Unlikely Couples

Liese A Ricketts in Chicago, IL is making a year's worth of Unlikely Couples...



She explains, "I have to credit (for my inspiration) Ken Brown, who so made me laugh with his coupling of unlikely people on postcards in the’80’s. I still remember Ike Eisenhower and Tina Turner couple I loved. I wore that T-shirt until it yellowed from age. Continuing in that tradition with a different aesthetic but a humor not so distant. I am creating this series of Unlikely Couples.

I love making images. Although the work that I live to make is straight black-and-white film photography, during the in-between times, I work on photo collages, animated gifs, and strange things. I collect photographic ephemera and use bits in pieces as well.

The American addiction to celebrity is interesting, curious, morbid, and utterly shameless. This work draws on subjects who are part of the media or scrutinized closely by such. For these particular images I take the name of someone in the media spotlight, if only briefly, and play with their identity. Oh, such fun."



Why did you decide to do this project? I began this project as part of a daily ritual to make art daily. Someone suggested I post them to a site called 365 Days of Print, which I did. I posted every day in June but find myself compelled to make them continually. I have over 120 now and will continue as long as the juices keep flowing.



How has doing a yearlong/daily project affected your life? It makes me fell good to do creative things, rather than spend money, get pedicures, and drink too much wine. I feel happier, yes, much happier, and when I get a very Unlikely Couple, I laugh out loud.


See all of Liese's couples HERE.

And see Ken Brown's 365 interview HERE.

4 comments:

vintage eye said...

Pure genius!

Anonymous said...

her other stuff is really cool on her site, too, but i couldn't find the rest of her unlikely couples and i definitely want to see more.

Noah said...

She said she would be posting the rest of the couples to the site soon!

liesericketts said...

More Unlikely Couples on
www.wackypostcards.wordpress.com
and more to come soon!