After many years of evening walks through our neighborhood something interesting occurred to me. I realized that during these evening walks my mind had latched onto certain select road tar patches as landmarks. Just as there are specific trees, houses and other objects that I either consciously or unconsciously expect to see during these strolls, and would have immediately missed if any were suddenly absent, so also had my mind taken special notice of a particular set of designs in tar.

I decided to examine all of the tar patches along our neighborhood roads in order to determine why it was that my mind had elevated a select few above all the others. Very soon I began to consciously appreciate the aesthetics of the tar patches which had previously been favorites of only my subconscious mind.

There appear to be two primary factors impacting whether my mind placed a given tar patch in the “exceptional” category rather than in the “ordinary” category. The first factor is just the happenstance of the design formed by the cracks requiring and directing the application of the tar. Just as some naturally occurring rock formations are more interesting than others so are designs formed by naturally occurring road cracks. The second factor involves the skill of the person applying the tar. The tar patch designs that initially attracted my subconscious have in common smooth and flowing ribbons of tar which have relatively even widths along their entire lengths. The patch designs which my subconscious mind simply skimmed over have messy blobs that appear to have been inadvertently dripped or splotches where it seems the crack was not thoroughly patched in a single deft stroke but required additional smudges of tar. There is every reason to believe that applying tar to road cracks, as with any human activity, is a skill that people can become more proficient in through simple repetition or perhaps through concentrated effort. I have to wonder, just as some people take pride in the exceptional aesthetic appeal of their hand writing, are there appliers of tar who obtain a sense of self-satisfaction in a well executed patch?

Artist's Statement on the Tar Patches Series