Puddin'

This pudding was in our fridge since before we left for New York. It's on the scanner bed, up-side-down and holding strong.



"In My Dreams" video, antbody?

I think I'm gonna stick it back in the fridge.

. . . and some puppethead sketches


(I'm starting the bottom right one today for sure).

It's time to sit in the warmth of the house, in front of children's television, and sew, twist wire, sculpt mache pulp, gold-leaf, paint and insert broken white beads for eyes. My electric audience will be Sesamied, Berenstained, tubbied and Reading-Rainbowed.

A now, a preview of the Fall Line's fabrics:

Miniature tweads of the cool-violets-brown-and-purple persuasion combined with synthetic black furs of various textures.



Tonight I will, once again, climb up a stage full of people I've never played music with and summon blisters for the amusement of strangers.

How'd you like to slip your fingers into this little number?



Or do you prefer the multiple satisfaction of double-handed penetration?

We're driving to New York to hang a show today. Mjolk's work is part of a two person show called Pins and Needles.

Did you guess that she's the "Pins"?

The other half of the work belongs to Maggy Rozycki Hiltner, who does alot of hand-stitching.

We'll be back on Friday . . . blog amongst yoursleves.

I was gonna try and hold off another puppet post until I finished the next batch of heads (I've been working two at a time, taking down entire seasons of Desperate Housewives in one sitting). However, this one wee head is perplexing me.

If you recall the 9 x 9 grid of sketches at the last post's end, they all held as property a certain growth-like, facial feature that may be perceived as an insectual parasitic sense organ of sorts (in particular, I'm thinking of the lowest left-hand head in that grouping of drawings). In reality, quickly sketched ideas are less easily made tangible than one would expect. The abstraction of simple contour lines is often overlooked.

So here's where I'm stuck.

I sculpted this head, as planned, with the intent of fastening this eye-candy (all pun intended) to the side of his face.



It still needs to be coated with shininess and gloss, but this is pretty much what I had in mind. It goes over half the face, but I leave details like that off until the painting is finished because it makes for easier access to tricky, hard-to-reach spots.



He still has not received his eyes. It's my way of anesthetizing them until they are complete.

But anyway . . .

As much as I dig the weirdness of this little cobalt growth, I'm equally fond of the head with just the empty black patch where said object should be glued.



It has a charm and strangeness that may only be appealing because it's there and I didn't do it. It's there whether I like it or not and covering it up seems almost disrespectful. It real. It's what it looks like and I've seen it that way.

Blue Bunion of Psychedelic Psoriasis
or
Black Blotch of Septic Shadow?

Even a more alarming conundrum:

Will I ever photograph these guys outside the yellow-tinted light of my basement's fluorescent electric currents?

And now an obligatory napkin sketch featuring:

-the many-eyed
-a costume idea
-a $26/yard synthetic fur vest
-as-of-yet-unprocured buttons
-an ultra-absorbent texture
and
-about one minute of drawing time



The show goes up April 1st.

Really . . .

I've got until April to make a dozen hand puppets. We're going to New York to set up Missy's show for a week in late January, so I'm starting to feel a little pressed for time (That's more than one a week Math Wizards).

With all luck, they'll sell, so I can't really do famous characters or people. So it's all gotta be straight outta my head. They're turning out to be more abstract than usual which is a really good thing.

Carving teeth is easier than it looks. You shove a bunch of plastic-clay in the mouth-hole and then remove everything that is not puppet teeth.



Once all the carving and sculpting is done, I start dry-brushing the most absurdly thin layers of paint over the whole surface. The slowness is not just a means to achieve a certain texture. It's a method of energy transference. It's a way of trapping life and movement and attention within the head.



After about an hour of barely painting, the skin tone is set and the teeth are washed over with white and the eyes are set.





Lastly, he gets a gold tooth.



One head down, eleven to go. I'm gonna do all the bodies and sewing last.
These some sketches for the next one.