Made with vintage salt and pepper shakers and a primitive old chess board, this piece follows the 2016 Famous Fictional exhibit theme of “Versus!”
Bill Keaggy
Check, please! (Veruca Salt vs Sgt. Pepper)
Found objects & ambigram design
NFS
Salt is from Roald Dahl’s 1964 book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (with, admittedly, more inspiration and nostalgia coming from the 1971 film version “Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory”). Pepper is from The Beatles’ 1967 “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” album, even though I’ve always liked “Revolver” best.
Originally my project was going to be a set of Risograph prints of just the ambigram design. They turned out fine, but I had recently seen the “Self-Taught Genius” exhibit at the St. Louis Art Museum and had folk art on my mind. Plus, I always like to make something different and just nearly rule-breaking for this fun annual show.
So at the last minute I scratched out the prints idea and (literally) scratched this in. Now Veruca Salt does battle with Sgt. Pepper via an ambigram-scarred chess set that my mom put together).
ELSEWHERE