Vispo/paper collage: Pick Up The Pieces / Real world text abstraction integration?

RTomens, 2021

For a while the men went missing. I searched the desk top, naturally, then the wastepaper basket that sits half under it, then the kitchen, where I went to put the kettle on and could have carried them and put them down to do that, then the other room - no - then the wastepaper basket again - no - I thought 'There's no point typing what I intended to without the man to pick up the pieces!' Got pissed off - that was a good idea, I thought. They must be somewhere! I didn't cut them out with this in mind. They were found amongst a folder full of cut-outs. Now they were lost. Perhaps they're in top left draw amongst the mess of pens, wax ears plugs for flying to ease the pain in my ears upon descent (ah, remember flying? remember foreign holidays? sob), stamps, Cafe Nero loyalty card (I'm not loyal at all), lights for the bike, bookmarks, badges, mints - OK, enough of that, I'll be here all day - but - YES! There were the two men. How they got there, I've no idea. 

Now to mark where the letters should end at the point where he's picking them up (do that with a pencil) - start typing...anything, straight lines at angles, red crosses (how complicated should I make it?), os going one way, then another in red. Finally, the falling letters. No, finally the black line suggesting the ground, kind of anchoring the whole thing - I think that may be the masterstroke of the whole piece. 

Collage and type is almost a combination of 'real' world and, er, written? I mean text, although text is pretty much a big part of all our worlds, isn't it? Reading online all the time, reading books, reading magazines, reading adverts on telly, signs in the street. So here's the real world represented as if interacting with text abstraction and why not? Pure text is a world unto itself. I touch to type but only to activate the keys on a machine...yet...yet it's a lot more tactile, of course, than, say, digital art and somehow painting also because although, yes, you hold the brush, feel it deliver the paint, it's not the same as a few fingertips tripping over keys. 

Here's the man, anyway, picking up the pieces. His friend looks on, perhaps wondering if they're clean and what the hell that thing is that they've fallen from. What will he do with the letters? Make a few words? Or just put them in his pocket, take them home, put them in a draw and spend ages wondering what the hell he did with them.

Naturally, I couldn't post without including the Average White band classic, Pick Up The Pieces. It was often in my box when I DJ'd and was always a hit with the crowd. Yes, after years of playing it I did know exactly when the abrupt end was coming and released the next track bang on time!