Magic Eye Credit Cards

Printing a small block and talking with visitors about money and the arts.

Beth Cullom posted some nice photos she took at the LOADED show opening on Facebook that I’m re-posting here on the blog. It was a really fun weekend.

Beth and I thought a printing demonstration would be a good idea for one of the days I was at Cullom Gallery. I considered screen printing some Cash for the Crash as I had done in the spring at A.P.E. in Northampton, but the screens I made were too bulky to take across the country on an airplane. I decided to work up something that would be easy to print (one color) and easy to carry, and I remembered that when I was doing research for the Pyramid print I stumbled upon an article in Wired magazine about a formula that reportedly “caused” the 2007 crash. It was a mathematical formula developed by a man named David Li that supposedly quantifies risk and, since risk is something that investors love as long as it's manageable, Li’s formula was used with abandon on Wall Street.

Julia was very good at printing credit cards

Magic Eye credit cards

Frankly, I barely understand the article or the formula, but you can check out the article here if you want to tackle it. I decided that the formula seemed to go well with the eye of the pyramid, and when Lynn walked into my studio as I was playing around with the image and said “that looks like a credit card” I knew that was what I should make.

I even had some paper for it. The first time I went to Japan, my 2003 trip to Tohoku, we visited a paper maker near Sendai, where I bought a package of 100 business-card-sized sheets of thick hand made washi. I thought I would make business cards for myself, but I never used it. So I decided to use this paper to make these credit cards. Magic Eye Credit Cards. I printed and gave these away on Saturday night at the gallery.

Lest you think that all this workaholic did in Seattle was work, here’s one more photo from my trip. Being a map person, I love being up above things a bit so I can get my bearings and see the big picture. When I saw this huge ferris wheel down on the waterfront I couldn't resist getting in line with all the tourists to get a look. I ended up having a car all to myself and I enjoyed the view of Puget Sound a whole lot.

Someday I want to go back to Seattle and have water adventures.