Gilded Sentry's Boots

This is the start of the boots for the Gilded Sentry. The tops of the boots will be different than pictured here, this was just a pattern/fabric test to see how it would all fit together. The boots are made by attaching a fabric boot top to a base shoe with a special cobbler's glue called "shoe goo".

Video

Link to the video to be played on a loop -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnzXkDJPws4

Done & Done

Gang's all here.

Step by step of the box containing the coloring books.

I am currently exporting my short movie I put together. I will post it on youtube and then post a link on the blog because when I upload a video via blogger it takes down the quality of the video a lot.

whoop there it is!!!

All three are done! FINALLYYYY!

Gilded Sentry Shield of Power

I've started sculpting the actual shield that granted George Christophers his powers as the Gilded Sentry. It will be sculpted, molded, and cast in a gold-tinted, clear plastic and displayed with a light under it.

I've made some adjustments to make the store/book to make it look more chaotic, like adjusting the edges of the floor and ceiling, so each layer isn't just straight edges.


I tried using the card stock and the thicker paper (stuck together using spray mount) and it's still bending. So at this point, I'm just going to leave it as is.

1 down, 2 to go.

Kitty Connection

I spent the afternoon at the Kitty Connection animal shelter in Medford. I took photos and got video footage of the cats currently there and also Penny the pit bull. 

The shelter is currently at capacity. The cats that are currently there were mostly abandoned. As you can see in the first video, some of the cats are still dirty from being outside. Marie was explaining more in depth to me about the adjustment time you need to give an abandoned animal due to their trust issues with humans and you wouldn't want to overwhelm them by trying to bathe them right away. One of the cats she has right now is only a year old. A family had adopted him when he was a kitten, and once he reached a year old and wasn't a "cute little kitten" anymore they actually approached a rescue group and asked if they could trade in their cat for another kitten. Obviously the rescue league said no that's not what they do, and the family just turned around and surrendered the cat. 

I didn't have an opportunity to tape an interview with her because she had meetings going on during the time I was there. I had planned on taking the audio from the interview and having it play over the short video I've made so far. 

Seminar Post 09: All Proceeds Go To . . .

So I decided to think long and hard about what I was going to do with my seminar pieces once the show was done and the sad truth was that they would probably sit in my parent's basement until they collected a healthy lair of dust in some box underneath Halloween decorations. So then I thought about something that might be beneficial to me and possibly others.

I've decided to sell most of the 50 pieces for the Wry, Raw Whimsical Wall during the show with all proceeds going to one of many Japan relief funds currently being run locally. Now I'm sure you might have some questions about this, so allow me to clear things up as best as I can.

1. Sell your work at the show? Are you some sort of fucking moron?

Well no good sir or madam, I am not but your concern is appreciated. No work is going to be leaving the 301 Gallery during the duration of VERGE's opening or time on the gallery wall. I will advertise at the show that these pieces are indeed for sale and that all proceeds will be going to Japanese Disaster Relief. I was thinking something along the lines of $5-$10 each and two captions with each piece sold. That sounds fair to me. Although I am going to be offering the work for buyers, I will be sure to make it clear to everyone that the only pieces for sale will me my own so that no one else in VERGE will have to deal with any unwanted nuisances.

2. OK, so you are doing a good thing. But why are you sharing it with all of us and not just your group? You some sort of attention whore?

Well the funny thing about doing a good thing is that sometimes it's not the most logical course of action. I'm posting this here because I'm curious as to whether or not I should do this and who better to ask then my peers and teachers? I personally think this can work out but if it means making things more difficult for everyone at my show then we have a problem. I want to make sure this won't make anyone else miserable.

3. Japan Relief huh? Aren't there other problems in the U.S. to worry about? Why not let the rest of the world take care of that and do something different.

Well the thought had occurred to me that this current issue in Japan is quite popular for people who get worked up for causes, only to get bored of them in a few weeks and go on to the next one as if it were some sort of fad while the ongoing crisis stays the same regardless. The reason I'm choosing Japanese Disaster Relief isn't because I'm into doing what all the cool people are doing nor is it because I'm some sort of rapid anime fanboy. I'm about to open my heart a little, I apologize in advance for the tugging of heartstrings and mushiness, I honestly am.

Last summer I stayed in Japan for a month through the school and lived with a house family who treated me kindly. A COMPLETE STRANGER WHO COULD BARELY SPEAK THEIR LANGUAGE AND THEY INVITED ME INTO THEIR HOME AND TREATED ME LIKE FAMILY. Would this happen somewhere else in the world? I'm sure it could, but the fact is that it happened here. Although Niigata, the city I stayed at, wasn't hit as hard as some of the others on the opposite shore it has since taken in over 8000 displaced people from the devastated Miyagi prefecture. Now it's not like I'm giving this money to my host family alone or anything, but if there are any people like my host family that no longer have a home to return to and whatever money I make can help them then I'll send it over without question.

4. I have no real problem with this, but I think you're a fucking idiot for doing this during your show. Why not wait to sell them after the show is over so we don't have to deal with your stupidity?

We have over a 100 confirmed guests (according to facebook) coming to this show and I expect more will show up throughout the evening. People will be looking at my work, playing with captions while eating cake. THIS IS THE BEST TIME TO SHOW MY WORK FOR SALE. Passing up an opportunity where people are going to be exposed to my work and the offer of helping the greater good would be foolish. The only thing that would be bad about this is that my evening could (I'm saying could, since this is all still hypothetical) become a little less enjoyable from patrons continuously asking me for what pieces were available.

So there you have it, my proposal of what to do with my work. Like I said, if this poses any problems to any other members of VERGE then I won't continue with this any that will be the end of that (not that I'm trying to guilt anyone here). And besides, I'm still waiting to print out my images and finish constructing them for the show, I may just be planning too far ahead. We'll see how it works out and whatever outcome I reach won't mean the end of the world.

Naughty Dog Continued

Here's what I've been working on today. Baby onesies, wine bags, dog leashes and little take away bags (filled with dog treats and stickers) for the exhibition. Tomorrow I'll be printing more onesies, infant beanie hats, bandanas, dog collars/leashes. Also, my t-shirts are finished so I will be picking them up from the screen printer's place. As you can see on the wine bags, I've been trying to add other language to my products to keep from being redundant. These bags say "Refreshingly Naughty", the infant beanies are going to say "Born to be Naughty", and there are more sayings to follow (as soon as I think of them haha).

I finally received my stencils that I ordered from Delaware and I will be getting spray paint because I've been playing around with the idea of having Naughty Dog graffiti sprayed on the walls at the exhibition. Sort of like a guerilla advertising type deal. Maybe it will be on the walls, maybe just on the pedestals, who knows yet. I also need to design a couple posters as well.

Leave comments on here so I can have feed back to consider for the weekend! Thanks!

Crunch Time

I completed and printed my three coloring books and got several copies of each printed. I spent close to three hours in Kinko's cutting each individual page out because Kinko's wanted $1.25 per cut which would have added up to a ridiculous amount of money just for the cutting. 

I have also finished my giveaway bags for the show which contain promotional/informational materials from local animal shelters. I have put together about 300 of these for people to take for free during my show.

I don't have pictures of the coloring books as of right now, not do I have pictures of the completed boxes to hold each series of coloring books so I will update with those later.

I am also still working on a short movie/documentary to be shown with my work. Thus far what it presents is footage of two animals shelters which allowed me all access to their shelters, as well as footage of my two dogs Rusty and Ruby who are included in one of the coloring books, and Oona and Chicha who are included in another coloring book. I am still trying to get in contact with the very first animal shelter I visited - Kitty Connection in Medford. This is where the third dog of the coloring book series, Penny, is located because her owner runs the shelter. The movie cuts back and forth between the full cages of an animal shelter to adopted dogs outside and enjoying their freedom.

EXHIBITION LAYOUTS

I have created this document to use as a guide for when I hang my prints next Friday. This is my plan.

On the left wall will hang the masks from the wet shoot. In front of the window will be pedestals with select masks. Then, on the right wall, there will be these prints. In between each group of eight will be a DVD player playing a continuous video of my machine deconstruction.

Feedback on this layout is very welcome.

VERGE

This show will feature the work of Lindsey Mason, Ariel Heinemann, Jordan Pomazon, Rick DeCosta, Jenn O’Brien and Autumn Murphy.

This promotional image was designed by Ariel Heinemann.

The show will be open April 4th through April 8th, with the opening reception (and live models displaying my work) on Wednesday, April 6th, from 5:00pm to 8:00pm. The show will be at Montserrat’s 301 Gallery, located at 301 Cabot Street, Beverly, Massachusetts.

If you like what you’ve been seeing on this blog, come to the show to see it in person.

Oona and Chicha

Yesterday I met up with Tessa at Singing Beach to film her dogs and to get more photos of them. 

Existential listmaking (cont.)

These all use the same series of words taken from the lists I found myself making while in existential crisis mode last semester. I had originally only completed a white version because that’s all I had time for, but had planned on doing two other colors. I am really glad I followed through with these, as it gives each individual collage more visual weight when seen ensemble.

Now that I have finished all of the series/collages I set out to rebuild and complete at the beginning of the semester, I am in a little bit of a bind trying to figure out what to do next. I need to seriously figure out what I want to do with the exhibition in May, but I am having trouble coming up with that extra something that will really complete the works (and also, ideally, connect everything to my project title of Digestions). Right now I am stuck on this idea of a clean and simple grid of all of the 8x8 panels on the wall (or floor?). If I do decide to go in this direction then I may spend some more time developing a new series of collages that I have been thinking about, but at the same time I don't want to create them and still feel in a few weeks that I need something more for the exhibition. Any thoughts, ideas, comments, anything would be greatly greatly appreciated!

collateral (anomalies)

When looking at my entire collection of collages at the beginning of the semester, the four that stood out were the Untitled Anomalies 1-4 . Aside from those pieces and the No Dice series, my collages tend to be muted and light in palette, so I decided to create four new pieces to add to the group and create more visual interest. I think these actually look better in person than on screen, but regardless, i am very happy with how they turned out.

Seminar Post 08: Ready to Print

50 images, complete and ready to go.

Next step is printing them out, cutting them out and adhering to mat board. I've finished the captions in a similar manner and the method of their construction won't vary too much, the only difference is the addition of a awl/hole puncher. I just hope the school's printers are working.

6x6 Models