Improbable Monument: The Velloza Wall

Improbable Monument Proposal “The Velloza Wall”
What I propose is a monument to acquired inspiration. The monument would be a V shaped wall, made entirely of drawings inspired by others. The drawings would be inserted into on 15x15x1 inch cardboards and would range in size from post it notes to 8 ½ by 11 pieces of paper. The tower would be over-laid like a brick structure, so that drawings could be taken and replaced like a jenga tower. The monument would be participatory.

On May 2, 2009, my friend Jake Velloza was killed in Iraq. Through most of high school, Jake and I would play a game where he came up with something improbable or strange and ask me to draw it. I usually had to finish the drawing before the end of a class or the end of a bus ride. In 4 years of high school, I may have done some 50 or so drawings. The drawings were among my strangest, and contributed to how I developed as an artist. After he left for his first tour, I continued to play the game, but with kids under my supervision at the local summer camp. I have since seen kids from those groups participate in those games on their own. I came up with an idea for this project as a result of the need for emotional closure due to the passing of my friend.

• The wall would be 6 feet and an inch tall, Jake’s height. The wall would contain 28,344 Inch height mat board cards; roughly equivalent to the number of hours that Jake was enlisted as a member of the special ops. That would be about 388 columns, a circumference of 11,670 inches, a V shaped wall with exterior sides 2910x2925x15x15 inches and interior sides 2895x2910 inches. That’s 531,075 square feet. The cardboards would be 15x15x1, and be stacked in an overlapping grid much like brickwork. Each card would have an envelope hollow with a lid and handle at each end.
• The monument itself would serve as a sort of avatar for spontaneous artwork. It would also serve to commemorate Jake Velloza, whose idea it was originally to create spontaneous non sequitur art.
• Its importance would be to share the experience of gleaning inspiration from an outside source. The name Velloza would also become synonymous with this kind of art; over time loosing it’s origin. It would be an interactive monument, where participants could take something away and leave something behind.
• It would be located somewhere between Point Reyes, CA and Tomales, CA, within sight of Tomales Bay on the Marshall side, probably near Millerton Point. This was where most of this art was done originally.
• The installation would be on the side of the hill under a roof structure. It would be an interior space with fiberglass walls that pointed to the bay. The walls would be lined with tables and chain-ballpoint pens. Participants/visitors would be encouraged to remove one of the cards from anywhere they liked. Each panel would have a drawing and a score for a new drawing. These scores would be simple and open to interpretation. The participant would then fulfill the score to the best of their ability, and replace the panel in the wall in an empty spot, with their drawing and a new score of their own design, taking the previous drawing and score with them. They would be encouraged to finish their drawing within the hour, as each panel represents an hour of Jake’s service before his death.
• This monument would be improbable because it would cost in and around 2 million dollars, take roughly 3 years to build, and be extremely difficult to maintain.

First 3 months:

Geological surveys to discover the best placement of the monument in conjunction with the architects would begin. This time would also belong to the Artistic Director, who would need to get on the phone with art schools and community centers to organize their participation in the generation of the 28,344 drawings and scores for the final piece.

Second 3 months:

Landscaping begins with a staff of around 30. Architects are finishing drafts and the interior is fully fledged on paper. The Artistic Director is meeting with the Technical Advisor concerning the production of the 15x15x1 inch panels to be used in the wall. This would involve talks with the major distributors of plastic-ware in California about who would get the contract.

By end of first year:

First 2,000 drawings and scores are submitted for approval, foundation is set and tarped.
Middle of second year:

Frame is being set in as Geologists assist in earthquake-proofing the building. Internet campaign has brought in and additional 4,000 drawings to the local 2,000, making 8,000 total. Production of the plastic cards and fiberglass walls has a date set in the next year.

End of second year:

Roof structure is in place and floor is being laid down. Construction of the fiberglass walls is underway. Total accumulated drawing/scores reaches 16,000.

Middle of third year:

Building is completely finished. Exterior is being stained with Wood oils to prevent toxic runoff. Plastic cards are halfway through production and the wall is being matched up with collected drawing scores, which number around 24,000.

End of third year:

Wall is built and monument is open to the public. A staff of 12 handles the café, gift store, and bathrooms located at the apex of the V, as well as the parking lot. Two or three staff members moderate a website where the daily occurrences at the monument are logged, such as celebrity visits and particularly funny or interesting excerpts.

Three wolf T-Shirt

I have always been fascinated by people who wear shitty T-shirts. Sometimes it's defensible, but oftentimes they just don't know any better. They have some shirt with like, a dragon on it or something, and im like, "who cares?"

well, I finally found a group of people who feel the same way. it seems that they have nothing better to do than cultivate their sarcasm into a generous burst of creative energy.

To better catch my drift, read the customer reviews that can be found here.

Improbable monument

My dad sent this letter to our local West Marin Citizen newspaper yesterday, but I wanted to post it here for all those who knew him, and perhaps explain why I will not be celebrating Cinco De Mayo, and why I've been in a foul mood all week:

"Jake Velloza died serving our country in Iraq over the weekend. For any of us that knew him, this is hard to believe, because his life force was so strong. For my own purposes of coping, I offer you my two favorite Jake moments.

I met Jake when he was in middle school and it was obvious he was a person who enjoyed a good laugh. So along with a couple other kids in town, whenever I'd see him hanging out in Point Reyes, doing nothing, I would sarcastically tell him to get a job. Part of this was jest, and part of it was my hope that he not end up as another casualty of the West Marin stoner culture. When he told me he'd joined the Army, I told him, "Not that job, another job." He laughed because he knew how I felt about the war in Iraq, but I also made sure he knew how much I respected him for doing a job I could never do.

My favorite Jake moment, however, was the day he stopped by unannounced, looking for either of our sons. There weren't home, and I was writing, but he asked if he could come in a few minutes and talk with me about something. This is difficult to write about, but what he wanted to talk about was love. He said I was the most openly in love man he'd ever met and he wanted know more about that. He wanted to know when I knew, and how it was that I still felt that way after so many years. It was quite a chat, and we moved from the living room to the deck, because we both loved the sounds of Inverness. We talked about an hour and he shared with me his hope and desire to one day fall in love. I realized this hope was at the very core of what made Jake so sweet and fun. It was a wonderful conversation.

We stayed in periodic touch during his deployment and it was on Facebook that I learned about his engagement to Danielle. I never met her, but it was obvious that Jake had found what he was looking for in our conversation. It was also obvious how much he wanted to get home and be with her. I told him how much I looked forward to meeting her and giving him a big hug.

It is very difficult to comprehend how he died, so I'm going to remember the Jake I knew while he lived in Inverness...raiding our fridge for leftovers, challenging me to Tiger Woods Golf, and looking for what was most important to him...love.

We all loved you, Jake. We always will.

Jeffrey Hickey
Inverness"


Jake was a year older than me, but that didn't matter when you were going to a 240 kid school. Everyone was just tight. We all knew each others last names, and what we were all about. When I was a freshman in high school, Jake found one of my drawings on the bus and asked me to do a drawing for him. I asked him what he wanted, and he replied with exitment after a few seconds of deliberation, "A homeless dude spooning out a dead hooker's eye!"

This was not much of a challenge. I scribbled it out and when we were on the last 5 minute stretch to school, I showed it to him. "DUUUUUDE" he exclaimed. He took the book and started handing it around in exaltation. "Check out what Brenden just drew!" I had never felt so championed. An upperclassmen was bragging my artwork to a bunch of kids who were probably thinking about hazing me. Jake may have thought that I was doing something for him, but I never told him how much he did for me. Every couple of days he would yell another improbable image at me on the bus, and I would get right to inking it in. And every time, he would hold up what I did, laughing hysterically like he just found some Gary Larson comic he hadn't seen before.

I was never hazed in High School. In fact, some of the coolest kids I knew asked me for tattoo designs that year. Jake Velloza honored me by holding me in such esteem. And for that I looked up to him as I went from boy to young adult.

When I found out he was going to Iraq, I was shocked, but respected his decision. At his going away party I gave him a big hug and told him to keep his head down, but he knew how I felt about the war. I had to let it go then. There was no way I was gonna tell him what was on my mind, because he needed to be strong, and know that he had our support.

I never got to tell him that I always supported him. All these years he was deployed I never touched the subject. We'd chat on facebook sometimes, myspace years before, but it was usually about me, or his fiancee. we both knew that to talk about the fighting, I would just get upset and not be able to relate, and he wouldn't be as strong as he could be. It was the same way for everyone else, I'm sure. We all knew he was in a tank unit. We all feared for him, and we all knew we needed to keep him a hard shell.

Jake, I may have been against this war, but I never held that above the troops. This was a politician's fault. I always supported you, and was more proud of you than I ever said. I keep hitting myself as I write this, because I never once said this to your face. You are one of the biggest reasons I fell on my art as a place of escape and support, and now I'm and ART Education major at San Francisco State, Eight years later.

I can't believe you're gone. It's not fair.

We all loved you, Jake. We always will.

MY improbable monument will be a monument to spontaneous inspiration for non-sequitur art. I plan on detailing a marble carving of the homeless man spooning out a dead hooker's eye. I home that it will help people "laugh cause they're not sure what else to do," like Jake was so good at.