The Indexical Nature of Images: Judas Priest, Screaming for Vengeance

Judas Priest, Screaming for Vengeance

The idea of the image, in general, and its relationship to memory has been a major entry point into making artwork for me, over the last several years. Other tangential issues mostly related to photography versus painting’s abilities to convey the import of images as they pertain to memory or memories, have also weighed on my thoughts.

Lately, it’s been difficult trying to figure out what to paint next; a drawing seems to be so much different from a painting within my practice, given the amount of time I end up spending with either. While a drawing may take a day or two, a painting might have to sustain two month’s worth of attention and energy. So lately, I’ve been starting something and then finding myself quickly bored with it. I paint over it, sand it back down, start all over.

I wanted to approach the next body of work from a more conceptual vantage point, rather than beginning from the visual or specifically, an image (from which a bunch of ideas might spring out). And in thinking about memory and image, as usual, I realized that maybe the way I talk about photographs and the family snapshot (the source material for the newest series of drawings), or the photographs of John Divola’s that became the Reclaimed Houses paintings — what was most interesting to me was how an image could generate narrative, stories, verbiage in general — all because it acted as an index for a specific moment in a person’s life or within history.

Let me try to be specific. The image above of the Judas Priest album cover, Screaming for Vengeance, resonates to a very significant degree for me. Like many people my age, I made a serious commitment to metal when I was young. Being raised a Catholic, maybe there were shared ideas between the two, including an investment in ritual, Satan, and storytelling as a means to communicate truth or messages, that somehow drew my attention. And sure — it pissed off my parents enough to make it worth investigating.

At some point, my parents took a weekend or a night off and went out, leaving my sister and me to the trusted stewardship of Sister Mary, who was either my kindergarten or grade school teacher earlier on in life. Regardless, we were being taken care of for the evening by a nun; that’s the important part of the story. And somehow, we ended up at a record store, maybe it was after a movie at the theaters in Encino in the San Fernando Valley, where we grew up. If I remember correctly, the store was on Ventura Blvd, and it was called Music Plus(?).

Left to our own devices in the store, Sister Mary moved freely about, investigating contemporary music and album covers and titles of things I’m sure, comparing that relative cultural freedom against the cloistered lifestyle she had chosen. Of course, this is an entirely retroactive analysis. She found me in the metal section, specifically in the “J” section of the metal section, and at that very moment, I was looking pretty covetously at the album, Screaming for Vengeance by Judas Priest.

She couldn’t help but ask me if I knew about Judas Priest. I remember mistakenly thinking she was asking me about the band, to which I enthusiastically responded yes, though in retrospect some years after, realized that she was asking me about Judas Iscariot, the betrayer of Jesus, from whence the name of the band derives. I’m no pal of Rob Halford, but I think this is a pretty safe assumption to make.

I don’t recall her making that big a deal out of the album, out of my choice, or in that moment at all — she simply asked me if I knew what the name of the band was about, and maybe made a subtle remark, but cast no judgment and admonished me neither.

I look back at this story and think how singularly it defines my experience of grammar school, of Catholicism, of the freedom of being young in an environment where exploration is encouraged, sans boundaries. And all those little tangents that I could riff on, all the places where that would lead me and all the stories they would uncover about my life — they all stem from that image, from Screaming for Vengeance and that shrieking metallic eagle.

So that’s what I’ve decided to paint next, long story short.