Karl Blau

By now the multi-talented musician, artist, + poet needs no introduction (although his Introducing Karl Blau album is on heavy rotation at The Resource Exchange!)

On his visual art series Trashion Dolls  #trashiondolls:

“When my family and I moved from Washington State to Germantown, Phila this past winter, I began to see “clothing” in the trash on the sidewalks and streets. Inspired by proximity of my wife’s work as a seamstress, no doubt. I consider myself a fairly avid cloud buster and seeing faces everywhere is a common practice since I was a kid. This is so fun and natural I am apt to make a spectacle of myself crossing the street or at a busy corner.

A project started in Spring of 2019, #trashiondolls became an obsession over the first few weeks of making them on my phone – like mushroom hunting, finding beauty on the forest floor… and has lasted through the year, producing hundreds, and Insta-publishing  the fleshed-out characters and sometimes just the garments to social media.  Part of the creed of #trashiondolls, which for me added to the fun, is not touching the “garments” but getting the right camera angle that I could picture the protruding limbs. 

My history as a fine artist can be seen on posters and album covers for my music and may be heard in headphones.  The variety of songwriter/recording artist I subscribe, being a genre of “artful pop.”   I transplanted with my family to Germantown from Anacortes, Washington State in December 2018 and obviously find my neighborhood uber-inspirational.  The metaphor for beauty and usefulness as a matter of perspective should not go unmentioned in this short description of #trashiondolls.”