Valued Experience?

I have to admit, this one is a bit daunting.  The seams are super long and are taking forever.  I will say, as you can see in the above picture, I'm getting much better at the initial laying of the fabric.

I have been thinking a lot about making art lately and I was curious what other people's thoughts are regarding the making of art and what I think of as valuable experiences:

1. Passive: Going to art shows, reading books, watching TV and other vicarious experiences

2. Interactive: Traveling, meeting people, talking to people, playing sports

3. Active: Making art, music, theater, and other forms of creativity

Which do you value most? Of course there is crossover between all of these ideas, but we all tend to do one more than the other.  It seems Interactive should be a no-brainer, but Passive/vicarious experiences help you to understand worlds and points of view that you could never experience.  Making art is a way of sharing your own thoughts and understandings with others, but is selfish and is often at the expense of the other two.  Not revolutionary thinking, just something that occurred to me the other day while I was being Interactive and all I could think of was all the books and movies I wanted to see and all the art I wanted to make.  I understand balance and moderation and so on, but I'm curious what other people value and why. . . . Enough talk.

Nice Smooth Layout 

Unfinished, but lookin good.

Maya was really jazzed when she found the first season of Wonder Woman at the discount store (I mean, she was actually singing her praises the whole time we were in the store and waiting in line).

Sew it Seams....

 So this week I smoothed out the foam head like crazy and covered it in fleece.  Then I Henson Stitched the seams and put the teeth in.  It's actually more of an orangie/elmo red, not so much the bright orange you see here.  I also had some rather good luck this week with garbage (see below)

sew it seams....

 mmmm, so pretty

 Smile, though your heart is breaking.

I found two oak drawers from a old danish desk that I turned into cabinet shelves for the work station.

Not too shabby.  Needs some shelves and maybe some doors.

Put this one in the crap the rich kids in my building throw away pile.  A  mint condition $400, leather Sater Sofa.  no scuffs or tears, only the slightest smell of pomade that will be easily remedied with some leather cleaner.

Next week: I will start a new head and finish the tongue for the first head.

A Winning Smile

This week I got to work on the choppers for one of the heads.  I used a process similar to my past pieces, but rather than using Dental acrylic (Very stinky stuff & stinky = death).  So I took some translucent primo and mixed it with a variety of different sculpeys to get something akin to teeth and I did the same with the gums (while adding red felting for veins in the gums).  The primo was so old I was going to revitalize it only to discover I was out of vasiline.  Stranded, I went looking for petroleum products and found some lotion.  After a few trips through the pasta maker and it came out pretty nice (smelled nice too).
The Final result is looking pretty good.  I still need to put a few coats of clear down, but you get the idea.

 Mixing up colors

I spent a very long time smoothing out this head by hand to avoid the lumpiness of the last head.  Next week, he's ready for fleece!

Venus Anthropomorph

As is often the case with best laid plans... Well you know the rest.  I did get to refine the base for a piece I'm working on which is a sculpture of a painting a did last year (see below).  I tried sanding the dense foam I've been making the heads out of, but it didn't work.  This means I'm going to have to use a razor to refine all the heads (Charlie Brown "Argh!") Ultimately, this weekend was a bust as far as art-making.  I did get to take my daughter to see fireworks for the first time and get rained on for a very memorable 4th.  We also bought a vacuum and got to see what abject squalor our previous vacuum had been subjecting us to (always a terrifying thrill).  I also cleaned out our storage space, so now we can clean the junk out of our apartment.  I also wrote down a list of motivators for myself that I think I'm going to do in illustrator and maybe share with you if they aren't overtly embarrassing.
Next week will be more entertaining, I promise.

Big Time

Curvey

Baby Got Back

What I did on my Summer Vacation

Old, New, Borrowed and Brown

So, somehow or other, I found these videos that show some quick snippets of myself working on the bases for "Real Gone #1" and "Maya from my thesis show "bigger than you".   I spent some time learning from the man himself, Jim Lopez.  He was extremely generous with his time and skills.  If you ever need some quality body work, he lives in Glendale, AZ.  

This weekend was a busy one with all the visiting sister, Fionna Apple concert, and tall ships in Boston harbor, I barely had time to think.  I did start something, I won't show you until I get a little further into. In the mean time I'll show you some tools/materials I've acquired recently.

This being a long weekend, I'm determined to get some real work done.  So we shall see how that goes and you can be the judge next tuesday!

New Gender Neutral Felting Tools

 Recently acquired sketchbook.  Toned paper to give my drawings delusions of grandeur 

p.s.: I always leave the first page blank until I have a great drawing idea

Found the base of a brown leather couch being thrown way by rich kids that live in my building.  I skinned it like a mammoth and now have a few yards of brown leather I don't know quite what to do with.  (this will probably end up on a costume at some point in the distant future)