Mecier - Pop Trash

Copyright 2018 by Jason Mecier. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Mecier, Jason, artist.
Title: Pop trash / Jason Mecier.
Description: San Francisco : Chronicle Books, 2018.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018006962 | ISBN 9781452170121 (hardback); ISBN 9781452170251 (epub, mobi)
Subjects: LCSH: Mecier, Jason--Themes, motives. | Celebrities--Portraits. | Pop art--United States. | BISAC: ART / Popular Culture. | ART / Subjects & Themes / Portraits.
Classification: LCC N6537.M3987 A4 2018 | DDC 709.04/071--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018006962 Designed by Michael Morris Chronicle Books LLC
680 Second Street
San Francisco, CA 94107
www.chroniclebooks.com Chronicle Books publishes distinctive books and gifts. | ART / Subjects & Themes / Portraits.
Classification: LCC N6537.M3987 A4 2018 | DDC 709.04/071--dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018006962 Designed by Michael Morris Chronicle Books LLC
680 Second Street
San Francisco, CA 94107
www.chroniclebooks.com Chronicle Books publishes distinctive books and gifts.

From award-winning childrens titles, bestselling cookbooks, and eclectic pop culture to acclaimed works of art and design, stationery, and journals, we craft publishing thats instantly recognizable for its spirit and creativity. Enjoy our publishing and become part of our community at www.chroniclebooks.com. CAROL CHANNING Yarn, felt, pom-poms, googly eyes, 1997 My first yarn portrait. SELF PORTRAIT Beans, noodles, clock, 1993 NANCY SINATRA Beans and noodles, 1995 This was the very first tour poster I did for The Fillmore in San Francisco. Later I would do poster work for Willie Nelson, P!nk, Margaret Cho, Chelsea Handler, Cheech and Chong, and many more. GOLDEN GIRLS Beans, noodles, clock, 2003 CYNDI LAUPER Beans, noodles, clock, 1995

I was inspired by my grandmothers passion to create, and mesmerized by her paintings, weavings, mosaics, sculptures, collages, and stained-glass work that filled their house and yard. I was also inspired by her resourcefulnessshe would rather paint on the back of her cigarette cartons than buy a canvas. If she was working on an art project, she would set me up at a nearby table with a project of my own to work on. One of my earliest pieces was a mosaic made from beans, noodles, rocks, and cut bamboo sticks glued on a piece of wood, all stuff scavenged from my grandparents kitchen cupboards and backyard. She would also take me to visit Grandma Prisbeys Bottle Village in Simi Valley, a truly amazing assemblage of shrines and structures built by self-taught artist Tressa Prisbey, where we marveled at the endless bottles, recycled-trash mosaics, and a room covered with pencils. My grandmother encouraged me to create masterpieces using materials readily available to me.

I learned from her that I can make art out of anything I want to, and that there are no rules. HELEN GURLEY BROWN Mixed media on panel, 2003 This piece was up at one of my first junk shows at the GlamaRama! salon in San Francisco when I received a phone call. Hi Jason, um... theres something brown leaking from Helen Gurley Brown. It was vintage pudding. Pencil drawings I did of Pat Benatar and Olivia Newton-John from their album covers in the 1980s. Pencil drawings I did of Pat Benatar and Olivia Newton-John from their album covers in the 1980s.

As a kid I remember obsessively clipping and scrap-booking pictures of my favorite shows from the TV Guide. In high school I did pencil drawings of my favorite record covers from artists like the Rolling Stones, Olivia Newton-John, and Pat Benatar. Later I did a series of psychedelic collages using Charlies Angels trading cards and pictures of Florence Henderson from the Wesson Oil coupons and ads. I first started making bean and noodle portraits of my favorite celebrities around 1990, and they were my primary medium for a while. They dont call me the Macaroni Monet for nothing! But at some point I started to feel limited by the earth-toned color palette and moved to yarn, candy, pills, trash... finally EVERYTHING was up for consideration as art supplies.

One Thanksgiving my partner Adam Ansell was frantically looking for the turkey baster, and I had to fess up that I had glued it onto my Helen Gurley Brown portrait. Im always getting busted like that. Nothing is safe in my house. Adam and I are both artists, and our home is generally pretty put together except for the art studio, which I hog ninety percent of, and which can look like a room out of an episode of Hoarders, although I do try to keep all the materials organized in bins by shape, color, and theme. One of my favorite pictures of my grandma. I took this while enrolled in a photography class at Sacramento City College in the 1980s.

I later did an abstract food portrait of it. ANITA TOLLEFSON Pizza crust, fruit, vegetables, junk food, 1998 In terms of portrait subjects, I generally gravitate towards people who are really recognizable or iconic, who have a built-in theme or are big or outrageous, but my inspiration can also be all over the map. The portraits can take a long time to finish, up to 50 hours or morethe Lady Gaga and giant Farrah Fawcett pieces took me six months!so there has to be something about the personality of the subject that fascinates me and makes me want to spend that much time interpreting their image. I tend to think and work in series, including Candylebrities (Miley Cyrus, Zach Galifianakis), Man Candy (Tom Hardy, Burt Reynolds), The Real Housewives of Macaroni, and Celebrity Junk Drawer, and while Ive had exhibitions for each of these, the series are never really finished and Ill add to them when the inspiration strikes.