Custom, hand assembled, hand illustrated, hand sewn, field jacket. A true one-ofo-a-kind. Constructed from dozens of vintage, true military textile patch pieces and featuring a ton of direct-on-garment illustration riskily spilling arcane knowledge and deeply buried secrets of Griffith Park.
Fits Large, measures 23" chest by 30" long.
Jacket foundation is buttery soft, faded, made in USA M-51 field jacket.
As we discussed in another inventory item, a complete record of the great Hiding Man™ Saga exists only in fragments spread across hundreds, or, more likely, thousands of Angeleno minds. And what has remained? Are they clear, are the edges still sharp? This collective of strangers each having read or viewed a story element will likely never meet, and, in the event that they were to somehow gather in the same place, will most definitely not discuss what they remember of whatever poster they came across as it was probably a passing amusement, at most, to most. Our previous inventory item discussion played around with what such a meeting might look like (perhaps a bit too much). All of the brains hold bits and pieces of a whole, which is exciting, really. There is virtually zero chance that outside of the artist building a linear narrative in some currently-unplanned format that the story will be assembled in one neat and easily digestible way. This results, to some degree, in viewer influence over what is true of the work. The artist finds this more frustrating than exciting and believes that the influence of perspective from viewers seeing the work online instead of in person, creates a dangerous departure from truth but that is another entry for another time.
To date, much of the artist's work involving clothing has contained story elements that expand on what has been established in the poster/flyer: a character's origin story or introduction of new characters and locations of importance to the story. But here, with this jacket, we see for the first time a collective of story concepts brought together, a sort of primer or introduction to the world within the park. Several characters only ever appearing once or twice turn up next to stalwarts like The Hiding Man™ and The Chud. Often accompanied by text that assists in bridging these characters together, in some cases, across time even. How can a guy who died in 1988 exist in the park? What does O.Z. Hanish, err, Dr. Ken Wilson have to do with THM? Who were the 'Children Of The Park' and what good is a visit with Old Peter On The Toilet to one seeking lost knowledge of the park? These are a few questions answered here but they also serve as introductions to larger mysteries. The jacket contains both new and old, known and unknown.
The uninitiated can look at it, puzzled, or, perhaps just annoyed. Or indifferent or maybe curious or inspired.