JoeDeCamillisKerouacPortfolio

Artist Representation by Karole Sessums and the Lola Agency

Joe DeCamillis
Artwork Inspired by the life of Jack Kerouac

JOE DeCAMILLIS

BOOK ARTS
sculpture
painting
mixed media

Artist Representation by Karole Sessums and
the Lola Agency

601.954.5154
karole@happygolola.com

Joe DeCamillis – Artist Statement

I studied Literature and Creative Writing at UCLA in the mid 1980's. I was under the impression that my
passion for reading meant I should become a writer. I found only frustration and heartache, so four years
later, I quit school, quit writing, and ended up back in Boulder for my oldest brother’s wedding. In need of a
new outlet for my creative drive, I decided to try my hand at drawing and painting. The rst time I tried oil
painting at the age of 25, I knew I could better tell stories with paint than words. I knew from the rst buttery
smell of the oils. Painting instantly became my passion and within three years, my means of living.

From 1991 to 94, I traversed America from coast to coast and border to border in a vintage RV living on the
road full-time via the art-fair circuit. The sheer volume of paintings necessary to survive living on the circuit
honed my artistic skills in ways that no amount of classes or workshops could have. Also feeding my
ravenous creative hunger were the gaps between fairs that gave me time to haunt museums across the
country and devour the old masters from up close while also consuming the fast-food curiosities of
contemporary art trends.

My process constantly evolved over the next two decades as I challenged myself to explore new media and
means of presentation. In 2004, I pushed the extremes of scale by creating paintings smaller than postage
stamps that retained the precise detail and intense illumination that had become my trademark. A more
dramatic shift began, when I built my rst frames from old books to emphasize the storytelling nature of my
work. It also began the merger of my passions: art, writing, and collecting. The books, altered through
various means, no longer served as just the frame for the paintings, but rather encouraged a dialogue to
unfold between the collage elements of text, imagery, and personal writings.

My own writing and poetic sense continued to creep
into the work more deeply as I experimented with
painting on top of book-page collage and antique
postcards. I also reversed the process of my original
altered book art idea by setting altered books inside of
larger paintings. In 2010, I executed my rst typewriter
sculpture inspired by the way Jack Kerouac wrote his
original manuscript of On the Road using a typewriter
and stack of tracing paper taped together to form a 120
foot scroll.

In 2009 I stitched together my rst quilt from the
stripped covers of hardback books. I had wanted to
create larger works using everything learned with the
miniature paintings/altered book series. My rst
attempts were large collage scrolls with paintings
worked on top of them. After laying out all of the collage
though, I would step back and feel reluctant to mar the
rich paper surface with paint. They looked like big
beautiful abstract paper quilts to me. These pieces,
which I still create today, were the bridge to the the
book-cover quilt.

Dharma Blues—The Kerouac
Crazy Quilt kicks oﬀ a series that
promises to further explore and
blur the separation of the literary
world and the visual arts, the
high art world and the traditions
and heritage of American crafts
and folk art.

I chose Kerouac's life and writings as the subject for my rst quilt to pay him homage for inspiring my
early creative adventures. I had collected the old hardbacks since 2001 and conceived the idea four
years before I nally mustered the courage to execute it. But once I began stitching in the Spring of 09,
it took just a three-week frenzy of cutting, stitching, and mending to complete—the same time it took
Kerouac to type the original manuscript of On the Road.

I chose the crazy quilt format for its proclivity towards improvisation. Kerouac sought to invent his new kind of
American prose inspired by the spontaneous outbursts of bebop jazz and the free- owing breath of Buddhist
meditation. I utilized a well-worn mover's blanket as the background structure. It has been back and forth across the
country like him, perhaps even more times. None of the covers in the quilt are from Kerouac's books, but they all do
re ect something about his background, his personality, writing style, novels, characters, his generation, or his times.

Detail view
Dharma Blues - The Kerouac Crazy Quilt
5 ft. x 7 ft.
© Joe DeCamillis 2011
Hardback book covers, blue jeans,
mover's blanket, thread, hand-stitched
by Joe DeCamillis

Full view
Dharma Blues - The Kerouac Crazy Quilt
5 ft. x 7 ft.
Hardback book covers, blue jeans, mover's
blanket, thread, hand-stitched by Joe DeCamillis

In 2010, I executed
my rst typewriter
sculpture inspired by
the way Jack Kerouac
wrote his original
manuscript of On the
Road using a
typewriter and stack
of tracing paper
taped together to
form a 120 foot scroll.

"On the Road - Part II"

Found antique typewriter,
collage on canvas (vintage
book pages, road maps, lottery
tickets, and other road-trip
papers, digital snapshots from
road trips)

Detail -"On the Road - Part II"

JoeDeCamillisKerouacPortfolio

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