COLOR!!!

I added some color to my latest portrait:

First off, these webcam pictures suck. The colors are much more vivid, darker hues, etc. That said, I have had some conflicting thoughts concerning color...

ACCURACY VERSUS MEMORY

The sketches that these figures are based on were created by memory; I thought about what I look like, and drew a representation of myself. So, when deciding how to color these, I am conflicted because I want to get the skin tone correct, however, I still want to be true to my process. So I can do two things: create skin tones based on memory or use a mirror and try to render the colors accurately. I decided to use a 7 times magnification mirror. Ultimately, the sculpture itself is so abstracted that the areas on the face do not align with the structure or proportions of my face. So, the mirror acts as color reference, however, does not add enough natural elements to detract from the caricaturization. I wanted this figure to be the most hyper-realistic: focusing on skin tone, veins, blemishes, pot marks, moles, zits, skin flakes, stubble, wrinkles, and skin folds. For it to be effective, I think that it has to have a reference point, other than imagination.

NATURALISM VERSUS CARICATURE

I am trying to find the middle ground -possibly breaking point- in an exaggerated color scheme. For example, the purple tint under the eyelid: how much can I exaggerate the purple before it becomes a distraction? I want the face to be seen in total, as a single entity; so if I exaggerate every aspect, it becomes too compartmentalized. Your eye focuses on the eyes, then the stubble, then the veins, then the hair, then the nose, then the mole, etc. -which normally occurs when viewing colored objects, but if each element is too skewed, it may be impossible to see the whole.

...But, is this a bad thing? I am going for ugly here, right? Perhaps the viewer sees the face, recognizes it as a face, and then says, "look at those veiny eyes, look at that sporadic facial hair, those pulsating veins, that mangled hair, that bulbous red nose, that hairy mole, that popping zit, etc." Maybe it should be incredibly compartmentalized? The elements of the face are not so exaggerated they they are not understood, so, the entire head is easily read. Perhaps the positions of the singular parts is the unifying factor: the juxtaposition alone makes it cohesive? I believe this to be true, so I have to decide on my own personal canon and define my own limitations.

SIDE NOTE:

I ordered 2 double ring, chrome bar stools: one in black (masculine) and one in red (feminine).

BEST RESEARCH EVER!!!

Over the week-end, I traveled to sunny (WARM) Los Angeles to see The Pee Wee Herman Show!!! It was a limited engagement over the course of 4 weeks at Club Nokia. My source presentations have always included a picture of the of Pee-Wee's Playhouse set, and it was interesting to see how they re-envisioned it in 1/8 scale on a budget. Parts were re-created exactly, some were condensed, and many elements were completely new; however, it was still cohesive. The style of the Playhouse is basically a hodgepodge of contrasting patterns... yet still in a particular style.

BUT, this was not the first time the Playhouse has been redone. It originally debuted in a stage show called The Pee-Wee Herman Show in 1981, then in the movie Pee-Wee's Big Adventure in 1985, then on television on Pee-Wee's Playhouse from 1986-1991, then in miniature as an action figure playset in 1988, then -again- in 2010's stage show: The Pee-Wee Herman Show. Each incarnation has been skewed from the last, yet instantly recognizable.

A VISUAL HISTORY OF PEE-WEE'S PLAYHOUSE:


Today's secret word is: COLLABORATION. The Playhouse has always been a symbol of artistic diversity; it is a monument to art for arts sake, a true playhouse. I would like to create an artist collective called PLAYHAUS (in lieu of BAUHAUS): we would take a house (in Detroit, per se) and build on to it and paint it all crazy just for kicks. I'll mark this as artistic delusion # 5,990,877,866,23678,458,113,790,531,3872,613. However, I do need to engage Detroit in some way for my seminar...

SELF-PORTRAIT PROJECT UPDATE:

I finished priming my latest figure and will begin oil painting it in full color, shortly. I am the most confident about coloring this figure- as opposed to the other 3- because it so obviously needs the blending and muted color pallet that oils provide. The other 3 might be hybrids of spray paint, acrylic, gouache, and/or oils; and generally, use more bright, primary colors.

I think there might be some correlation between my interest in the various incarnations of Pee-Wee's Playhouse and this project -which deals with various expressionistic incarnations of myself. Hmm...

Maybe I'll present these at PLAYHAUS under the title: "...But What Am I?"

BAKE, RATTLE & ROLL

Today, I baked my Super Sculpey portrait:

And further designed the armature of my next sculpture:

I decided that the figure would have to be attached to a seat that can swivel. There go, the upper half would have to be static, while the lower half would have to be somewhat jointed to allow flexibility. Basically, everything above the hips is connected to the seat, the feet are connected to the base of the chair, and the legs are jointed at the hips and ankles.

The stool is a very important aspect of this piece. I will have to get it before I begin construction, so I have to order soon. I want a classic bar stool, so I was thinking this design would work well:

It swivels, is sturdy (can support a couple hundred pounds), and looks classic. I can get a new one for $85. Although, I'm searching Craigslist and Ebay for used ones (for aesthetic more than cost).

SELF-PORTRAIT PROJECT: BUST #4

So, along with the dark ride, I've been working on this self-portrait project for the last few semesters. Basically, I've been sculpting busts based on little neurotic doodles I've made of my self over the years. The sculptures are basically high relief and intended to be photographed twice and put into a stereoscopic ViewMaster: to be seen in the miracle of 3-D! I wish to incorporate these representations into my dark ride; maybe the whole thing will be in 3-D, who knows? One red light on the left side, one blue light on the right... it could work.

Here's my latest one...


It's based on this drawing:

Basically, the focus is on acne, pot marks, moles, sporadic facial hair, and a terrible, unwashed haircut. The little details. Here's some close-ups:

I think the hair is successful, but I am still unsure about the facial hair. It looks like Super-Sculpey facial hair: not uniform, more like rice than follicles. Perhaps cut wire would be a better option? However, the Sculpey looks amature, like outsider, underground, freak-out art -which I am already referencing in style- so, it might be more cohesive. The point is: technically I could do better, but is better really better in this case? Right now, I'm leaning towards the Sculpey hair because of it's painterly look: individual brushstrokes would be less distracting than uniform marks. If I used wire, it would be recognized as wire- not seen as cohesive hair. I think I'll stick with the Sculpey; any thoughts?

HOMEWOOD CEMETERY EXPERIMENT

Over the week-end I edited a roll of super 8mm film I took in 2007 at Homewood Cemetery. I had never used computer editing software, so it was an experiment.



I think it turned out rather well; however, some of the shots that were a second long were cropped: the program crops by fractions of a second, so anything included in the jump gets lost. I used iMovie HD, and I'm wondering if Final Cut Pro would have yielded better results? Oh well, it was fun to learn a new process.

I still have 18 rolls of super 8 to develop and edit from India --some color and some b&w-- so, this was good practice. It took about 2 hours to edit the 3 minutes of film before you, so I realize how much work I have ahead of me!

STEP RIGHT UP...

This blog has been developed to chronicle my exploration and eventual realization of a personally psychoanalytical dark ride thesis project. My work has been autobiographical in nature since college, when I started drawing distorted variations of myself. Funny, morbid, grotesque, and often sexual: they acted as manifestations of inner turmoil. By skewing my physical form, I was able to express frustration and laugh- mocking my prolonged teen angst ("oh woe is me...") was cathartic. Perhaps, this is what my art has become: graphically insulting myself and the establishments in which I live. That said, my graduate thesis might become a tongue-in-cheek assault on the program itself. Not that I intend to be cynical or argumentative, it is more that I need to contextualize my neurosis. I feel insecure, pessimistic, and confused in graduate school; however, I do not claim that the university is solely to blame. But since I often equate the University of Michigan with misery, my outcries are often met with defensive arguments rather than sympathy. In the end, I came to graduate school to express myself, unapologetically so. I never agreed not to be a liability, and never said that I would not bite the hand that feeds me. It may be implied as common decency, but artists have the leverage to bypass such oppressive concepts.

So, here are a few designs that I with to make into (marginally) kinetic sculptures:

The first is about socializing. I don't drink often, but alcohol is a depressant that I consider to be quite effective. This is not so much about drinking as it is about going to bars and feeling utterly unattractive and -subsequently- unsociable. Just awkward as hell and drinking terrible things to fit in with people who don't care if I drink. Horrible, just horrible. To this day I have never talked to a woman in a bar. But I go because I'm 26, and that's what people who are 26 do.

Self portrait holding 3 glasses of alcohol (you can more easily find them by pinpointing the black upwardly diagonal straws). My forehead has increased to a point to add more furled brow lines and my hair has been placed on top to assert that this is me. I added the U of M logo to contextualize the setting and balance the composition of the drawing. I wanted to make this figure shake... so, I drew the rest of him standing with an old-timey exercise belt attached (which I have in my studio) to create a shaking movement.


I added the classic Converse All-Stars to reference their prolific occurrences in MAD Magazine and the like: which is an influence of mine. I am, of course, naked to represent awkward venerability. I thought the figure should be foam latex, so that it would jiggle when it shakes. So, I designed a metal armature on a rotating, circular base- to exaggerate the shaking effect.

However, there was something uninteresting about the legs. Every other part of the anatomy had meaning, but the legs were just support. Perhaps if he were weak in the knees: bowing like noodles or something. But then it looks like alcoholism rather than social awkwardness (which I guess the 3 drinks might do as well... I think about it). And there was the height issue: if the top of his head was my height, he'd look too short; but, if he was taller than me, he would look too overbearing/ not as pathetic. So, I added another element:

A swiveling bar stool. This way I can still have the shaking motion, the height is less of an issue (since he is sitting), and it contextualizes me into a bar atmosphere: sitting alone at the bar, facing outwards with a look of despair. Now it's more about loneliness than drinking. Perhaps I'm holding so many drinks because I want to share? I dig the ambiguity. Whether or not the whole bar scene with bottles and mirror is needed is yet to be determined. It does conceal the exercise machine, and a bar stool could be mistaken for an artist stool. It might be necessary. Other elements, such as lights and music could either make him seem more out of place, but I think they would just further distract. One noise that is needed is the sound of clinking ice cubes against the inside of the glass as he shakes. Vital. Vital. Vital. I've been thinking about ice cubes made of glass allot recently...

Figure no. 2 deals with indecisiveness when faced with a multitude of options.

There are several infant-like characteristics this figure possesses: the inability to walk, teeth still coming in, and eyes (several) still opening. And, again, my hair is added to secure it as a self portrait. The multiple arms represent different art mediums and how my interest and versatility can team to create crippling indecisiveness. His legs are strong, as though if he could just stand up, he could run and be a force to be reckoned with. Again the U of M logo appears because this drawing is about my experience in graduate school... and it balances out the composition.

I imagine this fire to be quite massive with kinetic arms trying to push upwards. The mechanics in this drawing do not work: more of a vision of what it might look like.

Figure no. 3 is about graduating with a master's degree:

I have yet to discover my place in academia. More importantly, I have yet to decide if academia is really the right place for me. I have my doubts and concerns about the existence of art in an institutionalized setting. Art brings concerns about liability, to lessen the risk of lawsuits, some modes of art and content matter are taught to be avoided, others not taught at all. My stance is: if it is in an art history book, it can inherently be taught and replicated. Which no university would condone. I think I may be too headstrong to condone and enforce such censorship. So, if I am not going to be a professor, why get an M.F.A.? This is a question I have struggled with since day 1.

I parodied my outsider standpoint by depicting myself as a disgusting imp in a trash can working a dummy of the idealized scholar. Pretending to be something I'm not... refined. It depicts a future in which I have already graduated. I guess being called out as a phony or fraud is a legitimate fear that all artists must live with. But I think this is more about living a lifestyle analysing social change over wine and cheese, jaded towards the world of art. The intellectual standpoint: a world without absolutes. I don't know, I think it's fun to be wrong all the time.

The final idea deals with ghost lesbians:

Basically, it's a gyrating, floating strap-on with erotic moaning and an erotic silhouette projected on the back wall. It has to do with male sexual fantasy: imaginary visions through a ghost metaphor. I would be lying if I didn't admit to this being part of my awkward, demented psyche. I think it works quite nice in the tradition of dark rides, which often contain spooks and skeletons and such.

Speaking of witch (har har), I have been doing allot of research on this website called Laff In The Dark. It has dozens of really thorough articles about everything dark rides! Here are a couple of samples of the kind of technical information provided:
http://www.laffinthedark.com/articles/playland/playland7.htm
http://www.laffinthedark.com/articles/playland/playland12.htm
http://www.laffinthedark.com/articles/playland/playland13.htm
http://www.laffinthedark.com/articles/playland/playland14.htm

So, these are my ideas, plans thus far. More to come!