Sandy Uhrich

PROCESS MANUAL #3:
Bib & Warm Bodies at East Wing, Kansas City, MO (2017)
Inkjet on Paper, Found Source Material
18 x 16.5

I was watching a true crime thing and it took place on the date of the show so I knew it was the right one for today!

Throughout my work, a theme I revisit is what I call a “tragic hunk”; iconoclasts that met unfortunate ends and have maintained sex symbol status, James being perhaps my favorite.

A thread through a lot of Royal Brat pieces was using sexually or gender ambiguous characters. For this piece, I used Petunia Pig, who is essentially Porky in a
wig – one might imagine it even is Porky in a wig. I like to!

I found the image of James’ car wreck in a 1987 issue of a magazine called Hot Rods. My free association was as follows:
James Dean > Jimmy Dean > Sausage > Pig

Car crashes also reminded me a lot of my love life at the time, so I wanted to incorporate that concept. I sourced the Petunia from a .jpeg of a patch from eBay and the other hog from a clip art resource I have since lost. In playing with the layout, I found that if I placed them a certain way, they made eye contact from across the
wreckage.

Most type was manually collaged from scans of types I kept over the years. My final touch was a lei, a reference to a pig roast and the themes of the piece. I sourced it from a 68 Graphic Resource about Hawaii.

In a strange coincidence, on the way out of town, we encountered a car engulfed in flames 35S. It was the first day of a west coast run with Royal Brat and is still one of my favorite shows ever. The show was wild and we stayed up late celebrating @shand0pe ’s birthday and partying late with @johnbirknerd I think this was one of the first times I remember truly hanging out with @black_kandy, who I went on to play in Hippyfuckers with.

This piece is dear to me for the fond memories and how it exemplifies a lot of work I made in this era. It’s the first I finished for the show, which is up for about another week at This & That.

There’s a closing reception this Sunday, September 27th from 6-9, and I’ll be giving a presentation at 5 about my process with a Q&A. Hope to see you there if you can make it!