FOREWORD
SOULPRINTS started as a lark one day ago when I became bored waiting for my son Art to complete his business day and go out to dinner. Art always had the latest high tech equipment in his office, which included, on this day, a brand new, state-of-the- art copier that began to draw me to it like the proverbial flame. Rick Furneisen, an old friend from my Woodstock days, was with me at the time and we quickly decided to irritate Art into calling it a day by putting our faces on the copier and having at it. The results, however, were so eerie and so revealing that I soon forgot about Art, because the prints came out looking like little Shrouds of Turin if you know what I mean. Something about the high density, high-contrast black and white process seemed to illuminate parts of ourselves that seldom made it to the surface. What’s more, the little Shrouds seemed to seep out of the copier with a minimum of effort on my part, something that is bound to catch the attention of any artist. I knew I was onto something, I just didn’t know what. Since then, many other friends have become a part of the project, which is an ongoing one. Some of the SOULPRINTS accompany a specific poem, serving as a kind of twisted, cartoon version of it. Others are meant to stand alone. All of the pieces can be considered visual poems, in that they tell a charged story, and I hope they are seen that way. Like all of my work, whether it be poetry or videos or collages like these, they can be approached on several levels and all of them are OK by me.
Justin Spring