Space Money

From today’s post:

I continue to make the space money. I love giving it away. But I also want to have a hefty stash in hand. So I have to keep making it! Working in the mint is like a meditation or spiritual practice,  but it can include listening to baseball games (and music, of course). Sometime I think a lot while I’m painting. I was thinking the other day about a friend saying that the more space money I make the less each piece is worth. I think this is untrue. Space money is not representational of some other basis of wealth, like a pile of gold sitting in Fort Knox or whatever. Each one is singular, unique, and not serial-numbered, not specifiable by a segmented coordinate system. Space money does not “refer” to anything. It is relational and physical.  It is rhizomatic. It is non-allegorical, non-analogical. It is not time money. You form a relationship with it, with each piece individually. Space money is more question than answer. How do you spend it?

I worked in the space money mint today. I was moved to paint because I get this hit: the more space money you make, the more possibilities there are.  That’s motivating, because I think we need more possibilities, in the sense of potent ready-to-go new ways of doing and thinking to survive and thrive, to carry on somehow even when infrastructure and the earth itself shake and shatter beneath and around us.  Of course I’m not saying that space money can do this, I’m saying that the thought motivated me to paint in the mint today.

I’m turning into my grandpa, getting up by 4am most mornings.  Usually I spend some time painting or folding/cutting space money, depending on the current stage of the current batch. Lately I’ve got a good routine going that fits into my life pretty well.  In our “library” room downstairs–more like my “studio” these days–I’ve got a nice painting set-up at an old style flip down secretary desk, perfect for standing at, and spots for drying fourteen 8.5×11 sheets of painted paper, which, when multiplied by 8, translates to 112 pieces of space money per batch.  It takes about a half day for paint to dry, so I can do two stages of a batch per day.  At that rate, a batch of space money can be made in about 3 days. I don’t make space money every day, but since it’s such an easy process: about 20 minutes to paint a batch-stage (and cutting/folding takes even less time), I do tend to spend time almost daily doing this. It’s become a meditation, really.

My friend Laurie took space money with her to Peru this winter.  She and her partner Sleeve (another good friend) have been working to bring clean woodstove technology to poor families in rural Peru.  She blogs at pencilsforperu.blogspot.com, and you can read the entry mentioning space money here.

Bleu talks about what he sees in his space money as his dad Tony films.

I have not abandoned you, Space Money Blog readers. But it is challenging to think up things to say here. I do hear things about space money in people’s lives on an almost daily basis. Space money is great for tips at bars and bakeries. Space money calms down people who are freaking out. Space money gives good luck at the casino. Space money helps buy a house and whatever else you desire. Space money for energetic healing. Space money as an ingredient in arts and crafts (I’m fine if you wanna cut it up or whatever..I release it into whatever kind of “circulation” it happens to be drawn into). Space money as an “art snack.” Space money as worth more than the dollar. Space money and yer mom and me last night.

On one hand, I just make the space money. I don’t feel I have to talk about it too much beyond describing the process of making it. On the other hand, I like to talk and write about stuff I’m interested in.

I mentioned what I called space money’s “sociality” in a previous post. Sociality is the tendency to group together, so I’m not sure I used the term correctly, but perhaps it’s evident what I mean. “People like to socialize via space money” is perhaps another way to say it.

But there’s also an emphasized physicality in space money, because it is hand-sized. You handle it and it has textures, and there’s a sound when you run your finger along a space money’s surface. Several space monies rustled together sound like thick dry leaves. Every space money has metallic/pearl paint and those portions are highly reflective. Moving (turning, waving) a piece of space money near a light source produces a micro light show in its high-relief shiny painted surfaces.

Dat’s right. Meet outside Feinstein’s Museum of Unfine Art in Eugene at 3:66pm on Friday, Feb. 29 (Leap Day). Calling all space money agents, come and receive a wad of space money to randomly distribute before midnight!

Mr. Random Handles Space Money For The Camera

For me a big aspect of space money is its sociality. Add a stack of space money to a crowd in a bar or at a party, and the excitement level goes up. It’s really fun to watch and listen when people who’ve seen or maybe have some space money explain it to people who’ve never seen it or heard about it. There’s at least a couple things going on that entertwine with people’s subjectivity in their reaction to and experience with space money: 1) the physical reality of space money pieces (touch, sight, sound, smell–don’t taste it please unless you want tempera colors on your tongue!) and 2) the words in the name “space money.”

Everybody has ideas about space money, and I love to hear them. Please use the comments to tell me yours.

I’ve got lots of ideas about space money, and no doubt you’ll get to read a few when I’m feeling loquacious. But for now I really want to observe and listen and keep making space money.

Color Negative

I’m Mr. Random, and I make space money. Space money is made of paper and paint, and there is a specific multi-step process involving six painting/drying stages, and three stages of folding/cutting. Space money is double sided, just like time money. But unlike time money, every piece of space money is different and abstract. (But then again, like time money, every piece of space money is the same shape and size and manufactured in a pre-set assembly-line process.) After final painting stages, when the metallics have been applied, then the pieces are space money. Initial paper size is standard 8.5 by 11 inches. After first fold/cut: 5.5 x 8.5″. After second: 4.25×5.5. After third: 2.75×4.25. One initial sheet yields eight completed space monies. All folding is done by hand; all cutting is done with a small pair of pink-handled scissors.

Further notes: Before the first and second fold/cuts, both sides of the paper are painted with non-pearl tempera colors (mostly mixing from primaries, white, and black, occasionally including custom and flouro colors)– random abstract expressionisticalish style including some drippy jacksonpollacking. The second and third fold/cuts have no painting stage intervening. After the third fold/cut, I apply pearl tempera and metallic acrylic paints, again random/abstract as is my custom. So there are three layers of paint finalized by metal, which makes this space money.

Those are the technical details. I discovered the space money fabrication process while Mrs. Random and I were vacationing on Orcas Island in October of 2007. I’m a painter, and I love to paint abstracts, and I love to paint a lot. So I had recently started focusing on painting plain standard sheets of paper rather than build up a large collection of canvases, which I’ve done in the past and which I still have a large collection of. So I was painting paper sheets and actually both sides, thinking I might make zines with these abstract expressionist painted pages. At some point I folded a painted sheet in half and then cut it, and I liked that newer smaller (“digest”) size. But I did it again and like the even smaller piece but didn’t know what it would be used for, and then something *sparked* and I folded cut in half again, and yielded this obviously hold-in-your-hand or put-in-your-wallet little two-sided color and metallic paper painting. What is it? Obviously: SPACE MONEY. The first other thought that came to mind was “why space money?” “because it’s not time money” There are the seeds of this ART EXPERIMENT if you will. But a simple art experiment has turned into something bigger for me. This blog is for documenting and speculating and communicating about space money and whatever it sparks.