Surfboard Resin Applied to Food Wrapper Sculpture

I have begun to apply Everclear, a surfboard resin (with UV inhibitors) to the components of the Spring Thoughts sculpture. Man, is this stuff toxic smelling! I don't have a ventilated studio, but the driveway works well enough. The catalyst doesn't work in temperatures below 65 degrees and it is 66 outside so I had to work quickly in the sun. The main flower part I will coat with the resin tomorrow. The will be 38" x 42" and 1.25" deep and will be displayed against white fabric in a plexi glass box in the third floor elevator lobby of John Muir Hospital in Walnut Creek, California.

Spring Thoughts Sculpture; more process images

Central flower papered with origami paper and food wrappers as of 11/19/11

Leaves papered as of 11/19/11.

Earlier process photo.

Here are some updated process images of the Spring Thoughts sculpture. In these images, the buds and the stems and vine elements are mostly completed. I used Asian food wrappers (Chinese preserved fruit wrappers, Japanese paper chopstick wrappers, origami paper and Chinese olive wrappers.) The leaves and the main central flower are the next elements that will be worked on tonight. I am very happy to be creating art for hospitals again and creating art for neonatal and pediatric installations is particularly rewarding. This piece will be 38" x 42" x 1.25". Previous blog on this piece is at this posting. I will be experimenting with UV resistant surfboard resin as the final glaze.

Spring Thoughts Sculpture

I am in the process of creating a 38" x 42" floral sculpture commission for a hospital in the San Francisco Bay Area. I am working with Roundtree Visuals on this project. The piece will be completed and delivered by December 1st, 2011 for framing and installation.

Step 2: The original sketch is printed at 100% scale and taped to cardboard. Wire is twisted with an electrician's  wire twisting tool and then it is formed to follow the sketch lines on the paper. Holes are punched through the cardboard  and the wire is tied down in place on the template.

Step 3: The beginnings of the leaves, stems and vine elements.

Step 4: Most of twisted wire form is completed. I am beginning to paper the form.

Step 5: Here is the sculpture, Spring Thoughts, as the wire form is beginnings to be covered with a base papering. I am using Chinese preserved fruit wrappers and will be adding fragments of other papers and food wrappers before I glaze with a two part epoxy glaze from Tap Plastics.It is difficult to see the scale here, but this piece is 38" x 42" large and 1.25" in depth.

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.

High School Recycled Materails workshop

I conducted two days of workshops at Lynnbrook High School in Cupertino last week. These workshops were in the sculpture classes of Charlotte Kruk, an amazing teacher and artist. She and I are kindred spirits as we both use recycled food wrappers in our art and when we met we were both working on matador jackets (she has since completed hers and I am still working on mine). Here is her artist site: http://www.kruktart.com/ Anyway, I had a blast in her seven classes.

Charlotte had asked the students to bring in their own recycled wrappers, but being a seasoned teacher, knew that many would forget so she bought big bags of Dum Dum lollypops. I also brought in some of my manga comics, Asian food wrappers and a big container full of produce netting (the colorful mesh bags onions come in).

It was a dramatic and fun opener to the project when Charlotte passed out the candy while insisting that not a single wrapper could go into the trash cans. Charlotte had also created these wonderful floral centerpieces for each work table. They were made of real and silk flowers. I was so impressed by her enthusiasm and creative set up. I will certainly take a lot of cues from her in my future workshops. She was just great.

I started the workshop with a 15 minute Powerpoint presentation about the inspiration for my work and the step-by-step process I use. Then I demonstrated how I shape and twist the wire to create a flower and attach the paper. My step-by-step board helped some students when I was at other tables assisting. At first I was struck by the students' attentiveness and then realized that they were quietly content because of the tasty lollypops in all their mouths! Some determined boys ate nine or so lollypops for the wrappers and weren't feeling so good. I told them that was truly suffering for your art!









































Below: Wire orchid covered in chocolate wrapper. The student really looked at the flower form.
































Anime flower below.































It was fascinating to see the different creations. Many students made cleverly original flowers that I never would have dreamed up, like this one below. Very inspiring.
















































Another idea Charlotte had that I thought was great was to deconstruct some of the silk orchid flowers and place them on each work table. This helped the students look with a clearer eye at the different forms and layers of the flowers. I will be going back on Thursday to take pictures of the completed projects. This was a really fun experience and I hope to do more workshops like these in the future.

Ginko Leaf Tapestry

I have been working two tapestries at once for the de Young Museum residency. I plan on making eight tapestries in total.
Here is the Ginko Leaf tapestry in progress. The leaves will come off and become hats. The green silk is from Colleen Quen. The wrappers on the ginko leaves are Chinese preserved plum wrappers and Japanese Milky Candy wrappers. I will be finishing off the hats with green silk on the underside and am making decorative Chinese knots to add to the hats at the base of the stem.
The leaves here are not in their final position.

Cocktail Hats

I have started creating some new over the top cocktail hats. Here is one that I will incorporate into my Artist in Residence exhibit at the de Young Museum in December as well as use in the fashion show I will be having there with Colleen Quen in January 2009 for the opening of their Friday Night events. This butterfly hat was created with wire, Chinese Chan Pui Mui wrappers, silk remnants from Colleen Quen, crystals, pearls, and mini shoyu bottles.



















Detail of Butterfly Cocktail hat















Emily wanted to get into the pictures, too! Next time maybe I'll let her wear one, but I was in a rush to get this piece documented and move onto my tapestry pieces.

Palo Alto Library Wire Insects Workshop Day 2

On Wednesday the children came back to the second workshop day to complete their wire insects and cover them with their handmade paper created on Monday.

(Completed insect below)















The papers came out nicely. Here are some samples.
























It was interesting to see the very different wire forms the students created. Each insect had its own personality.






































































One student also made a flower that was really wonderful as just a wire form.

























































My little helpers! My kids were really great fun and they helped carry my supplies and kept occupied during my teaching. They even tried out creating their own craft objects with wire and papers and clay.

Neuron Kimono Completed

I completed the Neuron Kimono yesterday and had it photographed professionally today. My photographer for my sculptures is George Young in Palo Alto. I am so lucky to be able to document my work with such a great photographer. I love how he lights my sculptures and having my work photographed professional always feels like the last step in completing a piece for me. Now I am ready to prepare it for shipping out to L'Attitude Gallery.

I will be creating the box to ship the piece in this week. I need to construct the boxes for shipping as well as create assembly instructions; the piece breaks apart in half and the large blue neuron elements are snapped on with clothing snaps. The final dimensions of the piece are 3'11" wide x 5'8" tall (including pole) x 3.5" deep. Media: magnet wire, silk, waste canvas, Japanese and Chinese food wrappers, Japanese manga comics, kozo paper, plastic sushi grass, plastic sushi garnish flowers, pearls, costume jewelery, and produce netting. I try to use as much recycled materials as possible.

I am much happier with the wire twisting on this piece than on my past works. In the past I have used manual electrician wire twisters to twist my long lengths of wire. For this piece, I used a drill to twist the wire and it looks so much more consistent. This was suggested to me by an art critique group I am in. I cannot emphasis enough how beneficial it is to be in a critique group. It really has helped me focus on pushing my art to a more refined construction.

Photo by George R. Young























Detail image: