Plans - Green Building/10b

Since our first site visit this was the location that I knew we had to do right away. I like the vertical surface, the green color, the overgrowth near the side of the building, and of course the view back to TV towers and the brick building. 

It's a building that's a part of a larger industrial complex behind Clipper Mill. We later learned it was called building 10b and houses a custom cabinet maker. This piece will be done in much the same way as the Tractor Building- using post-it's to construct a large botanical image this one however is hand drawn and based on a photograph of plumaria in a vintage Hawaiian flower guide.

The hardest part of constructing the map drawing was choosing the color scheme before I had gone to Staples to find out what post-its were available. I had to go based on information online, and while I found the colors I needed (and more!) they came packaged differently than I expected.

In this drawing I was trying to decide whether to use post-its or cut down copy paper on a guillotine. The drawing includes measurements for both.

The colors from the book are extra vivid. "Nature has produced many colors."

Christine's Sketchbook-June 30, 2009

Here's my to do list for the week. This is our week for shooting, so most of the little tasks actually involve big off site photo shoots. Expect indivigual posts on the shoots next week. 

Just for good measure a little sketchbook collage that really has nothing to do with this project that I made yesterday in between shoots.

Plans-Tractor Building

We knew right away that this building would be complicated to work on. Very little of it is accessible thanks to construction materials being stored on site and weeds that are growing along the edge of the building. However what all that stuff lacks in making the building accessible they make up for it in adding color to the site. The red of the brick is complimented nicely with the bright green of Baltimore's fast growing summer overgrowth and a few bits of random teal.

I'll only be able to access the part of the building that is near the staircase, which meant I needed to work small and bright. Since we'd be working vertically I decided to use post it notes- not that the stick-um will help much against brick and dirty glass. We'll be bringing adhesive reinforcements.

The space was so inaccessible that I needed to make the pattern flexible. I made 5 separate flowers that could go roughly into spaces I could estimate. There's room for give and take. This piece has two map drawings one that shows how to put the flowers together and another labeled photograph from the site.

Earlier this summer I had my mom send any old needlework books that featured botanical imagery, one of which had a terrific William Morris image that I was able to adapt the tiniest flowers for this piece.

Plans- Druid Hill Bench

Back in April this was the last site we picked like all our sites it's so much greener now. Terry likes this tree (although I think the leaves will blow in the wind and drive him a little crazy on the shoot!) and I like that I can connect the tree to the bench. The fact that there's really just two things to work with with this site other than the grass is forcing me to work more three dimensionally- which was something I had wanted to do going into the project.

I knew I wanted to connect the bench to the tree and work with streamers but it wasn't till I was actually in the store looking at the streamers that I knew exactly how this was going to work. 

I've always liked how at the party supply store everything is arranged by color. When you walk down the aisle you walk past row after row of endless stacks of cups, paper plates, curling ribbon, and paper streamers. I'm drawn to party supplies because I think that they rarely live up to the way they look at the store. They're supposed to bring such joy to a space but in reality white streamers can look just like skinny toilet paper.

I like how colors are arranged in the world of retail. Sweaters at the Gap, streamers at Party City, Fiestaware at Macy's- piles of little colors in order. I decided to use this color order that I think about and I'll be running a dense striped twisting gradient that tapers to a point from in the 30 feet from the bench to the tree. Below is my preparatory drawing even if it's missing the bench part.

Plans-Plaid Hill

With this piece we're planning to revisit the idea of working directly on the ground with copy paper. I like the technique but I this time Instead of constructing an image I wanted to work with an easily recognizable repeatable pattern. We'll be putting a simple plaid pattern made from three colors of copy paper onto the top of the hill. I like that the plaid will echo the vertical lines of the trees.

The hill is HUGE (well over 80 feet at the top) and a part of the Disc Golf course in Druid Hill Park.   Terry and I can't tackle this one alone, it's very big AND it's in a public place (people may very well want to play disc golf in the afternoon). We'll have three assistants joining us so we can cover more ground more quickly.

In order to secure the copy paper to the grass without it blowing away we'll be using thousands of golf tees. I like that when you're up close each sheet looks so warped and curvy but it's not something you can see from far away.

Here's the map drawing that shows one full repetition of the pattern. It's now laminated so it's more durable.

I pack all the supplies in durable reusable tote bags. When you do 6 shots in 4 days this is crucial. For this piece each bag holds a few reams of paper with pre-drilled holes, golf tees and big yogurt cups which we'll use so that all 5 of us putting this together can hold a bunch of golf tees at one. 

Plaid isn't a completely random pattern for me I work with a lot of plaid patterns in my drawings and sculpture. For be it's both a formal device and a connection to my maternal grandmother her Duncan tartan  pictured above. We used to get catalogs of all kinds of things you could get with your family tartan on them, kilts, shawls, coasters, ties, all kinds of stuff.  It was odd that the catalogue could be so personal. 

I'm teaching myself about how plaids interact I feel like people who really work with these things  probably know more and I'm discovering how they work by working with them. There's probably some sort of book out there about how to weave plaids that I should look at. When you're drawing plaid layers of transparent color interact in certain ways but when you're actually weaving things are hidden and revealed, you have to account for the warp and the weft, it's much different than making a drawing. 

When I was working out the pattern for the hill I had to think about how to show overlapping transparency without it really happening while using lots of the green grass as another colored element. This was a lot more challenging than I imagined in the first place and made this the hardest map drawing for me.

Christine's Studio- June 26th

First and foremost- we're ready to shoot! 

See all those little green post it notes on the flowchart? Those say ready. The hill doesn't have one yet because we're still trying to schedule assistants- otherwise-good to go. Expect more updates about our plans but also photos from the shoots next week! Everything has to be done on my end so I can head to Chicago for a good friend's wedding.

We're doing six shoots and in order to keep track of what stuff goes where I've been making lists in my sketchbook of the materials needed for each shoot and gathering them together ahead of time. In this picture I've just finished cutting lengths of string and making a Ziploc bag full of stuff to take to the Niagara Falls shoot first thing Monday morning. I'm all about organizing things in Ziploc freezer bags. I keep a big bag in my studio, especially when I'm working with mylar so my cats don't eat it.

I had to run to school to pick up this bag for one of the shoots. I bought it when I first came to Baltimore from some dollar store and it's super durable and has hauled supplies to almost every install I've been on since living here including this piece that started Terry and I's collaboration back in the day. 

I had used it to take a bunch of things to school and left it in the supply closet when cleaning up my classroom for "camp".

I realized after yesterday's errands that I needed more golf tees to pull off the hill piece. Last time I was only working with 300 sheets of paper. This time it's well over 1000. That means I'll need at least 2000 golf tees. I'm about 3/4 of the way there at this point.

Finally my Studio assistant was being a big help today here he is organizing my schedule and making sure supplies are in order.

Plans- Paper Chain

Back in April when Terry and I were location scouting we found this hunk of rusted metal with all these little pegs sprouting out of it. Both of us immediately wanted to work with it but realized that the interesting part was the rusty texture and in order to capture that we'd need to work on a scale that was radically different than our other more landscape based images.

 In the mean time in the part of my artistic life that isn't about this collaboration I'd been working in the ceramics studio on a ceramic paper chain. A quick glance around my studio and I came across a package of quilling paper that I'd bought because it was packaged so nicely- paper stripes wrapped in plastic. I realized I could make a tiny paper chain from this and this would allow us to capture that rusted metal texture AND bring to that discarded piece of who knows what a little party.

Christine's Sketchbook-June 26, 2009

Friday's end of week to-do list mostly little punch list stuff. I'm really wrapping up the stuff I can do without Terry. The drawing on the right was made on my porch relaxing with Mr. Tillman our new summer tradition.
This being the end of the first week and all I thought I'd post the to-do list all updated with it's little satisfying cross offs.

Christine's Studio- June 25th

Thursday was spent doing studio work outside the studio. First a run to Staples and Party City for returns and new supplies. Then a trip to Park School to use the Laminator and Drill Press.

Here's the laminator in action. Laminating the map drawings is key it makes them far more durable on site. The plastic protects them from dewy grass and general dirtyness and since the maps use grids to show how the image is put together we can basically cross of what's been done so we can keep track of where we're at while still keeping the integrity of the map. I tried  to make the maps really aesthetically beautiful while at the same time keeping them highly functional. Maybe we'd want to display these someday.

For the hill piece copy paper will be held on the grass in a plaid pattern with golf tees. Having holes ahead in the paper makes a big difference. Last time I did this by had because I only needed one ream of paper. This time I'm using 5 reams. Doing this by hand with a drill punch would probably not be wise for someone with tendonitis. Thanks to advice from my pal Kyle

I used the woodshop's drill press to drill 500 holes at a time.

 Sadly, a good hour of my day was spent stuck on 83. My usual thirteen minute drive took sixty. There was an accident on my off ramp that cleared up right as I reached it.

Christine's Sketchbook-June 25, 2009

Thursday's to-do list -lots of errands and little punch lists. Crossing each of these off is going to be very satisfying.