It’s not often that my work as a Production Artist involves doing science. Thanks to Figure Plant‘s custom fabrication and design, a day in the shop can mean creating space vessels and researching exothermic reactions.
The success of this particular project meant cooking chicken 104,572 feet above the Earth, marinated in Soy Vay‘s “Veri Veri Teriyaki” sauce.
One of my favorite on-going Burning Man projects is the Virgin Letter Project. This year the lovely folks over at VLP asked me to hook up a logo, and here’s what we came up with. I’m really happy with how it turned out, and even happier to contribute to such a rad project. Participants, check them out.
The 2013 event marked the third year of the Circle of Regional Effigies (CORE). Four circles, six projects each, representing eight countries, and culminating in one big fire. The art of dang is proud to have contributed the logo for Portland’s CORE project. The treehouse was awesome and burned something lovely. I’m glad to have been a part of it.
Stay tuned for more dang burning man stuff in parts II and III, where we’ll discuss the art of dang’s honorarium project, my role as an art department volunteer, and my experience as a participant in the 2013 event. More fun and photo’s to come…
Logitech UE is getting an awesome new promotional vehicle, hand-built in Portland Oregon.
That’s Figure Plant’s Project Manager Schuyler Silva giving the walk-through. There’s video from a few other steps along the way on Schuyler’s youtube channel.
“Innocent Until Proven Guilty” mixed media shadow-box 18″ x 12″ x 6.” Created for the invitational exhibition “Gun Control” at 555 Nonprofit Gallery and Studios in Detroit, MI.
Here’s a photo of the final piece before the glass and frame went on. I’ll show you some of the steps along the way.
An early sketch before I’d decided on the line-up and redrew the character in the ski mask.
After adding color to the characters, cutting them out, and inking all of their edges, I added some paper armature to the backs to keep them rigid. This also gave me more material to tie into for the paper ‘posts’ attaching them to the background.
I pulled out an old trick for the numbers. I wanted them clean and well spaced, and done by hand. The matte board was too thick for a light box, so I printed out the numbers and made a carbon-transfer with pencil; shading in the reverse of the print and drawing the contours on to the board.
I made a digital version (from the hand-drawn characters) and there are prints for sale!
Thanks for checking out my work, and check out what they’re up to at 555!
They’re here! The lovely folks at Sock it to Me have added some dang socks to their offerings. Check them out!
“Sock it to Me is a sock company based out of Portland Oregon that designs amazing, funky, and affordable knee socks and crew socks for both men and women.”
Here’s an enlargement for George Rivera at Additive Workshop. The artist’s maquette was scanned and digital artists touched up the resulting digital file, and carved in foam on by a flat-bed CAD and a seven-axis robotic arm. Sculptors assembled the foam blocks and hand carved the surface before brushing on a layer of oil clay. Every square inch of the clay surface was gone over by hand; adding texture and sharpening details. The piece was then molded, and cast in bronze.
Here are a few spot illustrations for Portland Monthly Magazine‘s August 2012 issue.
A humorous listing of the “21 Steps from Garage Band to Glamour.”
I’m honored to have illustrated a feature for Portland Monthly’s Fall Arts Review featuring collaborations from a diverse field of local creatives.
It’s tricky to explain what happens when 60,000 beautiful freaks converge in the Black Rock Desert, and it’s a different ride for every last one of them. After my seventh year, I suppose I should say “us.” So instead of trying to sum it all up, here are just a few of my own experiences this year.
Houston’s CORE project ReinCOWnation rising out of the dust.
For the last two years I’ve volunteered with the Art Department; taking artists to the site where they can finally install the work that has been waiting, sometimes for years, to meet the dust. Along the way I chat them up about their work, their hometown, their first Burning Man, and often much more. Eating dust in a golf cart through the heat of the day is fun when playing a small role in the art that populates that magical place, while picking up the stories behind the work.
La Llorona shipwrecked off of Pier 2.
Another highlight of this year was Black Rock Spatial Delivery’s Virgin Letters Project; which was great fun and gave us an excuse to surprise fellow participants with often beautiful theater. They laughed, they cried, they looked embarrassed and wondered how we could tell this might just be their first time.
Also, the camp was kind enough to allow me to graphically represent them yet again this year – the above being a mash up of BRSD’s traditional “biking man” and this year’s theme of fertility.
