I began working on
The Amazing Spectacles in the spring of 2003. As with my earlier Nimbus images, the book started as a series of promotional pieces that I intended to print as postcards for a direct mail campaign. This time, however, the images suggested a story which evolved as I filled in the gaps. The process was very intuitive; I never sat down and wrote a story line. One image led to another.
I was taking a bookbinding class at a local arts workshop as I began work on the first ten images. For my final project, I bound these images together in a sequence that resembled a story, having a beginning and an end. I sent this "prototype" to the American Illustration 23 annual competition. It was accepted into the competition, which gave me the motivation to finish the book.
As my wife and I raise our three young children, I have a much greater awareness of those things in the world around me which I appreciate, as well as those things which I find repugnant - things which I want to avoid and protect my children from as best I can. It is these repugnant things which somehow became the focus of this book: consumerism, celebrity worship, a society which places too high a value on instant gratification and making a buck at all costs, unfettered greed, mass marketing (especially to children), and the corrupting influence of fame.
