Christopher's Room Installation

This was the installation I did for my exit show. It's called Christopher's Room, and it follows the story of a young prince, Christopher, whose life changes when he is attacked by the great snake Ezra. Christopher defeats the snake, but takes Ezra's mask so that he is never hurt again. The mask gives him strange new powers, but renders him pretty soulless and zombie-like. The installation itself is a corner of Christopher's bedroom, in which the viewers can poke around and find goodies that expand the story. Here's me in the installation:



The snake Ezra:



Christopher's mother, the Insect Queen, doesn't recognize her son after he puts on the mask, so she collects pictures of him as he used to be:



A family portrait of Christopher and his parents:



Christopher's father, the king, uses Christopher's new powers to eliminate two potential assassins, the twin brothers Felix and Asher Orthrus. Christopher must send the king their tattooed hands to prove they are dead:



Each of Asher's fingers is in an individual box:



There are lots of little goodies in the cabinet:



Here's the little pamphlet in the cabinet that shows Christopher fighting the snake, and which I posted on this blog earlier:

Art in Boxes and More Photography!

Well, it's been a sleepless couple of weeks, but here's a brand spankin' new post! These are some box installations that I've been working on. The first is called Subvultures! and it's these two connected boxes:

The boxes are about a foot and a half tall, and they are filled with stuff that I drew, then digitally colored and printed. There are people jumping from one box to the next; people from each box seem to want to get into the opposite box. If you're curious, the text above the box on the left is Japanese for "the most beautiful butterfly of all is found in the cocoon of your heart," and the text for the box on the right is Latin for "Ah, human cares! Ah, how much futility in the world!" This is one of those projects that I wish I had better pictures of, but here are some closeups nonetheless:

At some point I'll try to take better pictures; you can't see any detail in these, arg! Here's my second box project, which functions as kind of a small cabinet, I suppose:

When you open the clasp at the top of his head, it swings open to reveal what's inside:

Aaaaand finally, something that's nice and easy to translate into a digital format because it's flat! Here's some more 35mm photography (some of which has been painted on, bleached, had the negative scratched, etc.):













Thanks so much to models Lauren, Kathryn, Eric, and Ana! Well, now that all of that is over, look forward to about a solid month of rubber sculptures. Yes, really. Moldmaking and casting, I am pumped!

Prints, Giveaway Boxes, etc!

Happy Tuesday, all; here's what I've been up to! I made 20 prints with digital photos I took combined with screenprinting; here are three of them:

In other news, last night I put up this installation of about 40 boxes. This was an exquisite corpse-esque collaboration between two other people and me; we took 40 of these little cardboard boxes, printed out a bunch of stuff, painted, drew on them, and passed them between the three of us until they were suitably worked over. Then we hung them from the ceiling and decorated a big pair of hedge clippers to hang with them so that people could cut down a box and keep it. I think this might be something that you kind of have to see in person, but I tried to get a couple of pictures anyway:



















I passed by it later today and there were only four boxes left, so I guess people were into the idea! Speaking of people taking art (although not with permission this time), if you want to see my grand television debut, you can do so here. Wooo!

I've also been playing around with Illustrator for my next project, and although I'm having a great time using it, I still have a LOT to learn. Here are some sneak previews:




What does it all mean? In a couple of weeks, hopefully it will all make sense! I feel as though this post has been a lot of stuff that doesn't really look like the kind of thing I'd usually make, but there you are. I sort of mentioned in the last post, but I've been thinking lately about including more than just finished art related things on this blog (more videos, sketches, little comics, etc.) Still up in the air about that. Stay tuned!

Squid vs. Ship Mini Installation

Hello everyone!
So this project is based on the idea shown in this blog, the idea of making an installation in a tiny gallery space. I really encourage you to check the stuff out there; I love the idea of a tiny installation, and building this was super fun! I made my own box out of foamcore and filled it with stuff I had printed with an inkjet printer and screenprinted:



It's difficult to tell in the photo, but the space actually goes quite far back. And what are those four switches at the front for? They control the lightning, the most fun of the whole project! Here's a video in total darkness of my friend Patrick demonstrating how you can make your own lightning (and adding his own sound effects.)



I really enjoyed putting circuitry into this thing, so look out for more electronic things in the future! Here's one more 35mm photograph of my lovely friend Eric to rap up the post:

Collaborative Installation and a Poster in Progress

It's that updatey time again! I was able to borrow my super nice friend Patrick's digital camera in order to post the following installation I recently participated in:

These pixel-esque little squares are all mono prints! My portion is the third grid from the left on the bottom row...

They are all animals at a tea party; here are a couple up close:

I made these by printing a few layers of monoprint color on plexiglass, screenprinting the animals' shapes in yellow, red, and blue, and then using a pronto plate to print the black lines.

Here's one more thing I've been working on; I took a bunch of images from google image, photoshopped them together, printed it out, then painted/glued things onto it until it became this:

But this poster isn't done yet; I've already scanned it back into photoshop, messed with it a bit more, and printed it out again. Tonight I'm going to have fun cutting it up and rearranging it, so look out for more on this soon!

Creation Myth Installation and Hand-bound Books!

Happy weekend, everyone! I, for one, am taking a nice cushy weekend, as all week I've been working on this, an installation piece about the creation of a world. The pattern on the head and all the little individual parts are screenprinted, and the pieces were laboriously hand-cut-out by not only me but my amazing friends as well, who spent hours of their time to help me get this done. So Lauren, Beth, Megan, Naeha, Patrick, Jase, Stone (who also took these photos), and Collin, thanks from the bottom of my heart, you guys rock, and I couldn't have done it without you!

Other than that, I've also made a few books recently. From top to bottom, there's an accordion book, a coptic stitch book, and a leather longstitch book that isn't finished yet. I'll most likely complete it today and update later:

Here's the first one, an accordion book called "a tale of suspense followed by disappointment." The paper I used is paste paper I made, and the fish and boats are pen on mylar (a material I have quickly learned to love):





Here's the first page:



Many pages later:



The disappointing end:



And here's the second book in the pile, a coptic stitched book made with graph paper, tealish paper that I made awhile ago, and red/gold handmade paper that I bought:





Hopefully, I'll finish the leather one today and have it updated tonight or tomorrow!