For the Love of Food!

This started as an exhibit at Cedar Crest College last year. We've since then added to it and will be showing at the Arts Center in Hillsboro in September.

So, to our imaginary dining table set for four, I'm adding:



Food supplements or the variety of drugs that many of us have to take with our meals? I'll leave that to your imagination.

These are wooden plugs with about 15 coats of gesso that's been sanded and then polished with a wet rag. I'm going with the version without the cut line in the middle. The cut lines were incredibly time consuming to make, and I didn't think added too much to the effect.

Some real peach pits that I've cleaned and dried. They'll be on the table too:



There are other objects—reading materials, of course, and reading implements. Anne, Diane and Helen will also be adding their own things.

Our 4 place settings that we all made will also be on the 'table,' of course, along with a variety of other items that tend to pile up on our dining room tables.

Click the tag Critique group collaboration to see the making of my place setting, a game board with blueberry game pieces (those have been a great hit).

And now for something from the garden, a couple of days ago:

It's sort of done

The final bits and pieces to Superfoodland!: the scorecards, the napkin, the 2 decks of cards, the fortunes, and the rule book.



I wanted the fortunes to resemble chocolate squares, and I think they look ok, but they're way too light (I made them with archival foamcore). So I'll have to redo those with mat boards when this all comes back from Cedar Crest. I had been saving real chocolate foil wrappers to wrap the fortunes with, but I couldn't clean all the chocolate off them. And guess what?! Special Collections always seem to have that no-food rule, so I had to give up on the chocolate foils and use fresh aluminum foils instead.

There are so many little bits & pieces to this game. I hope I didn't forget anything. I did remember to include the die in the package...

You can see the game board here, the glass & bowls here (although I'm actually using smaller glass bowls that Helen lent me), and the utensils and blueberries here. All of those items shipped out about 10 days ago.

And of course I did forget something—I was supposed to make a CD of about 10 images for the talk that Anne's giving. So it's another trip to Anne's tomorrow before she takes off for PA.

A productive week

My cohorts (Anne, Helen, and Diane) and I went up to Seattle for a couple of days. It was a whirlwind trip of visiting a binder, an artist, an antiquarian/rare books dealer, art galleries, the SAM's Sculpture Park, and the UW Special Collections. Wow, I can't believe we fit all that into 2 days, and that included driving up and back.

Visits to the binder and the UW Special Collections were just overwhelming, in a good way. There were SO MANY amazing books to absorb. Most of which will soon slip my memory, I know, but it was still a pretty amazing experience. The binder we visited keeps a copy of each book she has worked on, and has an incredible collection of books, some by pretty famous artists. What a gig!

And some good news—the UW Special Collections bought a copy of each of the books I took up to show, that includes one each of the Relay Replay books, Calypso, and S/N. And even more good news—I heard from Vamp & Tramp that they've sold 6 copies of Martha, which means Martha is now sold out (other than the 3 copies I'm keeping for myself). I'm both very happy & excited, but also wondering if that means I underpriced the book? Heck, pricing is an impossible task.

I was pretty out of it the day after we got back from Seattle, I think it just took me a whole day to decompress, there was so much to absorb. I did manage to make it to the Clemens-Tobias Lange talk at 23 Sandy—fabulous books, and even more inspiring, he does all the prints with photopolymer plates. And since I've been talking about getting a baby etching press and learning how to use solarplates (I'm pretty sure this is the same as photopolymer plates), I now have much to look forward to and learn.

And on finishing Superfoodland!

The backs of the cards:



The Fortunes:



The Fortunes are supposed to look like little chocolate squares. I printed on both the foil and paper, just in case the foil doesn't stick.

I'm definitely getting there. I've printed the booklet cover, too. I'm pretty close to finishing the rule book. I do need to print up the scorecards, but I think I'll inkjet those. So tomorrow, I laminate & trim the cards, add the '!' to the embroidered napkin, pack (and don't forget the die for the game!), and deliver the package to Anne in the evening.

I'm gonna make it!

This is the part that absolutely had to be done today, and I got it done. These are the faces of the cards to go with Superfoodland!, and because they're being printed over acrylic, it will take them days to dry. The backs of the cards and the 'fortune chips' (still haven't come up with a better name) can be printed after I get back from Seattle, that's not a problem.

I'm printing 4 of each card. Here one of the Shark's Fin cards is being lined up under the transparency. I'm using a screen that had been partially used for Marion, one of the Relay Replay books from last year:



All 15 cards (4 copies each) lined up on the drying boards:



Details of some of the cards:



And although I am getting this done just in time (finished at 10:45pm tonight), I haven't been avoiding it, not exactly. I've just had a bunch of other things that needed to get done too, and this actually required a lot of research time; and I did know I had until today to do this. Looking back at my timesheet, I've been clocking in at 45 hours a week since Jan 1 this year. Not too shabby!

OK, now I better go pack up my books for my Seattle trip tomorrow. Since they're one big reason why I'm going, wouldn't want to forget those.

Remember the whole reason why I bought the airbrush, way back when?

So that was part 1, and here we now have parts 2, 3a, and 3b:



And all that is still required is me doing the actual work of putting together the test strips and airbrushing them.

And of course, in my typical style, I have put the cart before the horse, having already (almost) completed my "Prosperity Soup" piece that I'm trading with Artist X, and just trusting/assuming that I'll find a workable solution to mount my gouache pieces on board without glass.

So the airbrush and the items you see here are all part of the experiment that is yet to come. I have 3 sheets of paper, 2 mounted on board (1 using pva and another using gel medium). I will paint them up with test squares of different colors and layer combinations. I will leave the unmounted as is, airbrush 1 mounted piece with the GAC 500+airbrush extender, and airbrush the 2nd mounted piece with the Liquitex Gloss Medium.

Turns out, no local art supplies stores carried GAC 500 (I wonder why), so I had to order it. And now I have all the pieces to the puzzle, I just need to finish 3 website updates, complete the gocco printing part of Superfoodland!, and work on my response to Artist X's piece...I'm figuring the first week of March I'll be able to try my new airbrush!

And speaking of Superfoodland!

I should've been finished with printing the text part already, and here I am, having just finished the research. Which means I still have to put together the actual text that will go on the cards and then print them. I wonder how much I'll get done tomorrow? Tuesday and Wednesday, I'm heading up to Seattle with my art cohorts to visit the library, some galleries, a book dealer, and some museums, so no printing then. And Anne's supposed to take them with her when she leaves to install the show on...the 21st, I think? Ack!

Website updates

Portland Open Studios homepage has the new 2009 application information up. I still have more changes to make (Powell's partner program link, Amazon partner program link), and I'm having a hard time deciding how to go about cramming all those things in on the front page.

Finally, something to show

As always, it's the last minute push to get something done right before the deadline, and in this case, it's the game board, which I was supposed to have shipped out this morning. As you can tell, I didn't make it. But it will ship out tomorrow, which will still get there in plenty of time, so I'm not too worried.

However, I'm just not that happy with it:



And here's a detail of one of the 6 eyes:



I am going to ship it out as is though, since I'm not coming up with solutions to my problems. I'll probably work on it some more when it comes back.

I was up until 2:30am last night trying to finish it, but didn't make it. Finally finished it tonight. That's just the board part. I still have to gocco up the 6 sets of cards that go on the board and also the 4 'fortunes'. Those Anne can take with her, so I have another 10 days to complete those.

Studio remodel, phase I complete!

In the morning, after the rug was removed:



In the evening, after the floor went in:



Several people have been surprised that I chose such a dark color. Well, most light color laminate or wood floors tend to be yellowy, and I'm just not that crazy about a yellow floor. Another corner of the room:



There were a few unexpected hiccups—many of the Pergo boards had slight defects in them! Ugh. I'm not happy about that. So there are 3 boxes of the boards that have been set aside. I'll have to see if I can exchange them. But there's no guarantee that, even if there are more boxes available for me to exchange, they won't have similar defects. Ugh again. I guess I can at least console myself that I did not pay a whole lot for them.

While the floor was being installed, I worked on the painting that I'll be trading with Artist X on Thursday. It's not going so well, and that's all I have to say about it.

Helen came over after dinner and we worked on the banner for the Food Confessional, this is for the Cedar Crest show. At least that's going pretty well. I'll need to get back to the game board really soon now.

Look at this mess

Tomorrow, the floor is going in in the 'new' half, so all the furniture is now in the old half (and the bathroom too):



And here's the big empty room where the kitty can spread out:



Fortunately, I can still find my way to the table where I'm working on my collaboration with Artist X, who shall remain nameless for now, as requested; and also as requested, no images of work in progress. This is important, being able to get to the table, because I hope to be working on it all day tomorrow while the guy's putting in the new floor.

And on the Cedar Crest show—I've been trying to figure out what containers to use to hold the blueberry chips. Finally decided that they have to be clear glass as to not obstruct the painted blueberries. I searched around on ebay for a bit but didn't see just the right things, so I checked out Value Village this afternoon (a thrift shop). And wouldn't you know it, I found 4 little glass cups and a drink 'thingie' (I don't think it's a wine glass, but I don't know what it is).

The 4 little glass cups are kind of in the way of the utensils, so maybe I won't set them on the board itself but rather put them on the sides. No, the board is not finished yet, but I have to finish the painting to trade with Artist X by Thursday, so the game board is on hold until I get the painting done.

Layers & layers of paint

Just a couple of images tonight. It's been a busy 3 days; I'm making steady progress, although very slowly, on Superfoodland! The colors are finally starting to come together in a candyland sort of a way. Anyhow, I have to be up in another 6 hours so that I can get out to Hillsboro to de-install Intersect/Parallel by 10am, so not much documentation to go along with the photos. But I'm probably not going to make it on time anyhow.



I'm putting the pigments on in very thin layers, starting with darker colors underneath and then sanding, and building up to the lighter colors on top. In the image, you just see the flat colors, but there's really more depth to the colors in real life.

Superfoodland! Take 1

First thing first...Happy Chinese New Year of the Ox!

OK, it took me most of Friday to put 4 coats of gesso on the board, letting it dry between each coat, and then sanding it down. Of course, I'm doing other things in between, various Portland Open Studios related stuff (insurance, board stuff).

Then sadly, due to the dwindling gocco supplies, Saturday was the last Advanced Gocco class at IPRC. Between walking to the transit center, bussing in, teaching, and then doing the reverse commute, I was on my feet for about 7 and half hours. I was pretty pooped by the time I got home. And that was pretty much all that I managed on Saturday.

But today! Hah! Got a lot accomplished. Packed up boxes of books to go to Abecedarian and Vamp & Tramp, and actually managed to get started painting Superfoodland! (Yes, the '!' is now part of the title, per Gretchin's insistence upon it...)

Here it is with 3 coats of ocher on it, and I've penciled in the 'paths' and different locations where different things happen. It's a bit simplified from when I first wrote up the rules (feedback I got from the group was that it was too complicated). Here it is set up with the utensils:



And here's a detail with the penciled in paths:



It's hard to see in these pictures, but that's ok...the finished thing will look nothing like this anyhow. Probably most of the ocher won't show after I'm finished, except for a very thin line along the sides, which you can't see because I've taped it up in these photos.

The blueberry chips will go into a 'bowl' in the middle. I haven't figured out the construction of the bowl yet. Each gamer's won blueberry chips will go into smaller bowls along the sides. Again, don't know how I'll make those yet.

As I was looking at my calendar for the next couple of weeks, I noticed that it said 'installation' on Feb 3. Panic! I had no idea what show I was installing on that day! My brain raced, and for a few seconds, I really panicked. Then I remembered—the floor was being installed that day...

Superfoodland!

That's the title for the game, by way of Helen. I couldn't come up with anything myself, but when she said Superfoodland, I knew that was it! It says what it's about, but in a la-la land kind of a way.

We made good progress today on For the Love of Food. And I have another early morning tomorrow—I'm heading out to The Dalles to visit the Oregon Veterans Home to see about doing a Relay Replay project there.

Whatever happened to the idea that artists sit around drinking and smoking until 3am and then sleep until 1pm? For weeks and weeks now (months), I've had meetings at 8:30am more often then not, sometimes for days in a row too. Pretty soon, I'll have to declare myself a morning person.

Heard from Vamp & Tramp tonight—they sold a set of the Relay Replay books. Yay! They're going really quickly.

I have the floor installer scheduled for Feb 3. Originally, they wanted to do it this Friday (turns out, the Pergo just needs to acclimate for 48 hours), but with so many different things going on, I just couldn't lose a day to the studio being in chaos, not to mention I'll have to move all the furniture before and after. So Feb it is.

A wee bit more information about this game piece

OK, so it's clear that not everyone can read my mind, so maybe a bit more information would be good before I proceed—

The game is part of an installation called For the Love of Food that I'm doing with 3 other artists—Helen Hiebert, Diane Jacobs, and Anne Greenwood. It will be shown at Cedar Crest College in PA in March.

There are two parts to the installation. There will be a Food Confessional set up with a video camera and 4 masks (rat, cat, horse, pig). Gallery visitors will be invited to don a mask and talk about their relationship with food in front of the video camera. The four of us have already 'primed' this portion of the installation by taping our food confessions, and that will loop on a monitor/projector in the gallery. I, of course, did my confession as The Rat. And I talked about the different ways that I cheat on my diabetic diet.

The 2nd part is a dinning room table, set up with 4 table settings, one from each of us. We're each doing very different things, but mine will be the game. Here's the portion of the artists statement about my piece: "Shu-Ju made a game that looks at eating trends and highlights the consequences of the consumer's enthusiasm to embrace a new super food and devour it at every opportunity, disturbing the delicate balance of sustainability."

Of the 15 'superfoods' in the game, quite a few are pretty benign, things like broccoli & walnuts. But then you get into things like coffee/soy/chocolate/banana/tiger penis/shark's fin, the damages start to add up. Although you only land in 'jail' if you draw a tiger's penis or shark's fin card, some of the others will land you in a 'quandary.'

Anyhow, I don't have the game board done yet (which is good, because as I was cleaning today, I found something that I had saved from an issue of Natural History years ago that made everything click into place). I've painted the faces of the cards, but have yet to write or print the text. I printed the first layer of the backs of the cards today; although I'm not at all happy with the colors I chose—I wanted bright childlike colors, but I think I went overboard and they look rather garish. Now I'll have to fix that.

And I'm supposed to come up with a title for my game before 9am tomorrow morning.

About the studio remodel

Oh happy day! (Besides the fact that it's inauguration day, that is.) I picked up the flooring today. Of course, by the time they nickel and dime you on everything, it's really more than the advertised fee which they so liberally post on every flat surface available in the store. But it's actually still very reasonable, and frankly, I was a little concerned that their advertised installation fee was so much lower than the next bid, so now I can worry a little bit less.

The flooring needs to sit in situ for a week before they can install. At this point though, I think I'll put off the installation until after my class on the 31st. I've got plenty of things going on through the rest of the month, I don't need to spend another day moving furniture around.

And talking about cleaning...

More happy news! Remember that I was bemoaning having lost a beloved pendent my American dad brought back for me from Iran? I found it today! Yay! I had taken it to RSM when I first started the project with the seniors, as an example of personal items that they can use to create images from. So today, when I was cleaning, I finally unpacked all that stuff, and there it was!

And in there, I also found this photo:



The artist as a 3 year old who did not appreciate having her photos taken, not even for her birthday. (I don't think I ever smiled for a photo until I was 17.) I still remember that dress, too. I did not like it. It was scratchy and it did not breathe in that hot humid weather in Taiwan. Yuck.

Shark's fin, tiger penis, ... and yogurt

Oh my!

So I had grandiose plans yesterday that I could finish painting and gocco the backsides today. Well, at least I finished the painting part today. But that wasn't so difficult really, I'm amazed that it took so long.

So the 15 superfoods in my game are: banana, coffee, chocolate, walnuts, broccoli, avocado, blue green algae, soy, pomegranate, salmon, tiger's penis, shark's fin, yogurt, acai berries, green tea.

[A quick note, Tuesday morning: I'm not personally endorsing these as 'superfoods'. The game is about something quite the opposite—the game cards will detail the problems with many of these items, their environmental impact, the harvesting methods, the declining nutritional values, transportation, labor, etc. Of course, you don't have a way of knowing this, because it's all in my head and I haven't talked about it. But I don't want you all to think that I endorse people eating shark's fin or tiger's penises...]

I'm making 4 sets, so that's 60 little tiny painted cards (the game requires 2 sets, so I'm making double, in case something goes wrong, or they get lost, or whatever). They're not illustrated, just color-coded to indicate the food item. There will be text on the faces of the cards. So here are the cards representing tiger's penis, shark's fin, yogurt, and acai berries. I have yet to print the text...I've yet to WRITE the text, actually.



With the exception of the yogurt, which only had 2 coats of white over 2 coats of gesso, all the other cards had 4-6 coats of colors on top of 2 coats of gesso, which explains why they took so long, I suppose.

Banana, avocado, broccoli...

I didn't quite get to the gocco part as I had planned, but I did paint the faces of more than half of the game cards. There are 30 cards in the game, and I'm making 2 sets. They won't be illustrated, as there will be a lot of text that will pretty much use up all the real estate on each card, but I'm 'color-coding' them. For example, the banana cards are yellow and brown, etc.

I was hoping to finish painting the faces tonight, but now I'm running out of steam...

Getting on with the Cedar Crest show

Friday, we all had our masks done and the videographer came by...to capture our Food Confessions, but of course. So I made my Food Confession, a true confession, I'll have you know. Never before told to anyone else! And now captured on digital video for all posterity, and soon to be made public.

And my rat is now sporting a manly stud in the ear.



And today, I finally started to prep the cards for the game board. I'm using BFK, probably 2 layers laminated together, 1 side painted and the other side gocco'ed. I've gesso'ed and sanded the side to be painted. Tomorrow, the base coat and gocco the other side.

I'm quickly running out of time in January to finish my commitments. I probably shouldn't have taken on the studio remodeling this month, but 70% off was very hard to resist. I have yet to start on my piece that I'll be trading with Artist X come Feb 1. And all the while we're getting ready to start the application process for Portland Open Studios, so lots of work there to be done too.

Some most excellent & crazy daze

OK, the wall is finished. I'd go and take a picture, except that would disturb the kitty on my lap, and we wouldn't want that!

The floor guy was here today to measure. I hope to hear from Lowe's tomorrow regarding availability of the flooring I want.

But most of the excitement today & yesterday was actually generated from the class that Helen Hiebert and I decided to do together. We're doing a 2 session class, session 1: make paper with Helen, and session 2: gocco print with me on the handmade paper.

Well, the class must've really hit a spot, because we filled up the class in 24 hours. Plus I had so many email inquires about the class. I think we'll have to get it on our schedule and do it on a regular basis.

And Alicia Bailey of Abecedarian Gallery has been hard at work selling my books left and right, cats and dogs! She's sold a copy each of all the Relay Replay books, and today sold 2 smaller books.

On the down side—heard from Powell's that they're going to hold out on the other books. But I'm hopeful that they'll eventually want to pick them up when the economy is better. I'll just have to remember to stay connected.

But hey, so far, this marketing stuff has been going REALLY well, so my whatever-hormone-it-is (you know, the stuff that makes you feel good, I guess) is getting rather a lot of stimulation! Hopefully, that all works its magic in its own way and makes me keep at it!

On other fronts, the Cedar Crest show has been getting the short end of my time lately, but I (almost) finished my mask today. I'm just missing some whiskers:



But, of course, I'd be a rat!

Two more days of appointments

Lets see, yesterday was my appointment to see the rare books buyer at Powell's Books (yes, they have one, and not only that, they buy artist's books in addition to antiquarian books). Due to the current economic situation (and we all know about that!), he has to get approval for everything over $100, but he bought everything that was under $100! And wrote me a check right then and there! That was pretty amazing. I should hear in a few days whether he got approval for the rest or not. So I was happy with that.

Since I've been SO good about doing my marketing—sending stuff out to dealers and making an attempt to sell work—I had to spend the afternoon keeping up with the documentation end of things.

Then today, met with my critique group to cut out our masks (mine is a rat, but of course). This is part of the installation going to Cedar Crest College.

Then, drum roll please...the guy that's going to knock out the wall between my studio and studio annex came this afternoon!

I should have an estimate in a few days, and then it shall get exciting!

Some of us are a little slow

This morning, I came out of the bedroom and looked out the dining room window and thought, "gosh, I never noticed before how the neighbor's driveway looked so bright white in the morning light."

I took another few steps and thought, "wow gosh, even the street looks bright white in this light..."

Then it dawned on me, It Snowed Again! And we had a couple of inches. Just in time for our critique group meeting, again! But we forged on and met for a few hours. Got/gave feed back for each other's individual place settings, got some good feedback on my game (although I have to admit, when I got home, I was "uh oh, what did everyone say again?") Anyhow, hopefully, we'll have a chance to play the game before I finalize everything.

We also came to some consensus on the masks; and I wrote the first draft for the show statement.

On other fronts—I went ahead and uploaded the class description (the paper-making + print gocco class that Helen and I are teaching) to my web site already, under the Classes page.

Better get cracking on that game board...

Yes, now that's it's January, I best get going on this. We need to ship out Feb 1. So here I have a mockup of the board with some of the positions drawn in. There are 7 decks of cards to draw from, 3 decks of Market cards, 3 decks of Eatery cards, and 1 deck of Circumstance cards. Except I had to spell it 'EATFRY' since I had only 1 'E' and I wanted to stamp all 6 letters at the same time; and 'Sircum stance' since I only have 1 'c'...well, you get the picture.



Even though I hadn't been working on my game, I have been working on other projects. Helen and I are planning a combined workshop—participants make paper with her one weekend then gocco on the handmade paper with me the next. We hope it will be a smashing success!

And I've also been writing down project plans and such for 2009, reading about xhtml, and I admit it, goofing off too. I think it was during one of my goofing off periods that I suddenly realized what else I can do with sculpey. I did this book a few years back—



Those are rose thorns attached to the book cover. I've always wanted to another where the entire front and back are covered in rose thorns. I don't know if I got lucky that year where the thorns were unusually large and beautiful, or if I've just been unlucky since, but I have not been able to harvest thorns as lovely as these ever since.

Another problem with using actual rose thorns—after drying, the bottoms of the thorns become concave, which makes attaching them to the book cover very difficult.

But now that I have my new found medium of sculpey/preemo, I can make my own lovely rose thorns, with flat bottoms for easy attachment! Here's another shot, there are two circles of thorns—a small one at the top and the large one at the bottom. This shot is rather washed out:

And we have utensils!

So this is Sculpey Utensils 2.0.

After I realized that the problem with S.U. 1.0 was that I was trying to make them as whole pieces—a whole spoon, a whole fork, etc—while keeping them looking like real utensils in miniature, I decided to make the utensils in 2 sections.

I made and baked the working ends of the utensils in silver preemo (a kind of sculpey but supposedly works better if you're not working with round objects). I made them about 1/8" thick and I did not try to curve them like real utensils (which I tried to do with S.U. 1.0). They came out ok, but with a few problems:

1. The silver colors were uneven, there were streaks of different shades of silver running through it. I had kneaded the clay for a while and the streaks never disappeared. I hoped the color would be even after baking, but nope.

2. The side that was lying on the baking surface (some foil) had some texture from being in contact with with it.

To fix these problems, I sanded the pieces and painted them with a silver acrylic paint. That worked out fine.

Then I made the handles/stands. After I formed the basic conical shape, I stuck the utensil end into the top, and just for fun, poked holes all around. The handles are made in plain sculpey, since they're simple cylinders. Here's a shot. The silver parts have been baked, sanded, and painted; the blue parts have not been baked:



Then I took the utensil parts out and baked the handles for an hour.

Right after they came out of the oven and while they were still warm and pliable, I stuck the utensil parts back in there again to be sure they'd fit. After the handles cooled, I glued the 2 parts together.

The sculpey comes out of the oven darker than the unbaked form, and I was ok with that. I was just going to paint the dots silver. However, as I painted, the tiniest glittery part of silver that got on my hand would immediately be picked up by the dark blue handle which was, of course, very visible.

No matter, I thought, I'd just sand that down when I'm finished.

So I sanded. And oops, sanding leaves these light gray streaks on the surface! Of course I didn't notice this before when I sanded the SILVER parts!

So now I had to paint the handles all over to hide the gray streaks. And even though I only streaked it in one spot on one handle, I had to paint them all. But actually, I liked the result better, so that was fine. Here are the finished utensils (in sculpey and preemo) and some blueberries made from sculpey: