Paul Weiss and Ben Davis party Tool-style in Palo Alto gallery of war heroes

I met Ehren Tool about five times during his month residency at Palo Alto Art Center, furthering his project of turning five years as an MP in the Marines into 10,000 or so ceramic mugs. The art of war, the war of art. You do your own math.

Or check out the 1,000 or so “new guys” that were created here. Many of them feature content contributed by we Palo Altans. I met a nice lady who said her dad made missile launchers in Vermont –she’s a school psychologist, she said; I think I noted later in Ehren’s in-box that her family is represented in the installation.

Terry meanwhile arranged for our two dad’s to hang out side by side in the exhibit, which runs until September. They never met in real life, but their mugs like find together – -I’m kinda curious to see what other two to five bits on info and icon adorn the rest of the mugs. In theory the mugs become part of our personal collection in that Ehren makes a point to give away and disseminate the individual components of this work. Terry and I had procured a couple of mugs two years ago at a Veterans’ Art show in Alameda, CA, curated by Ed Holmes. We didn’t note Ehren’s name until we heard of the local show and realized we knew the work, or something of it.

Ehren’s mother-in-law also offers tours of their Berkeley compound many Sunday’s during the summer and fall.