Francis Picabia has to one of my favorite early Dada artists so I decided to make a screen print of one his works to put on a t shirt. Now that I’ve made the print, though, I don’t really like how it fits on a t. So now it is just one more patch among many others contributing to the blotting out of all my bedroom walls. It’s coming along nicely.

The screen print is of Picabia’s ‘Reveil Matin’ (Alarm Clock). I cut the original stencil from paper with an x-acto knife.

I like the story behind Reveil Matin. As far as I can recall Picabia was with some of his chums from the journal Dada. They needed a cover illustration for their latest issue of Dada; no. 4-5: Dada Anthology. So, what Picabia did was go to a junk shop down the street, buy an old alarm clock and bring it back to the studio. He then pulled the clock apart, individually dipped parts of the clock in black ink and then laid them down onto a piece of paper. This became the journal cover. Everyone around him watched the whole process and when Picabia had finished they announced that he was a Dada genius. He was and still is.

by sid skull

the bottomless paddling pool

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