Jolanda-Pieta van Arnhem, MFA

Today is Wednesday and I think I spent the entire day hung over. I have not been hung over in awhile and I have not gone to work hung over in years. I felt bad, very bad and I couldn’t have picked a worse day to be hung over. It was meeting hell day. Man.

This piece is killing me. I’m not ready to do it but I have to so I can move on. I am loosing my hair. I have started getting neurotic and am sure I am going bald. The three upsides to the day? 1) Jerry is a very kind friend and could tell I wasn’t myself. He made sure I got where I had to be today, 2) we got to see 2 sister pug dogs and play with them outside of Starbucks this morning, and 3) it’s Wordpress Wednesday and Jerry brought Grendel over to play with me. I wouldn’t have been able to work if he hadn’t.

So, here’s what got done, thanks to HEaMUSEsme and his trusty companion Grendel.

Today is Tuesday and I am already feeling this. Jerry and I left early (5:30) and we were promptly reminded why we don’t. The traffic is terrible. We wound up getting home the same time as if we had left after 6:30. Suck.

Tonight is Darkroom night with Blair. She wanted to finish working on some prints from Saturday. Since I just found out that I had maxed out my number of electronic transfers from my savings account (I didn’t even know there was a limit) and the bank was charging me 27 bucks every time I used my debit card I decided to go get money from the ATM. I needed gas.

I went ahead and got some frozen pizza and made a last minute decision to buy rum. While I was in the ABC store (this is the South, you can’t buy hard liqueur anywhere except the ABC/Package store) I got to meet two beautiful sister pups. That was really nice and I was glad I stopped in. Drinking the rum however was a grave mistake. I wound up spending the latter part of the evening (early morning) with one foot on the floor trying to make the room stop spinning.

When I got home I threw in the frozen pizzas, mixed myself a drink (the first one for the evening) and started figuring out how make the paste for the glue. I also had to start cutting the paper strips. Thanks to Jerry who helped me borrow/smuggle out the paper cutter from work cutting the paper strips was easy. Making the glue on the other hand was a little problematic. Since I had not consumed enough alcohol at this point to completely screw up the measurements I am maintaining that the recipe may require a few alterations. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. In the long run, here’s what I wound up using (straight from the Resources page and the Papier Mache Resources website):

Papier mache recipes for adhesive

1 – Flour and water glue:

To make a flour and water glue follow these instructions:

Boil 5 cups of water in a saucepan.

In a bowl, mix 1/4 cup (I used 1 full cup) of sieved flour with a cup of cold water. Mix to a smooth consistency (a bit like making custard). When completely free of lumps, add the mixture to the water in the saucepan. Gently boil (I don’t know about this, mine burned and stuck to the bottom of the pan), stirring constantly for two or three minutes until the mixture thickens.

Allow to cool before using (Make sure you do this. I burnt the crap out of myself).

I also added salt to keep the stuff from molding. Oh yeah…this stuff really smells and feels GROSS!

So between helping Blair in the darkroom and getting a late start I didn’t get as much accomplished as I would like and I still wound up in bed late. Here’s what got done.

Cheers.

Mixing the Flour

Boiling the Water

The Glue

The Smuggled Paper Cutter

Setting up the WorkSpace

We Have Begun!

Today is Monday and it started out late. It also ended late. One day I am actually going to get to work on time. It is often difficult to work on so many things at once. Something suffers. If it wasn’t for Christopher and Jerry calling me to wake me up every morning I might not make it at all. It really does take a village to raise an artist. I keep praying to the money gods and asking them to let us win the lootery so that we don’t have to be inflicted with our day jobs and can stop having to do this.

But enough complaining. Today after work I came home and continued to work on David’s Bride. The goal is to get all the chicken wire done and the first layer of paper mache on her before the weekend so that I can work longer hours over the weekend.

I realized that I needed to have a visual aid for reference for the chicken wire and pulled out my Anatomy book. Here’s what I used:

The evening was successful. Phase II – Chicken Wire Complete. Phase III – Begin Paper Mache will commence tomorrow.

Here’s a picture.

Cheers.

Yesterday I failed to mention that Christopher and I moved Mojo’s alter and have made a separate space for Little Dog. We also went looking for an urn for Little Dog and weren’t able to find one that we wanted. We decided that we are going to have one made for him with a squirrel on top (since he really really liked to catch and eat them).

We also got him his own photo album an collected all his tags so we can keep them with him. Christopher found some new incense and we go a bell for the center of the alter. I had saved a set of prayer flags for him and Christopher helped me put them up. It made me feel better that Little Dog had his own space and very sad at the same time.

Here are some pictures of the new alter. Hopefully we will have Little Dog’s urn soon.

Little Dog’s side of the Alter

Mojo’s Side of the Alter

Christopher spent most of his day building the frames for me for David’s Bride and the pups. It was really nice of him to do this. This project is on a really tight schedule and I really had to finish the hair (and I had not counted on having to restring it).

Building the frames and finishing the hair took most of the day. We also wound up having to go back to Lowe’s to get smaller wood for the arms and the frames for the pups. This always adds at least 2 hours to starting a project. It just seems to work out this way.

I started putting the preliminary chicken wire on the Bride’s frame. Jerry came and hang out for awhile and kept me company while I worked on the chicken wire. Eventually I had had to stop because I was tired and kept stabbing myself with the chicken wire. After loosing lots of blood I realized I should be using gloves. Oh yeah. Duh. I had also started to get an infection in my finger from where I had stabbed myself with the bead reamer (when stringing the hair). Darn.

I always forget how long this stuff takes and how many scrapes and cuts you get. Here’s some pictures from the day.

Christopher Measuring the Legs

Christopher working on The Bride’s Frame

Frames for the Pups

The Chicken Wire Begins

Today is the day after Thanksgiving and since I have finished the poster I decided to start trying to figure out what I had in the Halloween bin that I could use to make David’s Bride. I was successful in finding her skirt and have decided to use the hat that I was going to wear with my pirate costume. I have also been stashing bottle caps and an old bamboo curtain to use for her hair. I think we have most of the stuff we need.

Christopher is bringing 1×2’s from his Dad’s house this afternoon so we can build the frames tomorrow and I still have a whole roll of chicken wire in the studio. Ann and Bill (Christopher’s folk’s) have been collecting newspaper from for awhile and I think I will have enough for the project. Our friend Mike has been saving bottle caps (he is a bartender at Sticky Fingers) and I have two boxes full. Hooray!

I used Athena to see how the clothes would look. Take a peek:

After pulling out the bamboo curtain I realized that I was going to have to restring all the beads. CRAP. So I found a bunch of hemp string in the studio and started working. Restring the beads for the hair took the rest of the evening. Jerry came over and hung out for awhile with me and Christopher. All in all it was a nice evenng. Here’s some pictures from the evening.

Cheers.

Restring the beads for the hair

Strands and Strands of Hair

Tomorrow Christopher is going to help me make the frames for David’s Bride and the pups. We’ll see how far we get.

Cheers.