It Is Finished (Almost)

Tonight (last night, really) is the night. Here is the Rose Thing (I really should think of a name for it--"Still Life In Front of Blobby Swirls and Bathroom Tile" doesn't really sound nice) complete, but not yet grouted. It's tempting to not grout, since it's always a mystery what the grout will do to change the picture but I had scribbled and sketched so much on the surface board, that I could see millions of lines (pencil and pen as well as purple, blue, red and green colored pencil) between the pieces. It had to be done.

And here, almost three hours later, is the piece grouted:

Smooshing the grout into the cracks is really satisfying but wiping ten thousand pieces clean is not. And it isn't really clean yet, anyway. I need to let it set for a few days, let the grout really cure, and then take a damp cloth and really get the glass clean. They should be as shiny as before I grouted which, you can see by comparing the two pictures, they aren't. So it will really be done in about a week...but then I have to seal it....So it will really be done in about two weeks. So I started this in June--six months ago. Spending six months of one's life (how many hours?) seems about right for creating one wall hanging, doesn't it? And the big question is: Where am I going to hang it? (But the even bigger, and more interesting question is: What next?)

Hulky Pants

Finally, I have the hands, feet and pants done. The pants were quite fun to do. I wanted to have the glass look like fabric stretching across muscles. So I cut the pieces into little trapezoids which made it possible to line them up in a gentle arc. That way, they had a clean line across each leg like woven fabric but they were curving, so now it looks like the leg is thick and rounded, not flat.

I've been putting off the face for as long as possible but feeling confident yesterday (listening to Flight of the Conchords, "Bret, You've Got It Going On" and "If You're Into It" was a big help) I decided to get serious and get it started. It's a real pisser, because not only are the spaces very, very small, but if they line up wrong, then once it is grouted it will not look like muscles being flexed but a 2-D solid that has been shattered. I don't like going to the dentist (am 5 months overdue for the 6 month cleaning) and am saving the teeth for last.

Once I finish the teeth, I can get to work on The Thing. Right now, all he has is a pair of tiny underpants. I think it's time he got some dignity.

Summer Art Walk

Last June sometime, there was an art walk through downtown Flint one Friday evening. Tracy (of The Lunch Studio) asked me to display "something knitted" as art on the walls of her restaurant. I have been toying with a lot of ideas for really big knitted pieces (using the knitting machine) but I hadn't really had time to think anything through. I had made a felt heart last Valentine's Day but it wasn't very detailed. So I made another, this one has more valves as well as floods of blood coming out. These are two long pieces of red wool, both knitted up from 4 stitches and gradually increasing to 100 stitches. I attached one to the aorta and the other to the major vein going into the heart. Here it is on the left side of the photo:
On the right, and pooling onto the floor, is another piece I did on the knitting machine. It is about 30 feet long, 100 stiches across. It has an unfinished end and is hanging from two knitting needles, and the yarn being worked goes right to the 1 pound blue spool on the floor under the piece. I had originally hoped to write out the script of my thoughts while I knitted this thing (which took me about 4 hours without stopping) because my thoughts were so repetitious, inane and unproductive. The idea would be that, while one end is being knit, the other end is unraveling, ultimately leaving nothing accomplished therefore mirroring the repetative and unproductive (and slightly insane) thoughts I have as I go through most of my daily activities. Unfortunately, I was so rushed making this (knitting it up at midnight the night before) that I didn't get to write up the script. There's something very telling in being too rushed with the mundane to have time to transcribe one's thoughts about the mundane.

I enjoying making these things and get a kick out of having them on display, but I don't really think they are art. (I can't think of myself as an artist. I'm not sure why. Is "artist" too noble a term? Would it be hubris to refer to oneself as an artist?) Nonetheless I have gotten positive comments (one person from the Flint Institute of Arts calling the blue thing "powerful"--that was nice but weird) which leave me bemused.

Flint Craft Fair Coming Up

The annual December Flint City Craft Fair is coming up and I am thinking about going to it. I have an annoying compulsion for felting old unwearable sweaters and turning them into little bags, coin purses, ipod or phone holders, or whatever. Which is weird, considering that I would never use such a thing. Here are a few. (On top of glass.) The Craft Fair itself is quite a strange experience. Last year, the doors (of The Lunch Studio, in downtown Flint) opened at 10 am and there was a CRUSH of people waiting to get in--the fact that it was 20 below outside MAY have had something to do with it but they did gather in downtown Flint on a Saturday which is not normally something that ANYONE does. I really don't like having people stare at or comment on things I have made. But I do like getting rid of these things (otherwise what the hell else would I do with them?) and making a healthy profit is always nice.