facial expressions, part III

lights, or lack thereof, part III

on tourism and authenticity

net value: an installation about malaria awareness

stills from "ruffled": an improvisational movement performance

artists with impact

artists with impact is my new project, a networking platform for activists artists to connect with non-profits in need of more effective ways of spreading their message. ideally, this will grow into something much bigger than massart, which is where it has started its short life, and it will make the work of activist artists more efficient in the long run.

for now, though, i am forever indebted to massart's love your city group for helping me with this project.  i'm so so excited to see how it will turn out!

images that explore the desaturation of seasons

lazy susan for the lazy introvert, or how to talk to people when you just don't want to

I'd been planning this interactive sculpture since May or June, and I was so excited to have an excuse and a due date to present it in critique.  I haven't made anything out of wood that didn't require oodles of help, so I'd like to think the Lazy Susan was entirely experimental. 

I started with a problem: a person who is painfully shy but doesn't particularly want to do anything about it.  My solution was a Lazy Susan for the Lazy Introvert, a vehicle of circular transportation that would allow such an individual to approach a group of people without having to put forth any effort.
I drew a number of sketches an asked engineers, industrial designers, sculptors, and hardware store employees for advice on how to put it together.  The piece went through many aesthetic changes and ended up with 2 pieces of plywood sandwiched with 4 wheels, a pipe flange, a pipe connector, and a bunch of duct tape.  It is upholstered with pre-printed flowered fabric that reminded me of an overstuffed armchair that everyone's grandma is supposed to have and filled with Winmill's "Fluffy Stuff", pure polyester filling that comes in densely stuffed 2 lb bags.  I highly recommend this for any project that needs to be stuffed, especially because it looks like clouds when you open the bag (I had way too much fun with this...).

For my presentation of the Lazy Susan, I arranged my classmates in a circle with one lucky volunteer at a time sitting on it.  I asked the group to spin the volunteer for a few seconds (like spin-the-bottle), and then they had to initiate a 30 second conversation with whomever they ended up facing that involved an introduction of names, a quick "how are you?", and any statement about the weather.  This went on for several volunteers until the screws popped out of the pipe flange and the top piece of plywood flew off of the bottom. Go figure...

So I guess it's a work in progress, a sketch of something bigger and better and hopefully more comfortable.