As some of you know, I’ve been putting together these promo packages to promote my show, THIS LAND that will be going to a few art critics and curators. I’m making eighteen of them all together and I’m nearly finished with them now. I thought I’d finally show them off in pictures.

This was all in lieu of sending out Save the Date postcards. That seemed boring to me and I wanted to make something more memorable. So, I came up with a better idea to put a bunch of themed items in a mystery box. I sorta brainstormed the idea based on a couple of sources. Some of it came from my last Artist’s book, Outlander, which happens to include some items one might need if getting lost on a hike.

The other source, I reckon, probably comes from the band I was in for five years in my younger days. We used to come up with all kinds of shenanigans to promote ourselves to record companies. We thought out of the box.

We all once dressed up as special delivery people and pretended to have birthday presents for the directors of A&Rs at places like Capitol Records and A&M, etc. With balloons and flowers in hand came our press packs and demo tapes in decorative wrapped gift boxes. Maybe it was a dirty trick, but our tenacity was a pretty great way to get our music listened to. And sometimes it worked. I suppose some of my ideas may stem from that.

Anyway, I first thought of making promotional posters for the show after seeing one by Keith Haring from the ’80s on Antiques Roadshow. It was kinda giant, and I couldn’t afford anything that big, so I made one about the size of a 1960s concert poster, a 19 x 13-inch.

I’ve been scoring them in order to fold them into a square so I can fit them into a cardboard box that looks like a distressed, white-washed wooden one.

Inside are my Save the Date cards, along with a drawing sample and a photograph that are going into my drawing installation. All three of these items go into a kraft pocket fold and are tied with some jute.

The box also includes a vial of desert sand marked with the coordinates of Lost Horse Mine in Joshua Tree National Park.

There are a few other items in there, like a compass wrapped in handmade paper, sunscreen, chapstick, and a weird pencil made from a tree branch—just because it was cute.

See? It’s a whole theme. Get it? I hope so.

The folded poster goes on top and the box is tagged with the person’s name.

Maybe that’s interesting enough for some of these eighteen people to want to check out the show.

We shall see.