Show & Tell

Well hello there ! Ok class, for today's session of show and tell -- an African skull smasher !!


Looking like a work of art taken from the new Musée du Quai Branly* (Paris 7ème--?, Rive Gauche --- see picture below), this slick looking instrument of death in the right panel is assembled from an ebony African statuette and a gazelle or antelope's horn.

If you're in any way an animal rights activist, or vegan -- please rest assured that no furry quadrupeds were hurt before, during or after the creation of these doors, or as a result thereof. (The bipeds on the other hand were savagely beaten with just such blunt objects).

So anyway, to give this skull smasher an extra air of authenticity, Franklin added some little bones on strings, a blade made from a larger bone, and some feather / fluff. This is so we can get away with calling this art and not weaponry, really.

You see our strategy is esthetically pleasing skull-clubs today, sleek weapons of mass-destruction tomorrow. (Obviously, that's where the money is. Doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure that out.)


Also, the little warrior boy is there for comic relief. It's not a social commentary on boy-soldiers in Africa. Don't read too much into this -- the fact that he's naked only means that Franklin couldn't find him a mini-tuxedo in all the garage sales he ravaged.

The horn btw (that's "by the way" btw), is for stabbing the brain once the skull has been *ahem* tenderized.


As for the little doll hands betting their little shirts on the bingo board, well this is just clever design.

So the door panel is actual linear from top left to bottom left, to right: When kids gamble (top left), they are forced to take up arms to get out of debt (small spartan boy with shield ans spear, bottom left). As a result, they are forced to resort to hard core violence just to survive (necessity is the mother of all invention, skull cruncher).


And it's our own socially conscious way of saying: "Kids you better stay in school, don't resort to violence and don't gamble. And drugs are bad."

*

J'adoor

It's kind of a play on words, in case you hadn't noticed. A little pop, but also a little classy (first of all it's french-- so one might assume that you speak it, and second, it's a clear allusion to the the Dior "J'adior" campaign).

Personally I prefer the french one better "Portes Epiques" which in french sounds like Porc Épic (porcupine). Portes Epiques literally translated means Epic Doors, but it is interesting because a couple of the doors actually have porcupine quills in them. And it's totally the type of material you would find in one of my dad's (we'll here on out refer to him as Franklin) doors.


Old turn of the century keys from french country "brocantes" (flea markets), bones (many bones), skulls, pieces of musical instruments, fabrics, old printing press impression pieces, crab shells (clean..), animal tusks and horns, skins, children's toys (and random pieces there of), buttons, circuitry.

You can always find very smart social commentary in each door... It's just too bad Franklin didn't mean for it to be there (or so he says). And if you get too intellectual with him, he'll likely slow his movements, tilt and cock his head back a little, squint his eyes at you with a strange look (as if you were no better then a second class art critic), and say something like "...No. That's not what I was thinking when I put those 19th century pocket watch mechanisms with peacock feathers behind the front side of a turtle shell which is cut open along the middle." .... Usually followed by a enthusiastic:

"It's kind of spooky huh?!"