#HandMarkingTime

Duane Park Studios, New York City
Nancy Boas, Damon Brandt, Clayton Brandt, Walker Brandt

Andrew Zuckerman is a master of timeless and thought provoking content. Multiple creative projects on both analog and digital platforms mark his creative landscape. The partners and collaborators he inspires with his clarity of vision represent maverick talent from the widest range of disciplines. In January of 2021, Andrew asked if I wanted to create the content for April 2021 , a month by month concept titled  #handsmarkingtime which is part of an instagram profile for one of his digital ventures, Slowdown.tv. I immediately turned to Duane Park Studios, a fluid and emerging collective of artists and designers, anchored by my wife and constant collaborator, Nancy Boas. 

April showers bring May flowers so watercolor, a favorite medium of Nancy’s, felt like the perfect language to express the daily meditation defining our approach to this particular month. Watercolor has a unique vibrancy and the quicksilver quality of intuitive creation that feels akin to watching flowers in full bloom, with color and form combining and expanding in awe inspiring and unexpected ways. Each watercolor is in fact an abstraction of a specific species of a treasured spring flower. The letters and numbers that mark the changing date were first hand-shaped in wax and then cast in metal and placed on the page in dialogue with the drying pigment. 

And so the month of April builds as a hallucinogenic burst of floral color interspersed with the blue days of rainfall and the luminescent yellow days of life affirming sunshine. The loaded brush moves across stippled paper while outlines bleed and pigment blend.  Butterflies and bees, also hand carved but this time cast in gold, make an appearance in the final days of the month. Clayton and Walker composed the haunting ambient soundtrack

It was my pleasure and privilege to act as concept designer and producer for the project. 

Special thanks to the staff of Andrew Zuckerman Studio for the support, patience and guidance and respect to all the other artists that have participated month after inspiring month in this life affirming project.