Big Things Are Happening...

I've been making BIG CLOCKS.

30 inch diameter; weighs 5 lbs.

All hand-cut salvaged vinyl, naturally!  And sanded aluminum behind.

24 x 24 inches; probably weighs about 5 lbs., too...

PAINTED aluminum (and sanded twice) with hand-cut vinyl scrap!
I love the look and will be making more with this technique.

I've been making BIG ART.

Close Your Eyes 'Til You're Blue in the Face
Salvaged 100+ year wood flooring, paint, 1960's
Prevention magazine paper dots, vinyl
16 x 35 inches

There are still some nails in the wood, too.

Big Smoke
Two panels salvaged wood shelving, paint, hand-cut vinyl, hand-cut paper
23 x 37 inches

I've been preparing for a BIG SHOW.

Oklahoma City Festival of the Arts!!
Sixth year running, crossing fingers for zero storms/high winds/clouds of locusts.

I have a million different ideas and have been discovering new ways of making art, fumbling my way through, as usual.  I'll be showing both types of mixed media (abstract and imagery) as well as clocks at my season opener in OKC starting April 21st.  Pushing my scale has been fun and scary, and hopefully it won't literally push away the kind of customers I usually enjoy while there.  The smaller versions will be with me as well, so there's something for everyone!

How Long Does it Take?

First thing's first--here's what those two pieces from last time turned into:

This one had the green base.  I added blue vinyl and pink paint,
sanded it to perfection, and here we are.
18" x 7ish" (it's not square, so one end is a bit bigger than the other)
"Blue Hills"

Here's the one with the blue base.  I liked the color and
vinyl combination without an additional layer or paint and sanding.
7" x 17.5"
"Spring Skies"

Now...it's Time time.

At the OKC Festival of the Arts, we are swarmed with school kids visiting the show who talk to artists, eat food, and remind me that being a teenager was the worst.  But lots of the kiddos have a list of questions (same every year--let's update that, teachers!) they're supposed to ask the participants in each category of the show.  I fall firmly into 2D Mixed Media, aka "What IS it?" (Trying to explain vinyl to anyone, young or old, isn't the most clear-cut exercise.)

Anyway, one of the questions is, "How long does it take to complete a project?"

Well...I began by saying something like, "It depends, but....(example of a particular piece and how long it took)..."  This means nothing to them, because they think an hour is a long time if they have to wait for their dad to finish his whatever before they can whatever.  An hour can be nothing when you've monetized it.  Like, LITERALLY NOTHING.  Or a  really long-ass time if you're trying to find your measuring tape.  WHY IS IT ALWAYS MISSING?

So I'm going to start saying 200 years for the new work on wood--which is probably not long enough because that tree had to grow large enough to get milled down, be used in construction of a house in 1900, hang there for a while, then be salvaged by me, who has spent 30+ years living an artful life and learning techniques to make that thing they see.  Not to mention the sanding, de-nailing, cutting, painting, thinking, applying vinyl, cutting vinyl, photographing, uploading, packing, and hanging involved.

For the clocks I don't really have a snarky thing to base my time on, because what does it take to smelt aluminum after it's mined (or whatever?) and turn oil into plastic into vinyl I salvaged?  Fifty million years or something?

I'm looking forward to it!

Back to Art

After a few weeks of working on clocks and padding my inventory for the first show of the season (Oklahoma City--one of my favorites!!), I'm back to working on "non-functional" art.  The lumber here is salvaged from a home in my neighborhood.  I put out a call on our 'hood's Facebook page for wood from the old homes around here.  A neighbor said I could come and get his staircase...I literally took almost all the 100+ year old wood that the contractor left, plus some new lumber the guy was just going to burn to get out of the way.  MAJOR SCORE!

Add some paint, take away some paint with a sander, and here's what I have to work with today.  I've been cutting my orzo slices (I don't know what to call them...crescents? fronds?) and we'll see what the muses whisper in my ear.