design-newyork.com

I hope you all had a happy and joy-filled holiday season. I received a variety of coolie-cool presents: I got two hand-blown glass ornaments from my parents (I haven’t taken a picture of my glass ornaments in my apartment yet, don’t worry, it’s a-comin’), one of which is from Europe, which is pretty rad, all of my orbs are made in the U.S. I buy them mostly from the glassmakers themselves, or a store called An American Craftsman. From Cricket I got the coolest gift imaginable, and what’s better is that I wanted it but told no one, and Cricket KNEW. He KNEW. I adore this gift.

http://www.thinkgeek.com/tshirts-apparel/interactive/a5bf/

I have a boombox IN MY CHEST. I’ve programmed it with the Imperial March from Star Wars and the A-Team theme song so when I enter a room, I can play either of those. So freakin’ great. Also on the shirt’s soundtrack: The theme song from Dr. Horrible, Stayin’ Alive from Saturday Night Fever, Call On Me by Eric Prydz, and a variety of sound effects for various situations.

I went to B.’s house the day after Christmas, and his parents were in town. They gave me homemade apple leather (so delish) and homemade grape jelly (haven’t had it yet, but I’m guessing delish as well). They also gave me a burl. A maple burl. For those of you who don’t know what a burl is, it is a big knot of wood. It’s heavy and it’s dense and it’s hard to carve, but when you do carve it, you reveal beautiful markings inside. It’s now sitting in my studio until I figure what to do with it.

Mmm, burlicious. B. asked me to paint him a moth, and I banged that out this week. I chose the comet, or moon, moth because it has pretty markings and ruffled wing tips. Here is a pic of the moth:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/thrumyeye/2220283493/

And here is my artistic interpretation of the comet moth:

I was originally going to color the moth, but I decided to color in the outside and leave the moth pure and clean. I used a brown pen to draw it and brown watercolors to do the background. It kind of gives it a Victorian butterfly-in-a-case feel. Hopefully B. will like it.

I haven’t forgotten about the tortoise. I just haven’t had the chance to get to my table saw and cut out my background piece for it. Hopefully when I go over to my parent’s house tomorrow night, I’ll run away from the holiday celebration for a short period of time and hack some pretty birch plywood into small squares and use one for my tortoise. However, this doesn’t mean I have not been making stuff. I’ve made some delightful animated gif ads for NewCastleNOW.org. Look, a rotating globe ad:

I iz proud. Right now I am working on a massive (I mean MASSIVE) embroidery project for my kitchen. I have a big piece of Formica blocking in my refrigerator that I want to cover. About eight years ago, I was on grand jury duty and started an embroidery piece to kill the time while I waited for the train, sat in the courtroom, etc. Then it sat in a Williams & Sonoma bag in the basement for seven years, and recently I unearthed it and had an “Aha” moment. Sho’ nuff, it fits perfectly in the spot I want to cover. So I have picked it up again and am sewing on it like it is going out of fashion.

It’s a rectangular piece of muslin I painted black, about four-and-a-half feet by two feet. I painted some muslin red and cut out the shapes of maple leaves. Then I ironed the leaves onto the black background using fusable web, a glue sheet that melts when ironed. Now I am making the veins and color differentiations with thread and, because I am me and I am anal to the max, I am using itty-bitty little stitches. Here are some pics to give you an idea.

It’s going to resemble maple leaves frozen into the surface of a lake. After all the leaves are stitched, I’m going to stitch silver thread all around each leaf to look like frost. Then I’m going to finish the edges of the tapestry with ribbon and hang it from a rod.

Stitches on leaves with my toes for scale:

Two more leaves, one unfinished (you can see a small bit of unfinished leaf in the one with the yellow tones):

I think it will be a nice wallcovering, and I like the fact that something that sat neglected in my parent’s basement for so long has found a purpose. It’s going to be a while before it’s finished, I have five more leaves to go. I’ll update it as it happens.

It’s a cover for Publicis’ annual thing that they send out with a review of the year’s activities (businesses won, people hired, awards, etc.) Publicis seems to like a great deal of and ornament and layers with drop shadows nowadays, so I’m pretty pleased with what I came up with. It’s so lush and detailed. Definitely in keeping with their look. Hooray for me.

It’s like a Christmas present and when you unwrap it, you get… well, you get information and facts about our company, which isn’t on most people’s lists, but whatever, it’s still a good-looking cover. The insides were really cool too, but I don’t want to post any pictures of them here. I don’t think any of the information was sensitive, but I’d rather play it safe. Don’t wanna dooce myself.

Normally, I don’t use people’s real names here because I don’t know if they want to be written about on a blog. However, today will be different. Recently, two people that I went to college with or worked with are REPREZENTIN’ and I want to bring your attention to them.

First, I went to SUNY Purchase for my BFA and studied in the Conservatory of Theater Arts and Design (major: Set Design). You know how there’s always someone in your class who you know is a winner and will succeed because they’re just that terrific? Jason Lyons was in my class (major: Lighting Design). Immediately, he was that guy, a “Most Likely To Kick A Copious Amount Of Ass In His Chosen Major” type of person. I was more of the “Most Likely To Be Not Here Next Semester” type. Or the “Most Likely To Snap Late One Night And Shove A Drafting Tool Into Her Eye” type. So, now about ten years have passed since we graduated (him - with honors, me - not so much), and I get an email about a comedian I like a lot, Mike Birbiglia. Lo and behold, Mike has a show off-Broadway.

And would you look who did his lighting.

Look at that resume. LOOK AT IT. Boy’s makin’ good. I am so proud of him. I mean, it wasn’t in doubt for a second, but still, it’s nice to see the best thing possible happen to talented people. I should also add that Jason is a super-nice person and should you happen to make his acquaintance, you will see that for yourself. Go see Mike Birbiglia’s show. Mike is great, and I guarantee he will be well-lit.

Second, I worked at BBDO for about five years, and I met a variety of art directors and such in my time there. One of those people was Jayson Atienza. He has a distinct painting style and his main canvas is shoes. I built his website for him originally as a side gig when I was at BBDO. The other day I was in Pylones and saw a book called Custom Kicks.

It’s an excellent book, full of really cool ideas. And not only does Jayson get his own page, he gets the closing page as well.

Jayson is also possibly the only person who can look good in a mullet. Really. Not bad at all.

So I just want to say congratulations to Jason and Jayson and I wish them a ton more success. It’s always so wonderful to see that.

Addendum: Here are a few pics from Custom Kicks that I thought we also excellent representations of sneaker adornment. Good design.

I have painted highlights and lowlights and now I’m going to cut it out and mount it on a board. It will be lovely.

Tortoise has been penned in and speckled with paint:

Now highlights will be painted in and tortoise will be cut out from his background and mounted on some wood. Very exciting.

I have a raunchy, nasty cold. It started in my lungs, and over three days it migrated up until it was in my face, exploding out of my sinuses like fireworks on Chinese New Year. Throw the Rockettes doing a line-kick in there too and you have an idea. I can’t breathe. My office-mate Nelly is going to kill me because when I drink water I can’t inhale, so I sound like a French bulldog. I don’t feel bad about it, though, because she is the one who gave this disease to me, so she has to listen to me snuffling and horking all day as penance. Ha ha *cough* ha.

We celebrated Halloween here at work, so I got all dressed up as my interpretation of a scarecrow, only to get out of the costume an hour later and not go to the party I had intended to go to because I felt so poorly. Maybe I’ll wear the same scarecrow costume again next year, no one will remember or care. Here are some pics.

And later I had someone take a picture of the nest with eggs I had in my hair.

I was trying to use my hands to frame the nest, but someone looked at this picture and inquired if I was doing the robot. I see that now.

Also, to get my hair curly, I slept in rollers and wore them to work all day and was mocked by one and all.

Go ahead. Laugh at me. Everyone else has.

I wish I hadn’t been sick, I would have enjoyed frolicking in a downtown party. Also, if anyone is wondering why I make my own costumes, this video should clarify that.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4rUiV_Hh74

There’s some coarse language in it, so don’t watch it at work unless you have your headphones on.

Addendum:
I thought my homemade costume was lovely, but then I saw my co-worker S.’s costume and I was like, “Oh yeah, there’s a winner.” S. was The Cyclone, the Coney Island rollercoaster. Seriously. Check it out.

S. from the side:

S. from the front:

Wait, it gets better. The whole track is lined with little white Christmas lights, and the red sign is lined with little red Christmas lights, all attached to a battery pack hidden in the boxy midsection. Mind-blowing, I know. S. went down to The Today Show that morning to see if he could win best costume, but he was beaten by Spiderbaby. He was a good sport about it, c’mon, Spiderbaby is freakin’ adorable. And the costume is clever.

http://jezebel.com/5072166/spiderbaby-attacks-today-show-with-killer-cuteness

I’m trying to beef up my drawing and painting portfolio, and after seeing Religilous I was reminded of a story my father once told me. He was giving a talk somewhere about where we all come from, Genesis versus Big Bang, etc. Afterwards, an old woman came up to him and said, “My people believe that the world is on the back of a turtle. And that turtle is on the back of another turtle. And this pillar of turtles go all the way down.”

My father said, “All the way down to… where?”

And the woman said, “Don’t be impertinent, young man.”

Anyway, that inspired me to draw a tortoise with a village on its back. Here’s the original sketch.

I’m going to do some pen work on it and then I’m going to do some watercolor work on it and then I’m going to do some acrylic work on it. All very similar to the deep sea fish series. It should be a lovely tortoise when it’s done.

(Title is  a reference to Finding Nemo)

Oh, yeah, let’s build a Halloween costume, Jessica. Oh, that would be fun, wouldn’t it, being that you have a party to go to and a costume-judging contest at work. Good times. Except that I wanted to be a cute little scarecrow-type-person, so I went to the twig district (I love New York, they have a twig district) and bought a whole bunch and suplemented those with some from my mother’s garden and now my bedroom is filled with bits of bark and tiny little gnats and I ended up not using most of the twigs anyway, bleagh. Stupid costume. I better win that damn contest, that’s all I’m sayin’.

Aaaand I’m done. Sweaty and tired, but done. Mixed up a bluer blue-green, took off all the tape and painted the hell out of the bathroom.

Voila:

My arm hurts and I’m going to take a shower now and chisel all this paint offa my skin with a toothbrush. Really. This is some tenacious paint, bro. But I’m extremely pleased. Totally happy.