writings    ||    books    ||    projects    ||    madvertising    ||    odds & ends    ||    about    ||    bio

Paint the Moon
With lasers!

Nobel Prize for Jo
Who else has done more to promote literacy worldwide?

Glass Canopy
I didn't know they had already done this in Denver, but it still a good idea.

Oklahoma City Memorial
An unrealized vision.

In this section I have archive material on some of the artistic "projects" which I have been involved with in the last decade.  Where I have posted the homepage of a project website, there is only that.  Don't expect the links on the homepage to work.

The most conventional of these projects is also the first:  my entry into the Oklahoma City Memorial Competition.  This was, literally, the result of a vision I had.  While driving home from an opening for a group show of interpretive bindings in Iowa, I was hit with this image for a memorial for the bombing victims.  No idea where it came from, but as soon as they announced the design competition, I entered.

In 2001, as I was working on Communion of Dreams, I got to thinking how much fun it'd be if someone actually tried to pull off a stunt referenced in the book.  Then I thought, what the hell, why not try it myself?  The result was Paint the Moon, a collaborative flight of fancy that involved thousands around the globe, and made me something of a minor celebrity for a brief period.

In early summer of 2002 I focused my attention on my community, and came up with an idea to try and persuade the people of Columbia to do something about our downtown's appearance.  The Glass Canopy project got people talking, though the consensus was that it would never work.  Funny thing, a few months ago I wandered into three blocks of downtown Denver (their theatre district), which had used the exact idea I had to wonderful effect . . .

Nobel Prize for Jo was my most recent effort, and the biggest failure of the lot.  It was conceived as a challenge to the Nobel Prize Committee, to award the Nobel Prize for Literature to JK Rowling for her 2003 book Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, on the basis of the fact that she has done more to promote reading and literature around the globe than anyone alive.  Even most of her fans dismissed this idea, saying that she was rich enough and well known enough already.  I heard from a lot of educators who agreed with me, though.  Ah, well.

Yes, I have other ideas.  Haven't decided to do anything with this one yet, but here's a possibility . . . and here's another one.


contact me:
jim@afineline.org
all work © James T. Downey, 1993-2006
photos © Martha K. John, 1994-2006
site designed and maintained by:
Coeurbois Graphic Design