Thinking Outside the Box Final Animation!

The animation is completed!
At a school with no computer lab we did something pretty fun and innovative on super low budget. We created this stop motion animation using a borrowed laptop, a $15 dollar mike, two still digital cameras, clay, two small stages and an assortment of freeware and donated software.

I just ran the voice files through another filter in my audio editing software (freeware called Audacity) to completely eliminate the humming. It turned out that I had the "gain" volume up all the way on my digital microphone when I recorded. I now know better. I thought this would make the volume of the speaker louder. Turning the gain up all the way actually makes the microphone pick up all the ambient noise around...fridge, air conditioner, rustling paper, etc. It takes a bit of digital acrobatics to eliminate the ambient noise and get the voices clear.

The children had gotten a taste of using the freeware Audacity in class when I recorded them and they tried some filters on their files to clean them up or make their recorded voices louder.

The children did a great job with this very involved animation project. I was very impressed that they challenged themselves to create two transformations for their cubes rather than the one transformation I had suggested. I hadn't planned on that and was happily surprised to see how well the two transformations worked out.



On Tuesday (if my family doesn't get hit by the flu I had last week) I will be going into Horace Cureton to give each child his/her DVD of the animation and to give them a hands on demo of the software I used. I will have a few students try out editing some of their clay images in Photoshop and a few will import into Premiere Elements. It would be great for them to have a taste of the software used. This workshop series was composed of 8 one and a half hour sessions in the classroom, plus the additional editing time in my studio. I can't believe it is done!

Final Water Banners

Today photographer George R. Young took photos of my Water Banners for the San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles. He did an artful job lighting each piece so that they really sang visually. George Young had been a friend of my family since he was stationed in Maui while he was in the military (he was a special diver on a nuclear sub). This was when my father was in college. George has been a photographer for many decades and has weathered the transition from film photography to digital photography with agility. He has been photographing my art since I started created little wire insects. Now he just shakes his head when I tell him I have three pieces that are 8ft tall. He had to scoot his camera stand to the very back of his studio in Palo Alto and the torri gate stand just barely fit into frame.

The elegant stands were created by Rob Bell. He made two for me. I'd love a third, but cannot afford it right now. These were a big investment for me, but well worth it as I can easily break down and set these up and use them for gallery shows, dance and in other settings. I just love them. I love it, too, that he used all scrap wood that had been laying about his studio for years to build these. Way to repurpose!























Detail image below:























Each banner will be decorated with diatoms made by visitors to the Sub Zero Festival on June 5th. The inspiration for the color and designs were ariel views of waterways as well as Japanese textile patterns. On the orange tapestry is a large hat that will be removed and worn by dancer Christina Braun during the festival. The hat was inspired by diatoms, and Japanese dance and rain hats. Each tapestry had light up led elements.
The banners will be later installed on the facade of the museum. The stands I will keep for future art shows and dance collaborations.
Orange banner below:

Horace Cureton Thinking Outside The Box Animation

We are slowly finalizing the Thinking Outside the Box animation. I hope to have it completed this weekend so that I can burn copies for each student. This morning I started the online application process for the International Student Media Festival. Below is the animation with voice and music. The music here is a test performance and I inserted it just to see how the pacing fits in. I though it might feel slow, but I think it is just right. I had to splice the music (in the dog to girl sequence) and know that I need to do it a bit better. Anyway, these guitarists are elementary and junior high school students who meet every Saturday at JSP Guitar and Sound Studio in Sunnyvale.

Horace Cureton will be showing it to their student on the 11th. I think they did a great job.

Water Tapestry Banners Update

Here are two of the completed banners tied down on cardboard. I will be adding a few LED lights to each. All three banners will photographed professional on Sunday by George R. Young. Today I picked up the stands from Rob Bell in San Francisco.

Claymation Day Seven

Today we recorded the final voices. Some children were quite shy speaking into the microphone and I can understand why as this is not a natural or familiar thing to do. There are only two audio files I need to really work with more. I hope to insert those tomorrow. They did a great job with all these new experiences and challenges. Each child spoke a sentence or two about what thinking outside the box means. The average length was five seconds of audio per child. This fit pretty well with their animations. I used the freeware, Audacity, for the sound recording and editing.

Next week on June 2nd I'll be going back to show the children their movie. This weekend I'll be burning 31 or so DVD's for the students (29 students, teacher and The Alum Rock Education Foundation). I'll also be burning DVD's for the student guitar ensemble that will be providing the music track.
Here is the animation so far. The music will be the next element added:

Butoh Dance Costume continued

I have been working periodically on the water tapestry light up hat for the Sub Zero Festival. I just completed the third large tapestry and can now focus on this hat and all the visitor participatory elements for the event.












































Here is the hat with some of the woven plastic bags on it. There will a bit more over the triangular sections. I have placed a light to shine on the dancers face. The hat has also been tilted and elevated so that Christina's face will be more visible as the expressions of the face are very important in butoh. I hope to get this hat to her early this week so she can practice with it. The elevating structure removes so if it is too cumbersome, I will remove it. There will be several large sashes to anchor the hat. around the chin.

AAWAA 20th Year Celebration..Planning and Conceptualizing

I am a member of an artist group called AAWAA.
It is an Asian American Women Artists group here in the San Francisco Bay Area founded twenty years ago by Flo Oy Wong and Betty Kano and includes musicians, writers and visual artists.

We are in the planning stages of what we will do for this 20 year celebration and have rented SOMA ARTS for an evening celebration on September 26th and a two week period surrounding that date.

Only in the past year has AAWAA become an official 501c nonprofit and notably last year AAWAA had an artist residency at the de Young Museum in San Francisco titled “A Place of Her Own”. This exhibit was conceptualized by Cynthia Tom.

AAWAA also published a book called “Cheers to Muses” and members have participated in presenting lectures at nearby universities and colleges.

In celebrating this 20 milestone, we need to look both backward and forward and build upon what the organization has already done. Two of the exhibits at the 20 year anniversary will focus upon expanding on Cheers to Muses and A Place of Her Own concepts. There will also be a display of the history of the organization and works of current and past members. Sue Kwon of Channel 5 News has graciously agreed to join us for the evening in some sort of presenter function.

I am participating in brainstorming and conceptualizing how to expand the Place of Her Own concept out to become a public participatory project. I would love for the actual “box” that the individual personalizes to be something that is downloadable... a template that can be printed and folded up into a box. I would also like to see the AAWAA website post images of these individual creations ...people would photograph their box and email the image back creating a sort of online virtual tapestry of little spaces knit together. For the purposes of the 20th anniversary perhaps we would have an earlier workshop using pre assembled boxes to work with and then at the event have a table were people could create their spaces and add them to the growing tapestry.























Above: Rough concept sketch of fold up boxes that individuals would personalize. These shapes would then be connected to form a hanging installation to be hung in SOMA ARTS. The outside of the box would be decorated with images representing how we present ourselves to others and the inside would be decorated with images and objects that represent one's interior creative self and space.

CONCEPT FOR VISITOR PARTICIPATORY PROJECT
Having space or place of one's own as an artist does not mean just a physical space. As an artist it is most important to create a space for quite creativity in one’s mind. We all need people in our lives who help us create that mental space. It seems cliché, but it does take a village, whether it is someone willing to listen, babysit, critique a painting or read our writings … we need the nurturing of others to help us define ourselves as artists and create that mental space to be one. So often we do not get that support. It is also important that we freely offer that support to others as well.

As a female artist and caretaker with other responsibilities, I know I speak for a lot of women artists when I say that my art world is cobbled together from different contacts and experiences and these all thread together at disjointed times…an email here and an email there. We do not live and breathe being an artist all day; it is a fractured existence of disjointed moments between other roles. My blog is my space of my own where I have my voice and can articulate ideas in an organize way. My time in my studio at night is my space of my own to create my art.

My physical art space used to be a large sheet of cardboard from a refrigerator box that I would lay flat across my bed for a work space. At night I would tie down my art with wire and prop it against the wall so my husband and I could sleep in the bed. It didn’t bother me that this was an unusual set up. I was compelled to create my work and this was my solution to create a large work area. The key was that I had the mental space to view myself as an artist and not as a crazy woman with cardboard on her bed.

I have an artist friend, Nemo Gould, who, when I met him, had created a huge mechanical squid the length of a car. I thought, man, this guy must have the hugest coolest studio. Nope, he built it in the narrow hallway of his apartment! He had understanding roommates. It takes imagination not only to create art, but to create that mental space to envision you available physical space as usable and to make it your studio. (By the way this was years ago and I think Nemo now has that huge cool studio).

We need the support of others to create our own space. It may seem ironic, but we need others to help us find that private isolated mental space to explore who we are as artists.

Reflecting this interlocked nature, I envision that the AAWAA visitor participatory tapestry would be composed of interlocking containers folded up from a PDF template printed on cardstock. The PDF could possibly have information printed on it somewhere about mental breathing space. It could have mental health info on it as well. This mental health issue was brought up in some of the discussions and perhaps can be intergrated. Cynthia Tom also envisioned an outreach component to social services and women's shelter to develop an art workshop that is designed to help women express themselves and think about what they need to create that place of her own. I envision that the completed tapestry would have some empty spaces or blackened boxes representing space yet to be discovered.

At any rate this above is a first pass at the concept.





















Shizue Seigel sent this image to me of a piece she had created in another workshop.
"On a related theme, at a workshop we were given a box with a lid and asked to decorate the outside as others expected us to be, the inside as our inner selves. They were commercially produced carboard boxes. Instead of lid and box, each of the two pieces could be separate units with the outside on one side, walk round to see the inside, strung with fishing line." I can visualize elements of this used for the Place of Her Own visitor participatory project.

Claymation Day Six, breather sequences and sound

Yesterday was the sixth day of the animation workshop at Horace Cureton Elementary. The children filmed three breather sequences which I inserted in between sections of their animation. They did a fantastic job! It was nice to see them use a concept from the Sony Bravia Bunnies video as I think actually trying these cube movements gave them a better understanding of how time consuming and precise that particular stop motion animation was

This animation workshop series is the first time these 29 4th/5th grade students have created a stop motion animation. We have not completed the animation yet, but the results so far are beyond what I had expected. There is a combination of planned organization and free form creativity that is required of each child. I like conducting these animation workshops as they require each child to exercise a blend of different skill sets. Most importantly, it is a project that is impossible without teamwork.







































TEST ANIMATION WITHOUT SOUND:


Above is the animation so far with all the stop motion parts inserted. It needs to be tweaking it a bit. The pacing will be adjusted (credit screens will linger longer). I also need to add a few credit screens to give credit to the Alum Rock Education Foundation for the mini grant, the egg company for the egg carts and a few other people who have made making this animation workshop possible. I also want to add a few process screens at the end showing the kids at work making the animation. These kind of images at the end of animations are always fun...kind of a peek behind the magic.

What remains is the voice recording and the music. I hope I can get this completed in the next week. I estimate that the final run time will be five minutes as I will need to lengthen each animation sequence to match the voice for each child. I also might break up the animation sequences a bit more. I placed the third breather at the very end, but I think I need to divide up the animations a bit more. I'll be experimenting with that.

VOICE RECORDING
We also started recording their voices yesterday. This was an interesting challenge as the air conditioner would turn on and off frequently and was very, very loud. Also, an elementary classroom is no sound stage...you just cannot expect kids to be totally silent as they needed to be working on other assignments as I recorded their voices one by one.
I hope the ambient noise will filter out OK. I borrowed a pop filter from a friend and that will hopefully help at least with the voices a bit.

MUSIC
A guitar ensemble group of elementary and junior high school students will be recording the music...an original composition titled "Marching Ants." More on that in another posting.

Got up at 5:00am to complete this animation build here.. Kind of can't see it clearly anymore and need to work on other projects now.

Claymation Day Five

Yesterday we filmed the last of the children's animation sequences. Here are some still images from the sequences from yesterday. I will be editing out the post behind the flower in this animation sequence below. The post was used in a few other sequences where it will have to be removed.













































































































































































We had a second stage set up again. This was very helpful. We used two thick sheets of foam core boards. A light from Ikea and a borrowed light from De Anza College's Euphrat Museum's Arts in The Schools Program. Second camera and camera stand also borrow, although I have order a second camera of my own that should be here by Friday.



















SOUND RECORDING
We will begin sound recording on Friday. I was supposed to go in today but my son has a headache and is feeling sick so this recording will be done on Friday.

BREATHER SEQUENCES
We will be using colored cubes of different colored sides to create the breather sequences. The cubes will move across the stage and turn on their sides. I hope to film three of these sequences to break up the animation into sections. Two sequences would be fine, too. The children will have fun with this as instead of one animator there will be 9 or ten kids moving cubes around the stage at any one time. It will be fun and crazy.


















Part of the first stage folded up and ready to take back to my studio. This also can double as a shadow puppet stage. For this set up we draped a black cloth over the back and had a patterned floor for the stage. The blue painters tape was useful to hold a lot of things in place: cables, camera tripods, lights, stage parts...etc.

Third Water Tapestry for San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles

I have completed the wire form base for the third water tapestry.























Detail























Interesting nylon fabric donated by Walker Bags of San Francisco.























The first two wire form banners stacked together hanging on a stand. The visitor created diatoms will attach and complete these banners. I will also be creating a large diatom element for each as the focal point. Several diatoms will illuminate on each banner with led lights.

Butoh Dance Costume

I am working on the third tapestry for the San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles and in the process am also working on a large diatom element that will remove from the tapestry and be worn as a hat by dancer, Christina Braun. Above are images of the wire form in process of being built.



















Above is the hat form being built on a trash can lid. Below: Preliminary sketch. I had originally thought of doing a sort of floral diatom shaped hat, but it looked, well, too floral. After looking at a lot of diatoms, I decided to make it round and base it on a Japanese rain hat. Instead of one diatom design on the hat, I have arranged various diatom shapes in a radial format around the hat form. I will be placing led lights behind the forms. I will be weaving plastic bags to create the solid diatom areas.

Claymation Day Four

Here are 19 of the 29 animation sequences. I will be filming a few more at lunchtime tomorrow at Horace Cureton Elementary then again on Tuesday. Luckily I was able to borrow a second digital camera and camera stand from my friend, Melanie Woodard. She has been so generous with supplies for so many of my workshops. I have purchased a second camera, but it will take a while to ship so this worked out well. I also have been lucky to have great lights lent to me from De Anza College's Euphrat Museum's Arts In The Schools Program. I purchased various lights from Ikea in addition to the two lent from De Anza and the set up seems to be working fine. I have had to adjust the levels just a bit in Photoshop on a few animation sequences and I erased out fingers and blocks of clay in a few to make it appear that objects float. Some day it would be nice to have a longer workshop series at the school and lots of computers to show the kids how to do this image editing themselves.



BREATHER SEQUENCES
I am having the students brainstorm on breather sequences, or sequences to break up the monotony of the continuous box morphing. I am hoping to film two of these sequences on Tuesday.

SOUND RECORDING
I also hope to start the sound recording on Tuesday. This I will have to refine a bit as I need to have very short phrases or statements from each child to go with each animation and as you can see, the animations flash by fast. I think I will have to have lengthen the time lingered on one of their object morphs to get the animation to match the voice length.

INTERNATIONAL ANIMATION FESTIVAL
I am hoping that we can enter the completed animation into the International Student Media Festival. It would be really wonderful for these student to feel a part of a larger creative community. I have asked the festival for a deadline extension, so we will see if we can enter. The deadline is May 30th and we need a bit more time to complete it and ship out the DVD. I would really love for the kids to be aware of these festivals and check out other student created movies and animations from other parts of the United States and from around the world. The exciting thing is if their movie gets selected as a finalist, it will be screened at the festival.

I noticed that this above uploaded animation in Flash is kind of blurry and that my previous Windows Media player ones were clearer, but some people were having problems viewing the Windows Media Player so I am hoping that the Flash above is more universally viewable.

Refining the Visitor Activity of The Quilt Museum's Sub Zero Project

I have spent a few hours refining what will be the visitor component of the San Jose Museum of Quilt and Textile project for the Sub Zero Festival on June 5th.
The visitors will have a choice of creating diatoms from plastic bottle bottoms or weaving a diatom from plastic bag yarn.

I have chosen the imagery of diatoms because these bloom in our creeks when they are clogged with plastic bags, bottles and all the other garbage that have led our Guadalupe River and Coyote Creek to be declared "Impaired".

I have already prepped all the plastic bottles collected from the Rotary Club clean up at Guadalupe river and collected from a Walk-a-Thon from Stevens Creek Elementary. All that remains is to hole punch these so that they can be tied down to the banners after the visitor has decorated them.

The plastic bags are being collected at Lynnbrook High School in Cupertino and at Horace Cureton in Alum Rock.

Below: Plastic bottle diatom samples.These are created by cutting off the bottoms of plastic bottles and then decorating them with permanent magic markers.








































Below: Diatoms woven samples. Made from pipe cleaners, floral wire and plastic bag yarn and produce netting.

Art Opening at Bill Gould Art and Architecture

My friend Charlotte Kruk was part of a group show art opening at Bill Gould Art and Architecture on Thursday night and it was really a blast. Wonderful music and food (well, I got there too late for the food) and all the art was really interesting. The works will be up for six months.
Below: Charlotte's wearable art made of food wrappers


























Below: Several of Charlotte's dresses dramatically hung. I have never seen them hung this way and really liked seeing them floating like this.































































A few of Charlotte's dress form sculptures.













































Below: Charlotte at the opening and Charlotte with photographer friend, David.


















































Some works in progress on display on in the shop area of Bill Gould Studio

Day Three of Claymation

Today the students finished up their tween frames and eight students shot their animation sequences. Here are all of the animations filmed today. I will play with the speed a bit later but wanted to get the animation up so that the children could see it. Each sequence was roughly 16 frames. I will have two cameras on tripods and two stages tomorrow so that we can film twice as much in one day. (Thanks Melanie for lending my your digital camera and tripod!)


Here is the first group of three rotating through the roles of animator, director, and camera person. On Thursday I will be back at Horace Cureton to film more and will start the sound recording of the voices. I was looking at my project outline last night and realized that I was over ambitious in what we could accomplish in eight classes. In re evaluation I have decide to eliminate the set design component and the importing of the images into Premiere Elements. I will demo to them how I do this at the end of the classes, though.

The egg cartons are working out great.

Day Two of Animation Workshop

Before animation class today I stopped over at Olivera Egg Ranch to pickup donated egg cartons for the children's clay parts. I had contacted the egg ranch on Friday and they set aside 30 cartons for me. It was very conveient as they are just three miles away from the school. It was great to have these as they don't take up much room and the kids could set in the parts and see the sequencing from frame to frame.


















Above: Ms. Illa's clay parts for the transition of a cube to a snail to a star.

First we reviewed vocabulary and concepts from Class 1 and then it was time to hand out the clay. It took me a while to get all the start and end cubes set up for each child and the sequencing from one child to another documented but once they got started they were really focused and had fun. You just can't have a bad time with bright clay! They had a blast creating their little creatures and objects. They enjoyed using the pasta maker and the clay extruder tool I purchased specifically for their claymation. Tomorrow they will be completing their tween clay parts and hopefully some will begin filming.























Above: Pasta Maker. It will never see pasta. It will always be a dedicated clay tool.

Kite Handles for Wornick Jewish Day School Workshop

Above: kite handles

May is a busy month. I think many schools schedule their art programming towards the end of the year. I have a fun artist residency coming up on Wednesday atThe Wornick Jewish Day School in Foster City. I will be conducting kite making workshops. There will be about a hundred students participating.











I made a hundred kite handles from cardboard cereal boxes, tea boxes, and cracker boxes. I could have bought plastic kite handles, but making them reflects the way kites are made in most of the world...with recycled objects.

Emily and I added bits of Asian food wrappers to each kite handle to pretty them up and to illustrate that we can use mundane artifacts from our daily lives to make things.

Plastic Bag Collection for Sub Zero Festival Project

I have begun collecting plastic bags and bottles from schools and a creek clean up. Above are some of the bags. I will cut these and link them into strips to create "yarn" for visitors to weave into diatom shapes.
This poster below went out the sculpture art classes at Lynnbrook High School in Cupertino. I will be visiting James Lick in East San Jose as well. I have been collecting from Stevens Creek Elementary and will also solicit from Horace Cureton in Alum Rock.























I know no one at James Lick, but will be contacting their art department to at least talk with them. I am curious to know more about their art program. It is such a busy time for schools right now. They are wrapping things up, there are tons of events going on and I expect I will be lucky to get a handful of bags from each school. Happily I just got a bunch of produce netting in the mail from The Wing Luke Museum. I also get a lot of this netting from mom friends and teachers at my son's school, Stevens Creek Elementary. I will be using this plastic in the banners, too.

Below: some of the plastic used on the base banner tapestries. Not a great shot and I have two here stacked as I need my building board for the third banner.
























I have been researching semi permanent installations and light festivals. I found this. I think the beauty of the installation is partly in the lovely old buildings:
http://www.valgusfestival.ee/eng/hansaflux.html

















I also found this and was pretty excited.
http://www.valgusfestival.ee/eng/virmalised.html









































The San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textile activity for the Sub Zero Festival will also use plastic bottles. The visitor will be using only the bottoms of the plastic bottles, decorate them with colored permanent markers and attach them to the banners. Some of these plastic "diatoms" will light up with led lights I got at IKEA. I had hoped to purchase the solar powered led lights but they are completely sold out everywhere. I was surprised but I guess I shouldn't have been. They were well designed, simple and elegant. Below are the small battery powered led lights I purchased instead. I will just have to switch these on during the festival. I had really wanted solar powered led lights and will keep exploring that for future illuminated outdoor projects. This initial disappointment in not being able to get these led me to research light festivals and how others incorporte light into their semi permanent art.

Nectar Performance at Tenderloin National Forest Opening

Yesterday my family and I attended a portion of the all day celebrations at the Grand Opening of The Tenderloin National Forest. We enjoyed the hot bread made on the spot in the clay oven, the interesting video installations, vibrant murals and art all around. At the entrance Michael Swaine was stationed with his mobile sewing cart and he was sewing Tenderloin National Forest patches onto garments people brought. Every 15th of the month he is here with his mobile sewing machine.






















































































We especially enjoyed the butoh performance by dancer Christina Braun and musician Jeffery Scott Perry.























Christina Braun before her performance. I loved the green eye make up and her expression. She is wearing my small Sky Viewing Hat made of Asian food wrappers and Japanese ear cleaners.
Above photo taken by Shizue Seigel, an AAWAA artist friend of mine who is a photographer, writer and painter.
http://shizueseigel.com/Index.htm























Above: Christina begins her performance with fabric dramatically wrapped around her.























Above: Christina on the lawn area.























Above: I almost forgot to get out of the way here. Shizue documented this moment. I was so entranced that I only realized when her face was super close, that, "Oh, I got to move out of the way!" The picture below is the one I took right before I moved. She must have been thinking that she was going to have to hop over me!
























It was fun to see how the music and dance interacted in this improv piece. It was improv in the sense that they had not rehearsed it together at all, but had collaborated via email sending concept ideas and music files.

Below: Mr. Perry on his electric guitar.











































Mr. Perry's music was lovely with Christina's movements and the alley park vibrated and pulsated with the piece. Below: Curious residents peek out their window to listen and watch the performance.

















Above photo taken by Jennifer de Graaf, a landscape architect friend.
Below photo by Shizue Seigel














































Above: I got a chance to talk with Jeff Brown, one of the landscape architects responsible for the beautiful park. I only got to hear a little bit about the history of the site and its development. I know there is a wonderful long story behind it all. I also got a chance to talk with Rigo, the mosaic/painter artist responsible mosaic pathway. I heard him speak years ago at Fort Mason and it was really nice to just tell him how much I enjoy his work. Many of his murals grace San Francisco and are iconic landmarks.

Below: Christina and Scott after their performance.























More pictures of the event at my Flickr:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/corinne_o/sets/72157617888260009/

Christina has named our collaborative work Nectar. Nectar's next project is at the Sub Zero Festival in San Jose on June 5th. One performance will be at 9pm and one at 10pm in front of The San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles. We'll be right next to the "Absolve Your Sins" dunk tank. Really. I am looking forward to seeing what that looks like. It is all an adventure and I am glad that quite a few friends and familiar faces were at The Tenderloin Opening.

Claymation! Day One and prep for Day Two

I conducted my first class of "Thinking Outside the Box" last Thursday. I presented three cultural legends that revolved around magic boxes and showed an inspiration claymation animation ad (Sony Bravia Bunnies as well as "the make of" movie for that ad). I also showed a simple box to butterfly claymation animation. This was a demo for the specific project they would be creating. Below is a recap of what they learned and what I learned.







































Above: two of the books I read to the class. The other legend, Pandora's box I summarized from a Greek mythology book I brought in.

BRAINSTORMING
Their first activity was to brainstorm ideas for their box transformations. I provided each child a sheet of paper with four squares. They were instructed to draw an image in each square that represented a different transformation concept. I explained what brainstorming was. I walked around and we shared some ideas. I pulled some ideas from what the children were drawing so that their classmates would get a feel for the variety of ideas they could throw out. I explained there was no such thing as a bad idea to share. Often we have to get the not so useful ideas out first to uncover to the ideas that are truly creative and outside the box.






















Above: Brainstorming handout

LESSON I LEARNED:
What I should have done here was draw four boxes up on the board and then called up four different students to draw a different idea in each box. This would have reinforced the idea that each child needed four different concepts on the brainstorm paper. As it was, even though I went from table to table and explained this again and again, it was still confusing to some of the students. Some treated the four squares as storyboard squares to show the progression of one idea.

I will review and reinforce this brainstorm idea tomorrow when I go in for the second class. This brainstorming concept is a tough concept even for adults. I have instructed a Visual Thinking class in the Engineering Department of Stanford University and found that it is very difficult for many to throw out ideas and brainstorm. The reason being no one wants to give a dumb or "wrong" idea. Many of us are taught not to share ideas unless they are fully formed and "correct". But often it is these very off beat or "wrong" ideas that trigger a better idea.

CHILDREN'S BRAINSTORM:
What each child came up with for their box transformation animation sequence is listed below. They each decide to create two transformations. We'll see how that works with our 15 frames. Ms. Illa took the time to review after my workshop on Thursday. She sent me this list of the kids' ideas.

Butterfly to puddle
snail to star
flower to umbrella
egg to eagle
tadpole to frog
fish to turtle
bee to butterfly
puddle to ice cream
shark to whale
fish to mermaid
guitar to bat (I can't wait to see this one...could have cool audio)
fish to elephant
colors to paint
seed to flower
boat to banana
turtle to basketball
egg to robot
book to TV
flying fish to bird
hammerhead shark to hammer
puppy to person
shark to hockey stick
whale to person

ROUGH STORYBOARDING with KEY FRAMES
The students second activity was to draw in the key frames of their animation story. They needed to choose one idea from the brainstorm sheet and work out the animation sequence they would create with their cubes of clay.



















Above: Storyboard handout.

The essential idea here was to begin with the key frames.
Step 1: They were instructed to take their chosen concept image from the brainstorm sheet and draw it into key frame 8 (the middle dark outlined box)
Step 2: The next frame they were to fill in was the key frame 5 (dark outlined box on top row). This image should be a shape that took the cube half way to being the final object.

I explained that drawing key frames was simply like creating a visual version of a written outline. In a written outline for a story or book report we start with the key points and place them under the headings "I., II, III, etc." These are the main ideas or points. In a written outline we then add in the supporting information indented under "A, B, C, etc." These are the tween frames in animation.

A visual key frame is that same as these initial first points written down for an outline. It is a visual representation of what happens in the briefest words. For example. The box turns into a butterfly is the main idea for my demo animation. Key frame 8 is a drawing of a butterfly.

LESSON I LEARNED:
What I should have done here was draw these 15 boxes up on the board and walk them through the process on the board. Mrs. Illa educated me on a technique called "Shout Out" where you bring up one student from the class to stand near you at the board. I ask a question. That student then picks the other students to answer my question and then that same student standing with me repeats and relays that information from the class to me. Somehow this telling another student your answer, rather than the instructor, helps focus the students and makes the activity more engaging. I will try this out tomorrow with my summary recap of our first lesson.

I also need to review that each frame, each box on the storyboard page, represents a click of the camera. A frame is one of the 15 still images they will be taking for their animation. Another student (in the roll of director) will need to be able to take this storyboard sheet and instruct you on how to move your clay parts for each frame.

CLASS 2 PREVIEW
In the second class we will be starting to create the clay parts for the animation. I have been struggling with how to store all these small parts for each child. On Friday I woke up thinking "Egg cartons!" Yep, that was my waking thought...take that as pathetic or inspired. It can be either. Anyway, after getting my children to school I googled local egg distributers and knew I had to reach out to an egg distributer in the area of Alum Rock. I learned this when I solicited boxes initially from Whole Foods in Cupertino and was informed by the manager that they donated only locally. At any rate, I was fortunate to find Olivera Egg Ranch on Sierra Road not far from Horace Cureton Elementary School. They generously offered me 30 cartons. My problem solved. I will pick these up before class tomorrow.


















One of the nice things about teaching this class is that I can communicate with images and thoughts on my blog as well. The class has access to the internet and I will be inserting info for them into these postings.

Tomorrow each child will first be given an egg carton.

1. They will write their name on top of it.
   
2. They will write their name on the side.
3. Each child will be given two different colors of clay.
   
4. These two cubes are not mushed or changed. One is placed into the first egg carton scoop cavity and the second goes into the last scoop cavity. The first cube is frame one, the starting cube for the child's animation. The second cube placed at the end of the tray is the ending cube of the different color.
   
5. Each child is then given two more cubes of the first color to create the key frame objects from their storyboards (images in key frame 5 and 8).
6. Each child is given a second cube the color of the ending cube. This color is to be used as accent parts for the transformed object. i.e. the spots on the butterfly.

More clay will be handed out as needed.
I will have a pasta maker machine to help flatten the clay as well as a clay extruder tool. I hope that each child will complete their key frames. It would be great if some tables actually completed all their tween frames as well, but we'll see. If they do complete them we can start filming the following day while the other groups complete their clay parts.

Rob Bell's Designs for Hanging My Banners

One thing that is fascinating to me about meeting and working with artists of different disciplines is seeing their process. Right now Rob Bell, a fabricator in San Francisco (I blogged about him earlier last month) is designing and creating two stands for my large hanging mixed media sculpture. I will be using these for sets for future dance collaborations, gallery display and for the Sub Zero festival coming up on June 5th.

Look at the progression of his design below. This was done in an amazingly quick time. The first sketch was sent a few days ago. I gave my feedback to him yesterday and with just a few email exchanges the rest of the images were created and sent to me over a two or three hour time period. Rob told me has been using Google Sketchup for over three years now and loves it as a design tool. His speed made me laugh as I thought I was going to do a series of blogs on this sketch phase portion of the design process. My sister is a product designer/engineer as well and she, too, has this rapid design skill. I think it takes years, decades, to get to the point where you can par down and distill your ideas so well and so quickly.

First concept sketch ( all images Rob Bell copyright 2009)













Below: Notches are added to the hanging beam. This is so that my hanging lines have something to bite into and will not slip around. A flair is added to the base bottom and the bottom stand element is modified.



















Below: A different angle view of the stand. It illustrates what the base design looks like. Seeing this angle is important as it is difficult to visualize the dimensions of the base without seeing this perspective.

















Below: Final design. There are subtle curved elements added to the sides to help prevent bowing. I really like these elements as I feel this slight swelling will visually link my tapestries to the stand as my mixed media pieces have organic swirling lines.
He will first work on the base and make a to scale model to test the stability.

Second Water Tapestry for San Jose Quilt Museum

Above: wire work and painter's tape making where mesh will go.

I have completed the rough background for the second water themed banners. This one uses blue mesh donated from Walker Bags of San Francisco and some recycled blue plastic bags. These four large tapestries will be part of a visitor participatory project and semi permanent installation for the San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles. The visitor component will happen during the Sub Zero Festival in Downtown San Jose on June 5th (6pm to midnight).

Below: Tape marking off areas to add mesh to. Illustrator file print out of design.
























Below: I have begun hand sewing the mesh on with fishing line. I am not using thread as it would rot and be more fragile for this exterior banner project. I keep making the mistake of putting the needle and fishing thread in my mouth as I normally do in hand stitching...mistake. The fishing line is treated with something that irritates my mouth (a numbing agent for fish?..I have no idea). Anyway, that combined with my now pretty blistered hands from intensive wire work make me think, wow, this is what we mean suffering for our art!























The blue plastic trash bags are stitched on from the back.

Matador Jacket

I have been working on a wire matador jacket for (I am embarrassed to say) maybe four years now. It is one of those projects that I just haven't seemed able to complete. But now I am so close to finishing it and I am happy for all that I learned in the long journey to make it. The saga of this has led me to using a different technique for twisting my wire. I now use a drill. I was in a jewelery maker critique group that really encouraged me to start using this method. There was also a precursor to this piece and here it is below.
FIRST ATTEMPT. This was set aside and saved only for reference.



















Sometimes, no matter how hard you rework a piece you need to set it aside and just start over. That is what I did with this project. I took a deep breath and started over. Good lesson there. Sometimes something I give up on is so amazingly frustrating and horrible that I just need to save it to show my students how we all need to start over sometimes. I haven't been able to show this lesson yet as I haven't completed my second attempt yet! But I am looking forward to making the comparison as I feel the second attempt is much better.

SECOND ATTEMPT in progress. In this piece the view is from the back of the jacket. All the wire is twisted with a drill. The proportions and form are more accurate.


















In the process of researching Traje de Luces (suit of lights) I met my friend Charlotte Kruk who was also making a matador jacket. In addition to the jacket, she made a cape, hat and pants...all from from M&M wrappers. You can see her jacket here:
http://artshiftsanjose.com/?p=10

Detail of my matador jacket:

































































































Above: beads I will incorporate into the piece.

This jacket's owner has been patiently waiting for its completion. He is an amazing hair and make up artist who created the looks for the de Young Museum fashion show reception I had in December 2008. You can see some of the hair and make up he created for this event here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/loriphotocom/sets/72157611429758897/?page=2
His name is Armando and here is his site, Get Your Do Up:
http://www.getyourdoup.com/























Above and below: Some shots I took of Armando working on a fashion shot in photographer George R. Young's studio last Fall. Model is the lovely artist Stacie Tamaki. http://www.stacietamaki.com/
























Below: Hair design Armando created for fashion shoot.
























The final images were used in postcards for the de Young Museum. Note: the hat band was redesign after this shoot as I realized it was hurting Stacie's forehead. I created a much better design and am glad I did as now my hats can be worn by dancers as well. Stacie was so patient to sit for hours and hour. She and Armando arrived at my house to create hair and make up before 6:00 am. The photo shoot ended at noon. They were amazing! I hope to complete Armando's jacket in the next month. It will need a bit more wirework, the beads added and a black velvet backed frame, I think.

Thinking Outside The Box, Claymation!

Tomorrow I begin teaching stop motion animation workshops at a San Jose School in the Alum Rock School District. It will be in the 4th/5th grade class of Ms. Arlyn Illa at Horace Cureton Elementary. I have been teaching free art workshops in her classes for about four years now. This year we received a mini grant from The Alum Rock Education Foundation http://www.alumrockef.org/ for an eight class claymation animation workshop series I have titled" Thinking Outside The Box".
Below: Emily my diligent helper. Yesterday we spent a couple of hours cutting clay in to cubes for this workshop series. We will be using CLAYTOON Modeling Clay by Van Aken. This is an oil based clay specifically designed for claymation.



















I am so grateful for having this opportunity to conduct these classes and it has been wonderful to work with Ms. Illa's classes over the years. Her classes have always been a good testing ground for my art projects. The students always are super well behaved and curious to learn. Much credit here goes to Ms. Illa! She is an inspiration to me and I have absorbed a lot from watching her teach. The children arevery hungry for art which I think they pretty much only get after Star Testing every May.























Above: Clay cutter I made from two chop sticks and wire. You can purchase these clay cutters, but free is cheaper!

Below: cut cubes.

























ANIMATION DEMONSTRATION SAMPLE- CUBE TO BUTTERFLY
Below: Animation sample test. This will demonstrate to the students how to start with a cube, transform it into something and then have it transition to the next student's cube of a different color. This sample test took 15 minutes to make and only a few clay parts. I am creating a set table so the children can create interesting and varied sets and lighting.


CONCEPT
The theme of the children;s animation workshop is "Thinking Outside The Box". This workshops series introduces students to the multi-stepped process of stop motion animation through hands-on creation of an animation start to finish. The project is based on the theme of thinking outside the box and what that means to each child. Each child will be given cubes of clay and each student will create an animation sequence that represents to him/her what thinking creatively outside the box means by transforming that cube of clay into something else. The children will also create transition sequences that link each box story to the next child's. The children rotate through the different roles of photographer, animator, director and narrator.

HISTORY AND CULTURE COMPONENT
The springboard for ideas will start with the reading of three different cultural legends about magical boxes: Pandora' Box (Greek), Raven and Seagull (Nootka, British Colombia), and Anansi and The Box of Stories (West African). The children will be shown sample of artistic styles form each of these cultures to help inspire their designs.

The children will also be watching this Sony Bravia Bunnies video. I love it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdDUlptT_60

An artist friend recently questioned why I keep a blog and expressed a belief that it was frivolous and peripheral to an artist's process and art creation. I disagree. For me, keeping a blog is very important for documentation and organization of my thoughts, especially as I engage in more school and public art work that it grant funded. Two other artists in the last month have already referenced my blog in their collaborative grant applications. Every foundation and organization wants to be able to track the process and evaluate the success of what they fund. This is a way to keep them posted on that process. More on this later. I am always eager to learn other artist's processes if they are willing to share it. I believe that explaining process makes art more approachable, interesting and understandable. I am beginning to conduct school assemblies centering around my process, repurposing of materials and the historical context of recycling on the Plantations of Hawaii.
http://www.okadadesign.com/workshop.html

More on Tenderloin National Forest Butoh Performance

Here is more on the interesting process behind the Butoh piece for the Tenderloin National Forest Grand Opening.

This is Christina Braun's brief outline of her collaboration with composer Jeffrey Scott Perry
for their improve piece that will be performed at 5:45pm on Saturday:
Butoh dance score by Christina Braun inspired by Mayan hummingbird legend and Emily Dickinson for new site specific performnce: Nectar 1, May 9, 2009, San Francisco Tenderloin National Forest Opening Event:
Jeffrey Scott Perry's music begins.
I become the poem/myth/music.
I accept the transformation.
Flutter-by into the waving soundscape.
Sit at the music maker's feet.
Listening with smal secret gestures.
Flower petals fall.
Spiders weave.
The sun groom glows and dazzles,
the red bride answers with an exquisite vibration.
United, we return, erase.






















Christina at location of site specific performance.

I am providing an Asian food wrapper flower hat for costuming.

Preschool Mother's Day Card Workshop

Today I conducted a workshop at my daughter's preschool. It was refreshing and fun to teach such young artists. I love watching their chubby little hands assembling the parts. All the pictures I took make me smile but I am only posting a few. The last time I taught at a preschool was way back when my son was in preschool and we did a paper making workshop. The kids had a blast with the water and sponges. Today was more sedate and the preschoolers made Mother's Day cards using a mixture recycled Asian food wrappers.




















Below: My daughter showing her creation. She came into this three year old class to help me do the workshop. She handed out materials and assisted. She has been attending my art workshops since she was two years old and perhaps she will retain some memory of the experiences. She is a good helper now and looks forward to handing stuff out and helping other children.














































Below: Materials such as chopstick sleeves, plastic sushi grass and Chinese food wrappers made up the flowers.



















Yesterday I was at a meeting of an Asian women artists group (AAWAA) up in San Francisco and I learned that quite a few had postponed their art for decades as they raised their children. It is difficult to pursue one's artistic visions while raising children. Being an artist can be quite a selfish pursuit and as a mom it is easy to feel frivolous and guilty pursing one's art. But I believe it is worthwhile to at least attempt to strike a balance being both an artist and a mom. I make chicken soup from scratch when my children are sick, cook every dinner and pick the children up from school and drive them to all their activities, but I am by no means successful in my balancing act! There are times when I know I am too absorbed in my work or feel I am dragging my kids to my various art teaching activities or drag them to some sort of scarp yard for materials. There are times when I am really tired and grumpy in the morning because I stayed up late working. Sometimes being an artist and a mom is a messy intertwined journey. I certainly felt that way this past year.

My father is a toy designer and my fondest memories are of the random and a bit crazy adventures we had related to his unique job. I hope my kids will feel the same about their childhood... that my passions enriched their lives and their perspective on the world. I want them grow never questioning the value of their own creativity and I want them to grow with the desire to give voice their inner thoughts. These were of gifts of my childhood. If I fail at my juggling act here, at least they will have good fodder to be writers and can weave fantastic, absurd and true tales about their crazy upbring! Ah, just reflections as Mother's Day approaches.























I like this child's card below. She received an extra petal and did her own thing. There is no such thing as wrong in art! It looks great.

Water Tapestry Banners

I have begun the first of the water tapestry banners for the San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles.
Below: wire frame built upon a black foam core support.























The pattern is modified off of a Japanese kimono print and it reminded me of water undulating.
Each banner will be around 7ft x 3ft x 5" deep. Here is the first one started. I hope I don't run out of wire. This stuff is expensive now and I double it up by twisting it with a drill. I will be covering some areas with colored mesh donated by Walker Bag of San Francisco. Most of the detail elements of the diatoms will be created and added by visitors to the Sub Zero Festival. I will be creating some larger elements that light up and one will remove as a hat for the butoh dancer.

Mesh in process of being added. Note the blue painter's tape outline I am using. The tape enables me to transfer the design to the grid on the foam core for each particular banner. I then take the tape off and reapply the tape to create the next banner's mesh pattern. This way I can use the same foam core for all banners.























Below: Banner removed from black foam core and temporarily attached to T stand. The color is not as vibrant off of the foam core, but I am hoping when it is suspended in front of the tinted windows of the museum the mesh will appear as vibrant as it did on the foam core. I am hoping we can hang them a few inches away from the glass to highlight the airy nature of the grid. I also hope people don't mess with it! This is the first time I have created exterior public art and I just hope no one is tempted to test how flexible the wire is. I kind of wish these could hang above arm reach and then I wouldn't worry.























I am approaching this as both a design challenge (keep the and labor and material costs down as much as possible) and as a learning ground on how to outreach for a public art project in a very short period of time. I have started contacting four schools soliciting donations of colored grocery bags and I will provided them with info regarding the water exhibit at the museum, the Sub Zero Festival and the "impaired" status of our Coyote Creek and Guadalupe River. The cost of this project is really is in the labor of the banners and the materials prep. I am doing this project really for the experience of an outdoor public art display. I have only created interior public art before and this will be a good test for me.

Detail of prelim sketch on black foam core:























Below: Mesh donated by Walker Bag of San Francisco. I have been fortunate enough to have benefited from the generosity of several businesses in the past and have stored up on some pretty special materials that I have be able to use for public art.




















Some of this mesh was used at De Anza College for the construction fence around the site of the new Visual and Performing Arts Center.
http://www.deanza.edu/euphrat/collaborations.html


























Above: Diatom test for visitor participatory component of banners. Visitors will decorate these cut off bottoms of plastic bottles with permanent markers. They will decorate them to look like diatoms. I have a large collection of these plastic bottles collected from a Guadalupe River clean up last weekend and from a Walk-a-Thon from Stevens Creek Elementary School in Cupertino. I have contacted a high school in Cupertino through its art department and they have agreed to collect plastic bags. I have also contacted an elementary school in Alum Rock and will be soon contacting a high school in Alum Rock regarding this project.