Offspring

I was unreasonably wary that Offspring (LA neo-punk band) would be possibly as aggressive as their music, but, to the contrary, they were very charming. And for their album, Splinter, released in 2003,... read more they commissioned four pictures from us. Not one out of four. One of these is known as ‘Glass Family’ and another as ‘Moonstab’, both in the 20/20 collection. I think they liked the title Splinter for being sharp and angular like their music and with several different meanings, varying from the simple wooden shaving which stabs your finger to break-up, the splintering of a relationship or an outfit like a band, or even a family. And what more likely family to splinter than a glass family whose break-up would be into sharp, angular, splinter-like shards with accompanying sounds of breaking glass. I imagined the glass family to be two up and two down, a loving couple and their replica loving kids joined at the hip, in morality, if not in actuality - necessary when constructing a glass sculpture in order to give it some stability. Our glass family is made of sugar glass which comes from a mould, itself made from a clay maquette, Sugar glass is used in films when people fly dramatically through windows. Our family are gathered in their well-to-do garden by the fishpond in order to be photographed for the family album, and also back-lit to highlight the glassiness. Personally I always thought that the little girl was the most spooky - present but transparent, like a ghost or a memory - a memory of when the family were together in the flesh, not as glass.

This highly graphic design is an amalgam of something observed in nature, a natural event, and an interpretation of the title. I imagined that the splinter of the title might be the splinter that broke... read more a heart, the heart of a lover betrayed, which I am sure was probably the subject of one or two of the songs. And the thing that I saw in nature occurred one night on my way home when I saw a very bright moon, positioned low and symmetrical down the street where I live, seeming unnaturally close, unnaturally large. The idea also also involves an echo of a Canadian TV show called The Kids in the Hall, where large close up fingers are seen to squash someone’s head at a distance, with a voice over gleefully saying - I’m crushing your head! This also works on the principal of spatial association. So I envisaged the splinter as a sharp moon, a crescent moon, about to pierce the heart of a lover like a scimitar, although only spatially speaking of course, seeming both angular and poetic like the music. And what more appropriate weapon to stab or splinter the heart of a lover than the moon, normally a lover’s preserve.