeen similar awards. “This is reliable equipment, so I had to add a little bit to the mix to get the effect I wanted.â€
Though he has dabbled in other areas of laundriacal expression (some may remember his sublime 1996 piece entitled, I Used the Broken Dryer That Doesn’t Turn Off and Then Forgot and Went to a Movie) he feels most comfortable with the ink medium, and plans to do more work on it in the future.
Will the award slow him down? Hardly. He’s already at work on his next project, which he plans to call, I Didn’t Even Know I Owned a Sharpie! Watch for it.
2 Comments
Ha ha! Is that your ink we have in our dryer?
Probably. But it’s been a while.