Dear Diary: Jason D’Aquino

Posted by Lori Zimmer on Wednesday, May 15, 2013 · Leave a Comment

I’d like to congratulate Jason D’Aquino for raising the bar wayyy up for our Dear Diary series- and I’m a little speechless in seeing a side of him I never thought I would. (Just scroll down and you’ll see what I mean). The dude is a modern but old timey Renaissance man- a miniaturist, tattooist, collector of oddities (read pack rat), vintage clothing expert, mustachio and cool enough to hang with my parents at Christmas. He has a show coming up this summer at San Francisco’s Shooting Gallery and rumor has it his prices will be going up soon, so snag one while you can.

When I knew I needed some photos to send to Art Nerd, my friend Dave, who happens to be a photographer, offered to help..
You will probably be able to tell which photos are provided by Dave, as we go through these together..
Here I am looking at a big pile of matchbooks on my dining room table , which we never eat on…

Here I am drawing some stuff…I have some interesting drawing glasses…They help keep me from going blind when I am rendering fine details…

see what I mean about photographers???
I actually really like this shot…but you will be able to pick out the photos for which , Dave had complete creative control…

Here is one of my miniature matchbook drawings, all framed up and looking Purty.
This image was based on a vintage movie poster…the background in the frame is hand marbled ledger paper..

An ‘in progress’ shot of my ‘Hard Boiled’ vintage pulp matchbook….

There are actually quite a few great artists living up here in Buffalo NY…Here’s Mike Mararian…
I went by his place to visit..

We had Otter pops.

and went to the flea market , out in the country , to look for crap to make art out of….

This is the kind of stuff I look for…and Collect..
Any weird old surface that I can re-purpose, and draw on…I have piles of the stuff…

But one of my favorite things to find….
are antique blank books….

This one is from 1865…
I don’t know why I love these things so much. I think they represent untapped potential..or some such nonsense..

Here is an in-progress shot of a Creature matchbook……

This is one of the objects I discovered, which got me in to antique document collecting…
Any one who know me has probably heard the story many times over, but I found this hand-quilled whaling manuscript in Kingston NY, sold it at Christie’s auction house for a tidy profit. after that, I was hooked…

This is one of the objects I discovered, which got me in to antique document collecting…
i also collect dead stuff….here’s a puppy.

Incidentally, this “Good, Bad and Ugly” matchbook will be one of the pieces I will be showing at the Shooting Gallery in San Francisco in July…o if you’re out that way, come take a look….