Base14

I can’t help it, I have to give in to my feminine instincts every once in a while. So in honor of the holiday that celebrates everything girly and eeewy gewy cutesy in this world, I give you the ‘kissy kiss’ necklace. That’s right! What is more absolutely precious than these two little cherubicly plump figures smooching on a necklace? (Except for maybe this.) Either way, there’s no debate about it. This one’s a keeper.

All the charms were handmade and hand-painted by yours truly, as per usual. You might be asking, “Where can I buy it?” And your answer is: You can buy it in a beautiful dream world where I have enough time to mass produce these gorgeous pieces instead of memorizing the differences between various types of togas.

There is something so absolutely charming about textiles. They seem the have endless possibilities and yet their tactile qualities make them so easy to relate to and enjoy. Yet as much as I admire the art form, I still have a lot to learn.

My most recent piece is an attempt to further familiarize myself with applique and embroidery. I have recently been fascinated with topography so I based this piece off of aerial views of Indiana. I hand dyed all of the fabrics to achieve color consistency and pattern diversity. I attempted to build up multiple layers through the combination of applique and reverse applique techniques. I accented the piece with charming emroidery stitches that reminisce of a sweet and simple rural life. (See closeup)

If you want something done right sometimes you don’t (necessarily) have to do it yourself. Here at Base14 we are very luckily acquainted with a skilled craftsman who can turn all of our furniture dreams into a reality. John Kupferer (a family affair) specializes in one of a kind pieces. His work was “green” long before it became trendy, using antique and reclaimed wood whenever possible. The coffee table and futon below are my most personally beloved pieces (especially since I fleshed out the original designs.) Also pictured is the ingenious book/staircase that was designed for me my freshman year of college.

These are just a few of the pieces from this under-appreciated craftsman. Needless to say, his endless patience with my many crazy furniture ideas and his skill in turning my cardboard models and sparse dimensional diagrams into beautiful, functional pieces of furniture continues to amaze me.

Not to mention the fact that they all dissasemble for easy moving.

So, I bet you’ve been wondering why it’s been a while since my last post. The reason is because I’ve been working non-stop on this new series of handmade silk scarves. Each pattern is hand drawn through a gutta resist dye process. The color is then painstakingly painted on using a liquid dye. (The red scarf alone took over six hours to add color to.) This process is followed up with steaming, rinsing and finalizing.

The series was created for a Donald Hall exhibit that will open at Purdue next Thursday, November 5th. The scarves are in response to the line “beautiful terrible sentences unuttered” from his poem ‘Without.’ Like many, I know all too well what it feels like to lose a loved one to cancer. This series of scarves follows my reaction to Hall’s poem as I personally related it to recent events in my life.  Each one travels deeper into my interpretation.

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Last night was SCADanimate [skuh-dan-uh-meyt] or however you pronounce it… and it was awesome! Duck ♥ Teslacoil screened alongside many other wonderful student films. The fun was kicked up a few notches with Jason Maurer’s call to department head Jeremy Mooreshead, who was in Greece as the keynote speaker for the Animasyros 2.0 International Animation Festival & Forum, where it was about 2:30 in the morning. But the real highlight of the evening was the SCADanimate cake created by SCAD Animation alumnus and professional cake designer Ashlee Perkins. I personally was elated to see a sucrose recreation of Duck at center stage. We ate the cake, but unlike the Duck cookies earlier this year, I’m keeping the Duck.

Oh, and if anyone is in Northern California today, Duck ♥ Teslacoil is showing at 1pm at the Galaxy Theatre in Riverbank, CA as part of the California International Animation Festival.

As an artist, I experience every now and then a blissful moment when my craft sees eye to eye with tasks in my daily life. One of my favorite instances is when I find myself suddenly faced with an event or holiday. I whip out the paper and my X-Acto and go to town exploring new card styles. Only in the past few months did I think to start photographing them before shipping them off across the country. As you can see, I’ve spent some time exploring cutouts. (Having already spent years making illustrated cards.)

Recently, I am moving into the 3D realm. After the work I did on Overlooked, I want to make my pieces more interactive with the viewer. The idea is that if the viewer must make a contribution to the piece then he/she will be more personally connected to it. This latest piece (my first attempt at a card of this format) is strong in concept but needs a lot more work to make it functionally strong and visually attractive. But what’s more fun than having room for improvement?

Next for Base14 cards? Well, they might not be made of paper at all.

Ironically, I have ‘overlooked’ writing a post about this recent piece. Despite the fact that I completed it for the end of Spring semester, I still think it merits a post. ‘Overlooked’ was intended to be my final project for Drawing II, but I got a little carried away and it quickly became much more work than the project specifications (or time limit) were designed around. The theme of the piece easily lended itself to a notebook which also fit with the eclectic art mix my brain was begging to create. (The pictures below show a mere sampling of the pages in the notebook.)

I have a personal fascination with the idea of what happens to pennies that are tails side up. In our society, pennies have no perceived value; we feel free to take or leave a penny without thought. This notebook is a study of things that are often overlooked, with an underlying feeling of deep personalization given to each page. I brought in old photographs and materials to reference what is forgotten in time, and I used transparency and layouts that reference the physical process of looking (or overlooking.) By incorporating some interactive elements, my goal is to force the viewer to give personal input to the piece, making it harder to ignore or forget.

Unfortunately, effect is lost without the physical interaction with the materials. A lot of time was put into materials experimentaion. I wanted to explore materials that are often overlooked as art media, and use them in unexpected ways. Some examples are tissue paper and ink (manipulated and heated in different ways to create a range of textures) sandpaper, and a U.S. map that folds out of the book.