H4H: Motion Control, At Rest (2014)
Before it was a series
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In 2013, I picked up doing a few small still life paintings again, which I hadn’t done since probably college. While casting about for things to paint, I glanced over at the Wii Remote that was by the couch. This was just about 4 feet from my easel in the tiny studio apartment we were living in, in NYC. I scratched my chin thoughtfully and probably uttered, “Hmm….”
I was using the black one with the Motion Control Plus improvements, but had my stock white one as well, so I fished it out and started thinking why not paint these? The 7–8 prior still life pieces had already established a couple of things for me, including that I really liked portraying objects at actual size, perceptually. As well, my handling on these was a good bit looser than my illustration work.
I grabbed my camera and set out to lighting these and playing with some angles. I used an eraser to help prop these up, and laid them out. Finally, I went to work. It was also very enjoyable marrying my favorite pastime with my work. It was a nice change of pace after a few fruits and vegetables, as well.
Upon finishing, I scratched my chin thoughtfully again and probably uttered, “Hmm….” and then considered that this might be enjoyable past doing one. And so I did. I hadn’t mapped out the shape and scope of what this series would be, the name Hearts for Hardware hadn’t occurred to me yet, but this painting ended up forking my productivity in the years since. It was the inspiration of the moment to render out my “g” sigil, which I’ve used since 2003, in a pixelized version. All my H4H paintings are signed thusly.
I routinely catalog my works, and indicate the catalog number on the back of each painting. I’ve done this since just before I started working professionally in 1994. Most of my works are numbered along a Roman numeral scheme. Most still life paintings, being fairly quick and a mostly separate body of work, have their own numbering system. My H4H series likewise exists with its own cataloging enumeration. Naturally, it is in binary.