The sentinels

It seems to methat there will be sentinels...but how they will appear will depend on the environment I secure. If the walls are dark...as in black..the dark suits would work. If the wall color cannot be changed, something white. Hmmm. I may not be able to decide yet. But the picture of the three options together pleases me, even if the beige one on the right looks like an old fishermen's oilcloth coat and the one in the middle got super pooped on by seagulls! And these are still too fabricy. The sentinels must be very clearly sculptural. It just seems to me that the sentinels must not compete. They either must be exactly like the triptychs or blend into the wall. Maybe I need to paint some paper, cut into suit pieces and assemble. Hmmm. I see sripes in my future tonight!

In Suit

Installation set-up

Today I did a test set-up of the installation. You can see the final state of the final triptych. It was a lot of painful crawling around on the floor to clip and tape the parts together. I hung the back to back triptychs from the ceiling. and ranged the suit coats around the room. I will be working on them next...see how it goes. I envision them as sentinels. I'm thinking they will need to blend into the wall pretty much. So, I will get out the modeling paste and give it a try. I was able to set up 2 rows of Triptych. In the end there will be a total of at least 5. I envision a video inset in one. None of the images seem right to me to hold the video screen, so I may have to do another set or a replacement set. The daisy-chain of the sleeves will likely not be in the final piece.

The suits are done!

Step one, begin to add the leaves. Step 2 : test out more foliage in Photoshop. Step 3: Add that foliage. Step 4: perfect the blacks, sharpen up the figure, add a bit of color to the suit.

the final triptych begins

progress and corrections the "final triptych" on. The day was short and the prairie was beautiful. Instead of the treadmill at the rec- center, I went for a lovely long walk in prairie and woods. Hmm, the sleeve is like a giant tube worm about to eat her...

Moving on and moving my body.

I finished the triptych after lunch today. I've been slow and sleepy today. But, I exercised at the Rec Center and finished the piece. My reward was to go snowshoeing on the prairie!Alan Isaacson made these snow shoes and loaned them to me for the duration. FUN!!! I like these pointy snowshoes much better than the bearclaw ones I had tried out at the ARC Retreat Center. Back to work! First the stripes and then the whitewash. See the difference? Now the lovely Lisa is at the center either being birthed or returning to the womb. I am undecided about whether to put pattern pices in the background as I have in all the others. Since she is wearing a pattern...perhaps that is enough.

1/25/09 at Ragdale Friends & work

Today I got to see Karen Hanmer , have lunch and tour her studio. Great fun. I had tool envy! What a lovely space, great light, giant board shears and a printer I lusted after! Ah.... Got back and got an hour or so in before dinner and about 20 minutes in before movie time. The photos show how I use photoshop to help me make decisions. The piece began the day like this.I was having problems with the right hand side and with the placement of the feathers/petals. So, I put an image in photoshop and played around a bit, figuring out the compositional issues. It ended the day looking like this. Nearly done. The lower left needs some value adjustment and the upper right, obviously needs work as do the hanging head-feathers. Getting there.