Last November, back when we could go places and people could aspirate in rings, I was walking home from fight night at Soho House.
I was on Milwaukee Avenue south of Division when I saw a poster laying on the ground. I picked it up and saw that it was a gun range target.
in the 1990s I published a book called, “Boilerplate: Koreshians, Potential Rioters, and Bureaucratic Complicity in American Self-Destruction”, subtitled, “Being a list of 8 ways in which the dead at Waco were a lot like the rest of us”.
We made an extremely small number of hand-made books. They were all printed from regular commercial desktop printers, folded, stapled, and a fixed with custom covers cut from gun range targets. Here’s a look:
I have wanted to do a reprinting, so I’ve been looking for this classic gun range target for a long time. They’re not easy to find. Last year I saw one at Dial M For Modern, but sadly it was not for sale.
This wasn’t exactly the same and that’s when I’m looking for. Still, I walked north with the piece. It was later than I’m usually out and I had in the back of my mind and I might be able to catch the great artist Lujuana Lampkins holding court and making her art in her customary back table at Dimo’s. And there she was.
We chatted, I bought some art, and asked her if she wanted the paper for art material. That was November 2019.
In March 2020, just as the pandemic was about to take hold, Lajuana and I were chatting on FB and she sent me some work-in-progress shots.
We met up briefly, with plenty of distance, in early April to exchange goods for a project we’re working on. She showed me progress.
Today the piece is complete, so she took the train and we made an exchange right quick.
Here’s the finished piece:
All hail Lajuana Lampkins.