This is Art. Happening.

There is an increasing amount of scandals on drug use among athletes. I wasn’t really looking to single anyone out and it just so happened that when I was ready to do this project, Manny Ramirez got suspended for 50 games for drug use. I did a small project last year on Roger Clemens using about 1000 syringes. I really like the concept but didn’t have enough syringes to make a solid image so wanted to do it again on a bigger scale.
I planned for a 12*8 feet project with over 6000 syringes. Syringes proved really difficult to setup. I webcasted it over a week ago. After the piece was roughly made, I did touch ups here and there. Here’s the final video. Check out the image in detail.

The fly never stood a chance…I started this project a few weeks ago right before I got sick. Then ran outta flies and got sick so here I am posting this weeks later. So Obama swatted a fly during an interview on CNBC. Watch the swatting video here. It wouldn’t be so interesting of a story without PETA’s statements. Although pressed by the Media, PETA could’ve said no comment. Instead, they condemned Obama’s proud ninja moves in the murder of the fly!
So I went hunting for realistic fake flies from local party stores. It turned out to be harder than I thought as they don’t appear to be a popular item. I finally found some at a hobby store. I purchased all they had left which is about 500. So I planned to do this picture a bit smaller due to the lack of flies. Once I got started I didn’t have nearly enough. So I put the project on hold till I got flies. I ended up finding the wholesale company directly who is discontinuing these flies. Luckily they still had some left. I ended up with over 2600 flies. I flipped the flies onto their backs to make the image. Some of them I clipped of their wings so they can be closer together. First, I put the flies on their legs and realized the image wasn’t going to be detailed enough. So I flipped them around onto their backs. I even removed the wings on some so they can be closer together. The project went very smoothly and took only a few hours. Here’s the final video and final image.

In an effort to keep the momentum going on cranking stuff out, I finished a second rather lengthy project this week. This project stemmed from Timothy Geitner, US Secretary of Treasury, promised a strong dollar during a speech in China causing a burst in laughter from the audience. Also word on the street is that there will be a 2nd stimulus package coming out so all eyes on him pretty soon again. I used real dollar bills to make Geitner contrasting the last project of Madoff using fake money. I stacked the dollar bills representing all these things that give dollar value without securing it and see how strong the piece is. At the end I had to tighten the picture by pressing it from the top. Ironically, a bunch of money exploded out of the frame collapsing the piece by about 20%.
I’ve always wanted to try to use real money but it can get very expensive very quickly. I tried to do it in the most economical way and the total damage came out to be $545. The picture looks grittier as a result but way economical compared to other options.
I webcasted this project again to show in real time. It took a lot longer than I thought, almost 9hrs. It surprised me that some people stuck around the whole time! I’m pretty sure they were just as exhausted as me. I included a chat box on the bottom. It was good in that people can keep themselves entertained while viewing the project but bad because some spammed, which made it less of an experience for others. I’m debating whether I will keep this option. Anyway, click here to check out the video and click here to zoom in the photo. You have to make it small to see the whole picture better.

Finally posting something today after a month away from Art Happening. So much news and so much I wanted to do the last 2 weeks but was plagued by a terrible flu, one of the worst I’ve had in years. I actually had a project pretty much done right before I got sick but I ran out of material so decided to wait till I get more. Then I saw in the news that Bernie Madoff got sentenced the maximum years in prison. I’ve wanted to do something with money for a while now. I went to the asian grocery store and got 16 stacks of fake money used in ancestor worship ceremonies. It cost me $16 so it has to be worth more than Madoff’s fake money. Then I cut up all the money to get different shades of color to make a detailed image of Madoff. I did a webcam trial via my email list and showed the process in real time. I finally found a use for Twitter next to my webcam so I can answer people’s questions throughout the piece. I wasn’t completely satisfied with the functions on Twitter though. Overall it was pretty successful trial and I’d like to do that from time to time. The entire project took a few days of cutting up all the money and about 8hrs to make the piece. Then I spent all morning putting the video and the final picture together. Video here. Final picture here.
During my time away from Art Happening, I’ve come to realize that I may not put as much time into the videos but focus more on the art. That’s the part I enjoy doing the most.

It’s been hard getting into the grooves of Art Happening after coming back from a 50hr road trip. The lack of news added to the gloom, and there’s so much else I want to work on…Finally, this news about the 13yr old kid with Lymphoma grabbed my attention. The family refuses to get him chemo and radiation due to their faith in Nemenhah, where only natural remedies and prayers will treat illness. A judge intervened and ordered the child to receive treatment immediately. As I was finishing the video, the story got more interesting as the mother apparently fled with the son and now has an arrest order. We shall see what happens. I am drawn to news like this that surrounds social issues.

X-ray is always an interesting medium because I never know what I will get until it’s X-rayed. Plus, as an X-ray tech, I might be partial to it or enjoy having good access, hmm. In this case, I thought it was very fitting to irradiate a picture of this boy. Cutting the wood made a huge mess very quickly but was over with very quickly as well. If you watch the video here, you might see that I had a few moments of relaxation here and there. Editing and post the video has always been time consuming. In this case, it was no different. Sometimes, I wish I had more time to just create art and not spend so much time with everything else. However, the video has become part of my art. If only there was more time…

For the past week, out of 5 headlines on news websites, 4 are about Mexico. Check out the video here. Of course, the biggest focus has been on the swine flu. Lots of ideas bounced through my head some of them were just grotesque (I won’t even write them down). I ended up going with the idea of conveying the spread of the flu through pig stamps. Just trying to figure out how to price the stamps was quite the challenge because of the flux of their currency. Some stamps ranged from 5 to 4,000.

I had to do a fair amount of planning for this piece, piling in drawings and figuring out how best to meld them together. I must say I really enjoyed drawing it’s been a while. I always tend to be working with all these different mediums that I forget the enjoyment of graphite.

This piece makes me want to take on a really large mosaic, something to spend weeks on. Oo oo oo I’m so excited.

Hope you all dig. Here’s the final photo.

This was a completely different project than what I normally do. I looked forward to getting out of my lonely studio for a change. I think I almost got sick from human contact!
I wanted to be spontaneous. I made a few calls trying to see who knows who that I can talk to in Fargo/Moorhead area. Two days later, nothing was concrete but I drove down anyway just to see what will happen and was prepared to knock on doors if I had to. On the drive there, everything fell in place and before I knew it, I had a couple of really good contacts lined up. I didn’t have any expectations but was really pleasantly surprised to meet quiet a few people and have people so openly share their experiences.
This took place on April-8, about a week after the 112 year record breaking flood as people anticipated a 2nd major flood on the way by Easter. I got into Moorhead at about 11:45. A friend’s friend was in the middle of packing frantically preparing for the next flood. She happens to be right on the Red River. Her dike had over 8000 sandbags and it took over 2500 hours with 50 people at one point. The forecast of the flood level at that time was supposed to be 43ft, 2ft higher than the last one. She planned on adding even more bags. I took a little bit of spilled sand from her dike to make a portrait of her crossing her fingers. I wanted this project to end on hope. Click here to watch the video.
Next stop, Fargo, where I met with a friend’s parents who gave me a tour around Fargo and some of the hit areas. I saw a sign at where a golf course that is submerged in water said “Irrigated by the Red River”. HA! We also stopped by the convention center where all the hard labor of bagging sand starts. Never seen so many sandbags, ever!
My last stop was about 20minutes north of Fargo, out in the country where some folks had to take a boat to get out of their houses. Before coming here, I thought folks in the country have less help compared to the city. I realized right away that wasn’t the case. They work as a team and no one is left behind. We gathered around and everyone seemed to enjoy sharing their flood stories with us, as there have been a few over the years. The most emotional stuff came out when the camera was off. One couple got really choked up when they described the experience of almost losing their house. At the end, for as much trouble as these people have dealt through, their laughter dominated the night.

Watching closely this week to see what else is in the news, Kim Jong Il appeared everywhere. All of a sudden it dawned on me that I can make a quick fun project on him. Kinda hard to find fireworks this time of the year so after calling around, I found a shop in WI that had what I needed, firework snakes. Click here for the fire burning video.

After getting home at 6pm from X-ray, I was determined to start and finish this project tonight. I unwrapped all the snakes, which was probably the longest part of this project. I filled the trash can full of boxes and wraps. I had 2 different types of snakes, pythons and rattlers. The rattlers were colored so I didn’t have much use for them but they were free cuz it was buy 1 get 1 free. After the tedious unwrapping, I started placing the pellets onto my canvass. This went pretty quick and pain free. I had just enough black snakes to finish the outline of Kim. Then I filled in his hair and collars with paint. He finished in no time.
I had to think of a place to burn it. I ended up using my garage cuz I wanted to avoid as much wind as possible. I was a little apprehensive about the height of flame but had confidence that it would be ok. Kids, don’t try this at home! Something about burning is just too cool. I can’t say I wasn’t scared when the flames got high and there was smoke everywhere. Ok, I was shaking a bit as I was trying to hold my breath. As I was getting more concerned, the flames started to wind down. Whew! What was left is a really neat burned image of Kim Jung Il, along with some ashes. When I lifted it up, there was moisture underneath from the concrete that I didn’t expect to see. God, I love burning stuff! It is now 3am and I’m still writing this blog with excitement. Click here for the final photo.

I’ve wanted to do the Octomom since she first appeared in the news. The timing didn’t work out for me last time as I was traveling. I figured she would continue to stay in the news so I started collecting arms and legs from a local surplus store. I noticed that the arms and legs had been sitting in the store for months without being touched. Coincidentally when I started collecting them, another guy was also buying them up. I had to compete against the creepy guy who was apparently planning on putting these infant simulators back together and sell them online for $900 each…without the electronic parts. Yeah, good luck with that! He also said the dolls are anatomically correct. I called him creepy for that reason. It took me a few trips to the store but I ended up getting 342 legs and 184 arms. Check out the video here.

I liked the idea of painting a rosy background with white picket fence as this story was heartwarming at first. Then cover up the picket fence entirely with arms and legs. The music also changes to intensify the drama of raising 14 kids on welfare. I painted about 1/3 of them black and a few pink ones. I saved the rest of the painting until they were mounted. The painting part really sucked. The black required quite a few coats and painting hundreds of arms and legs became tedious. I couldn’t do it all in one sitting and had to keeping coming back to finish. Thank god I’m not afraid of dolls, whew!
There were moments when I was mounting a leg and the foot would wiggle, and I just wanted to tickle it. It was cute and creepy at the same time. Check out the final photo here.

Another video up this week, woo!
Cards are not the easiest things to use to build a “house”. I did a test to make sure it works. Then I realized I didn’t have enough cards so I went and got 6 more packs. The lady at the corner store said they just restocked cuz lots of kids buy cards during spring break. Then she looked like me….do I look like I’m 16?

The first part was to draw on the cards using a sharpie. I also used white paint for the white parts. Here goes the stacking. I was worried that it would tumble here and there but overall it went pretty well. For ending B, I really wanted to burn it but I couldn’t burn it inside so I tried to take it outside without it falling apart. I tested outside with a few cards, slightly windy but manageable. I’m guess the flame would be about 5ft tall, cool! Then I went back in to take it out. I don’t know why I thought I could move it without it collapsing! I moved it slightly and quite a few fell. It was clearly staying! The art aspect of this project is pretty short compared to how long it took to edit the video. It was an editing nightmare but I really like how it turned out.
Timing is very important with Art Happening project so the first thing I did was uploading it on Ireport.com. It got featured on CNN.com right away and I did a live interview with Chuck Roberts about it. This is my 2nd live interview with Chuck this year. It went a lot better than the last one.