This is Art. Happening.

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.