Selected Writings by Dan Max Dan Max is a conceptual artist and educator based in San Francisco California There is a kind of sketch book with a hard,black cover that ever since art school one always tried to fill with master drawings without ever having to remove a botched page I have never been able to produce the genius book. _____________________________________________ Thanks for coming last night. You asked me how long it takes to do a piece. I don’t think I had the opportunity to answer you. Thinking about it requires the most time. If I think it is worthwhile to realize then I make a plan – choosing materials, preliminaries and tests. I find out what I need to do. I even make rules. Once I reach the point of making the finished piece the amount of time needed is quick. The main part is the time needed to think through the concept. Dan ____________________________________________ General Electric           In 1991,I stopped using found objects.Until that time,I had been putting these things together in site-specific installation in galleries and in store front display Windows almost all of the objects collected and assembled came from hardware stores.       In the end,I was interested only in household commodity light- bulbs and Balloon side balloons were cheap party type,available in a variety of solid bright colors.       I asked everyone to save all of the burned out bulbs that normally they would toss out.Since the bulbs were never connected to an outlet,a dead bulb was a useful as a live one.       I discovered that a yellow,blue,red,orange,pink or whatever colored balloon stretched over a bulb looked odd and funny,especially one to two dozen of them scattered randomly on the floor or even pinned to the Walloon time,I put them in Garden they looked like and were just as useless as Al Cap’s “schmoes”       The bulb-balloon combo did’t stay fresh for very long,I needed to spray a slight water mist over the bulb to make the job of slipping the balloon on Possible the trapped water,combined with light and atmospheric exposure,caused the rubber to deteriorate.Iaccepted this as part of the natural Process the works temporal and short lived.       Often,the bulb crumbled into hundreds of fragments inside the balloon. The bright colors faded and the rubber Wilt edithe formless object looked like a space age disaster.         In the ceilings,bulbs dangled precariously until falling to the floor.In time,there were piles of shredded rubber and shattered glass that inhibited east Walking during the course of a month,the piece transferred itself from the ceiling on to the Floorboard symmetrical shapes transformed into debris.       I regret never having video taped the process. ________________________________________________ Appleton Coated From a recent visit with Richard Johnson,an old boyhood friend From Appleton, Wisconsin (June 18, 2005). I was explaining to Richard that I make everything out of paper, Plain white sheets of paper commonly purchased in art supply Store she noted that maybe that is because Appleton and the Fox River Valley,at one time, may have been the worlds leading mane- fracture of commercial paper and paper products. The mills made The region prosperous. The Institute of Paper Chemist in Appleton Was the only school of the kind in the country. Often, I have listed childhood experiences that may have been a Source and influence in adult art practices. Richard’s suggestion Never occurred to Felike the idea and I’ll now include it in my Personal history. Black photon 3 (tooth) 12/2001 Dan Max