tiny dancer

2003
watercolor, korean egg tempera & permanent marker on arches cold press, hand-bound with thread and rubber cement
8" x 12"

UVA is a considered a southern school; during my time there, i met a lot of people from the deep south and listened to a lot of country (not really by choice, but it did grow on me). there was also a lot of classic rock, monster ballads and hair metal at frat parties, and, without fail, "tiny dancer" by elton john.

i still love this song; it reminds me simultaneously of college and the movie almost famous, but mostly of college. and i have fond memories of dancing to "tiny dancer" at 3am, on a dancefloor covered in spilled natty light and drunk, southern frat boys in pink shirts and camouflage hats. so, as an homage to that song, i based one of my abstract art projects on it, illustrating some of the lyrics as shown.

oh, i was also really into microwaving cds at the time, for some reason. if you nuke a cd for two seconds in the microwave, it crackles and sparks and is probably really bad for the environment, and there's a faint smell of burnt plastic and chemicals, but...it looks cool. so that's what the cover is supposed to be, which is unrelated to the song.