Reference Material

Well since no one in the Junior/Senior class seems to understand my topic, I decided to post some reference material here for you all to see.

Let me re-explain the concept. Read the whole thing. Seriously. Interuptions cause stupid statements.


The concept behind my theme for the semester is to create a dialogue between the viewer and the pieces. And by dialogue, I don't mean question and answer. Question: Is this functional? Answer: No. That is not a dialogue. That is a question and an answer. I intend to invoke all forms of questions through these tools that can't actually be answered, much like questions often posed by Anthropologists. The viewer can make a guess, but will never know for sure. I plan on creating a series of Anthropological tools that carry the basic form and appearance of functioning tools. However, the location of decoration and intensity of these decorations will cause the viewer to ask: What was this used for? Who used it and who was it meant for? Why was it made and done so in such an ornate fashion? A dialogue will be created through the use of our culture's concept on material value meaning that, at least to Western cultures, objects covered with time-consuming decoration are generally revered and reserved for particular uses. Think about it...Put yourselves in the shoes of an Archaeologist. You just dug up a hammer, much like yours, and a trowel, much like yours. The hammer has finely-detailed decoration on the head and chisel ends, and the trowel has decoration all over the face of the blade. Why would an Archaelogist create such an object? Was it really used? For what? This is my intent.


So here's some references.

A tripod pulley. I would like to make one that is hand cranked with fairly thin legs to particularly bring up the question of what it was used for.



Two different types of trowels. The marshalltown trowel and the planes trowel. I may combine the idea of a planes trowel with the idea of a scoop. I'll burn that trowel when I get there.


This is a sifter and it is the piece that particularly shows the purpose and meaning of this series. Trowels, hammers, and brushes can be used in many contexts. However, those tools (when combines with a sifter) specifically point at an Archaeological use of some kind.



Brush. Duh.



So there you go. It's not everything, but it's a start. Essentially, I'm playing a small trick using archaeology. Kind of a fractal idea, I suppose. An Archaeologist digging up the tools of an Archaeologist who was possibly digging up the tools of an archaeologist. Just somehow, these Archaeologists have questionable tools. Were Archaeologists prized to their culture? Were they ever used? Were they only used for royalty? Were Archaeologists royalty?

If you've read this, you'll see that the concept seems different than that described in class. It is not. It is the same concept and it would have been described and portrayed much better had my thoughts been allowed to be finished and had my sentences gone un-interupted. So, yeah....Good critique!

See you space cowboy....

New Idea

I'm thinking of, rather than the current theme I have chosen, working on a new one that I feel will better expand my portfolio. I'm thinking about making a collection of Anthropological tools. I have already created one in the past which I call "The Body Poker" (photo coming soon). Recently, I was commissioned to make one for another Anthropologist, and I think it would be interesting to delve into this concept even further. I would like to make a collection of trowels, measuring devices, dirt sifters, bone pokers, pens, and maybe magnifying glasses. I would like to do this as I go, not necissarily one piece per assignment in class, but more or less make as many as I can think of and display what I have at critique.

See you space cowboy....

Metals Meets Horror

Here's another mask under development at Frightworld: America's Screampark. The mask itself (like all of the masks at Frightworld) has been a great example of team effort. It was designed and created by Arick Szymecki, Andrew Lavin, and myself. When it comes to this particular mask, I really just did the metalwork on the back of it, and a little bit of touch-up coloring and washes.

Here's a picture of the metal buckles used for the mask.

When I originally made the brass buckles for the mask, they seemed far too pretty for a mask worn by a serial killer. I rebuilt them without my usual attention of detail, craftsmanship, and overall clean-up. I allowed firescale to build up, and when it wasn't enough, I re-torched the metal to get more. I used coarse files and sandpaper to mess up the surfaces, and went back in with Silvaloy solder to make globs on the metal. I then used an amonia wrap to patina the firescale on the blue/green side.

This is the mask that received the buckles.

Since the mask has a bit of a green hue, thanks to Andrew Lavin's paint job, and a brown/yellow hue, thanks to Arick Szymecki, the brass with a patina blends nicely. The nice thing about the patina is that it makes sense with the character of the mask. This mask is thought the be the mask of a basement-dwelling, canibalistic serial killer that basically lives in a stew of human remains. The patina itself is done with amonia, but can also be achieved through humanly fluids such as urine. Really, technique met theory and story in a way that is so subtle that it will likely remain unnoticed by guests. It is, however, a small detail that I can take pride in when addressing accuracy and thought.

See you space cowboy....

Painting isn't THAT hard....

So I decided that I'd post a process update from work. For those of you that don't remember (or didn't know), I'm a designer at Frightworld: America's Screampark. We're actually rated as one of the top haunted houses in the country. In our building, we have 5 haunted houses, so it takes a lot of work to design them, build them, design and create costumes and characters, then hire the massive amount of employees to work there. Well, I've been working on a mask for one of our senior actors and I decided to release a bit of a teaser for this season.

Some of you already saw this mask when I worked on it in the studio. But here's another image of what you saw:

Well, it was my task to further detail this mask. So I did. I may be a 3D artist working in a tough medium like metal, but appearently painting isn't out of my grasp.

Here's a close-up of some of the detailed painting.

There you have it.

See you space cowboy....