Sunday, December 9, 2007

Spiff's Continuum



Spiff's Continuum is flying! Well, part of it. Well, kind of. Okay, lets back up.

It has been an insane week. But things are going well. Refuge Building Supply donated 13 gallons of paint for this project, Empire Building Supply donated 30 sheets of mahogany door skin, and ABC Rental donated the use of the Genie lift for three days. Tom, Liat, Mason and Shannon have all donated their time and I wish I was sponsored by Red Bull, because I've had a CASE in the last three days.

It's about 10 degrees in the "studio" today, meaning the paint won't dry. We have one day to apply five coats of paint to each side of these suckers. Liat works in her down while I head to Home Depot to suck it up and get a propane heater.
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That's better! Two of these suckers got the room up to about 90 degrees in about 1/2 hour. Now we can work in our t-shirts!
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Liat begins priming as the room warms up. YES, that is a 100 Lb Tank of propane! Who builds sculpture in December in Montana? Next year we're doing the co-op piece in AUGUST!
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25 Sheets primed. This is the first time I've used American Pride paint, it is amazing! It has great texture, cleans up SO easily (which is good for me because you KNOW I am a messy, messy girl), and comes out beautifully.
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Shannon came over on her way home from Big Sky's Fall Fest where she skid with Andy "You're a Tigah" Docken all day. She came over just in time to apply the first coat of color, which just happened to be exactly the color of her favorite ski jacket!
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Hot Pink on one side, day glo yellow on the other side. I realized at about 3am that my mom bought me a pair of pants that looked just like this in 1983! Yeah!

These colors are QUITE a departure for me, but I am excited to see how they come out. I was reading Bill Waterson's Calvin and Hobbes collection and I was just AMAZED at his bold and unusual color choices. Its funny how in a comic we don't really notice color and composition, or if we do notice, when they are well done, they are just a seamless part of the storytelling. As I read through the collection I was just AMAZED at the color use, and actually took the book to Refuge to color match right off the comic strip. That's where we got the name, "Spiff's Continuum" in thanks to Calvin and his great imagination.
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With a nice new saw blade in place we hold our breath and hope the paint doesn't chip or get dirty while we rip the wood into 6" strips, which are then scrubbed clean and pop riveted together.
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Liat takes over for Brad on kid duty, with mood lighting in the bath tub. She's teaching Ethan how to knit! He's making his own Christmas Stocking. Cool!!
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Mason and Tom begin riveting as Lori and I weave the first big square. The original concept was to have one long continuous amorphous weave that flipped and curled. Unfortunately, Tom threw his back out HARD on the ice the other day, and was in an ENORMOUS amount of pain, and Mason had to go blow up the snow pack at Bridger at 5am (he's on the ski patrol), so we re-designed the piece right there on the spot. Now it's five big rectangles hung independently and curling.
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And now that its up, we realize that perhaps it will be just TWO of these big weaves, but it is imperative that the shapes talk to each other, and that they really behave dynamically. For about 10 minutes, I really hate the color, and the piece. I am working hard to stay positive. There are elements I am happy with, I like that you can see one color through the other, which was the premise for the original piece. By the time we load up the car, I'm okay with it again, and Tom and I talk about how to make the second half come out well. We are going back tonight to finish the install (sorry, Lori!). The one big bummer? We were SO careful with the pieces, continually cleaning them, and STILL the piece got scratched and dirty. Ah, well. I'm curious how it looks in the sunlight!

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