Twelve years ago today, almost exactly to the moment this post goes up, my eyes gazed on this artwork for the first time. Varying in size, color, and composition — from small and flat under mattes and polished glass, to movie-theater-lobby-esque large format, to three-dimensional shadow boxes in frames custom made of reconstituted desk drawers — it comprised the then little known passion project of America’s “King of the Football Movies.” And like the montages he and his filmmaking brain trust popularized, the work resonated with my eyes and ears in such a way that I couldn’t help but imitate it — in part, in the poster below from 2003.
If you’re feeling generous call it flattery, and if you must, call it theft – but then only in consideration of that advice the King himself was known to impart, “If you’re going to steal, steal from Tiffany’s.” I don’t recall what I had for breakfast twelve years ago today ; I can barely remember what I had today. But June 3, 2002 — and how it changed the way I see the world — is a morning I won’t forget.