If you go into a store that sells magazines you can begin to understand the culture you live in. The effort to produce a magazine is only made if an audience is willing to buy it. Images contained within those pages come at you so fast it is hard to stop and contemplate what it all means. On the opposite end of the written propaganda spectrum, lies the encyclopedia. Images contained within those dense tomes flow to you constantly, letting their flawed and dated information soak in with class and dignity. Both elements could possibly be located in a young lawyer’s office ante-room, but won’t be found together at a convenience store. Being seemingly opposites, the abrupt combination in a brief, yet repeated gesture of these materials has been constantly amusing to us as they come together.
The Button Project was begun by gathering the two media. Whole pictures were then chopped, spliced, and mounted into new compositions forcing the viewer to consider the imagery and iconography in different ways. These new images were then turned into buttons that can be advertised by anyone. By limiting the presentation to three inch buttons, the combinations come into greater focus and can be spread to a large audience, although not quite as large as in their initial debut. A contemporary model selling perfume is placed next to a model from days gone by exposing the changing definitions of beauty. Black and white figures view at you through the weave of a bright fabric. The ocean gives breath to an elephant. Anything can be possible with the pictures of the world that surrounds us. So, step into our combined imagination and step out with a memento.
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