When I was a kid, around 12 years old, I was obsessed with Duck Tape. For about a year I spent every day making the usual wallets, bags, and flowers popularized by the internet, but soon I got bored of making the same things over and over. I began making collages of things I liked out of the tape by cutting out smaller pieces and sticking them together to make a picture. This type of project became my thing for years. I have to give my younger self some credit because throughout these projects I became a stronger artist and I taught myself how to draw by sketching these projects out.
Once I got to high school, I found that I really loved drawing and painting, so I stopped making things from tape for a while. It had been a few years, and I felt bad when I would sit at my desk and see drawers of all the hundreds of rolls of tape I barely used anymore. Recently, I got sentimental about how much these projects meant to me, so I decided to make another tape collage and see how I’ve improved.
I chose Spider-Punk as the subject because I had recently watched and really enjoyed Across the Spider-Verse. Like a collage, his character is pieced together by a bunch of different elements…how perfect! This absolute beast of a project is 16 by 20 inches and is made entirely from thousands of hand-cut pieces of Duck Tape. It was completed in July 2023 and took about a month to create. I am so unbelievably proud of this project as it is the coolest thing I’ve made to date!