Steve Murmer, Tulip Butts (Acrylic on Canvas), 1997.
I traded Steve a couple of T-shirts for this painting and if you read on, you'll see why. I'll let Steve describe this project in his own words.
"A few years ago I had a painting assignment. I was told to find an organic item to use as a stamp. The stamp was to be brought into class with a finished art product. The art product had to incorporate a stamping or stampings of our organic item. We were to present the finished product to the class for a critique. The class was supposed to guess the organic object used."
"It took me a couple of days to come up with an organic item. I finally decided to use my buttocks as a stamp. I rolled latex house paints onto a rubber mat. I sat on the mat and then a piece of rag paper that I had painted gray. I stamped the rag paper twice overlapping a black print with a white one. The day that the project was due, we were instructed to hang our art products on a wall. The entire class took turns guessing the objects that were used in each stamping. Once an object was guessed we discussed whether the finished product was successful as a piece of art. No one could figure out what my organic object had been. "
"We, finally, discussed mine last. I got many favorable responses. Everyone wanted to talk about the odd shape used in my piece. The conversation turned to the way the class felt about my stamping. One student saw "black ice sickles", another described "a warm fuzzy feeling", "cozy" was another word muttered from my class. One student ask me if she could touch my print. I told her, "that was fine". She then closely inspected my stamping and asked me if I used hair. She then screamed, " Oh, my God! you didn't"! "We've been tripping off his butt cheeks for twenty minutes". I was the only one not asked to hold up my organic stamping object."
Written Explanation of Creative Mental Process:
'My "butt printing" experience did not end with the classroom stamping project. We were asked to get together with a classmate and create a collaboration product. There was a young lady in the class that I was dating. I'll call her Stephanie, because that was the name her parents gave her. Stephanie was a PAP (Painting and Printmaking) major and probably the reason that I took the class in the first place. The two of us paired up for the collaboration. '
'We ran into trouble creating our product, all she ever painted was cats and flowers. She wanted to do the same with this lesson. I thought it would be a good idea to paint flowers using a cat in place of brushes. She didn't go for my idea, at all. She even had the audacity to state that she couldn't believe she paired up with the "freak who turned his ass in as a project". I think she was just mad that my "ass" got a better grade than her cat's paw prints. It, then, hit me. We could paint flowers using my bottom instead of her cat. She was a hard sell for the idea. '
'I had to pull out the stamping product and show her that my cheeks looked
like the petals on a tulip and my genitalia would make up the flowers pistol
and stamen. She finally agreed to the collaboration. Stephanie used pastels
on a large sheet of paper to create a blue background and tulip stems. I
used red tempera and my "organic object" to make the flowers.
I found out a short time later, that red Crayola tempera stains skin for
about a week and a half. During it's critique, our collaboration was a success.
The relationship I had with this young lady was not. I had always wanted
to make a painting out of the collaboration assignment. I never got around
to it. I decided to use this class as an excuse to do so. I had forgotten
how to make a stretcher and used quite a bit of wood figuring it out. '