Serena Kuhl's random ramblings about creativity, resin and fake fur

I hAZ tHE aNSWER!!!

2009-06-03T21:02:00.003+08:00

In the future, everyone will be Sockington for five minutes...

How does this shit happen?

2009-06-03T20:23:00.003+08:00

Was reading a bit about the mammothly influential Dinosaur Designs whose altar I worship at, and world renown fash label Tsubi. No doubt, both are companies full of extremely talented, focused and driven people. And Australian! How bout that. But I was struck as I perused a book and a mag at work (one good thing about being an art teacher, reading about designers is seen to be a good thing!) is that both described their rise to meteoric fame and fortune as almost...a matter of luck. Both described the context in which their brands arrived (Dino 80s Sydney, Tsubi 2000 same I think) as being empty of similar stuff like them. There wasn't a lot of people thinking resin=jewellery and no else making jeans like Tsubi (this seemed really odd to me, I always assume Sydney is full of languishing fashionistas, that even the homeless are really just working the grunge angle). One of the Tsubi guys talked about getting a call from someone when a designer flaked on Sydney Fashion Week and they pulled together an impromptu collection and then became the now darlings of world fashion (I'm probably oversimplifying here just a little....) That Dinosaur Designs admits that they've never really done anything early on in their career to promote themselves on a big scale and simply good ol word of mouth and being out of the ordinary in a way that appealed simply ended up with them being the darling of many a stylist which saw their stuff splashed over the pages of Vogue and the like. But they also said that few others would be able to get away with it, in the way they did, that a fortuitous connection of talent and kismet I guess equalled incredible success. There also might be just a little typical Australian modesty here. Don't want to be a tall poppy.....
If you went to art school, like I did, I think this, 'leading lady breaks her leg so the plucky understudy finally gets the spotlight' kinda thing really resonates. There's all the stories about Picasso languishing in his studio, holding onto a rolled up Demoiselles de Avignon for years until people started to get that he was THE Modernist artist of his age. People like Paul Durand-Ruel, supporter and canny marketer of the Impressionists have this huge impact, taking hapless artists from obscurity to fame with some hard work and knowledge of the market.
It's kinda never going to be like that anymore now, is it?
I remember that silly movie with Christian Slater in it, Pump Up the Volume where he exhorted kids everywhere to take to the radio waves and free up media. Well it kinda happened with the 'digital revolution'. Now it isn't a matter of trying to get your stuff out there, it's getting it seen amongst the immense sea of stuff.
Adam Arber has an interesting viral campaign going. His Roadkill Toys have been supported by little roadside memorials he's been creating to his creatures. I look at this stuff in frank admiration and think 'how the fuck could i do something like that?'
Because that's the thing. I don't make enough from teaching to support my art habit, I need to sell enough of it to at least pay for itself. And much as I wish that someone would swoop in and sell myself for millions whilst regaling me with tales of my fabulousness, it aint never going to happen.
So, I live in the middle of nowhere, produce some reasonable jewellery and toys, in a world where a lot of people create good stuff and I am promotionally retarded. What AM I going to do about it!

I have red dye!

2009-06-03T20:18:00.002+08:00

For some reason I never bothered to get an red PTSF dye for my translucent resin pieces. I've had a bunch of red oxide sitting on the fridge for ages and not bothered to use it. Dunno, for some reason I'm not feeling a lot of red. I used to LOVE scarlet paint when I was a teenager, now it's all secondary colours...purple and violet and aqua and lime and mint..sigh....

Anyway, here's some pics of it, in the form of my newer Lump Rings. Made completely from scratch and now can be sized at whatever suits.

Random thought

2009-06-03T20:05:00.002+08:00

Songs that make me kinda shivery and make my tear ducts ache right now:
"Sober" by Tool
"The Con" by Tegan and Sara

Nuff said

A trial by fire and the gaining of wisdom....

2009-06-03T17:20:00.003+08:00

I seem to have a binge and purge relationship with this blog, and bad luck kids, it's binge time again...

As a young and exceedingly arrogant kiddy I used to often bemoan the cynicism and world weariness of my elders (yeah that was about two years ago....) I found it really trying that people were so suspicious, that people were analysed, profiled and a mental dossier was created as soon as they walked in the door, simply from their clothes, their manner. I still find this irritating, it always seems like some kind of mental laziness. As soon as we start simply falling back on a pat stereotype for every person we meet, we start to lose the ability to see new traits and patterns in people's behaviours, if only so as to create new stereotypes!

If you were not yet aware, I'm employed as a high school teacher, and this has to be a profession that is rife with cynicism and world weariness. I know...I'm feeling pretty cynical and world weary right now! It's an effective mechanism, teaching sometimes feels like one long stream of consciousness experience where you dole out advice, help, and coloured pencils with endless abandon. It's hard to watch so many young people get pushed through the machine which you are an integral part of, striving at all times to do the best for all the disparate needs of those in your care.

And here's why.

Whilst I am a pretty rough and ready teacher (my Year 12s used to have friends coming into my class, amazed and fascinated by the crazed frenzys I'd work myself up into to try and get them completing their work on time. Some wanted to do year 12 art, just to get yelled at...???) not really the warm fuzzy kind, though there is a special kind of Year 12 girl who often has a soul type bond with me. But what I have lacked in sweetness, light and lack of foul language I've usually tried to make up for in passion. I give a shit....really.

Which would be why I found last years bout of depression particularly devestating. Why would this happen to me? I sit up at night thinking madly about how to help the kids out. I spend hours refining curriculum to try and get the best possible result. I think I have just about every book on Takashi Murakami. This shouldn't happen to me.

Which was when I realised, at some point probably, every teacher I've ever loathed for being slipshod and just fronting up to class, seeming to be satisfied with keeping the kids in the classroom, let alone achieving anything academic, has experienced the same thing.

Humbling.

I probably really didn't like them partially for this reason. Whilst I was busting my arse, trying to make a difference, I looked at them and saw a very possible future me.

The same with the cynicism about other people. We had a fire at our house on Friday night. We woke up at about 7am, found the windows to our granny flat smoked up and smashed, water everywhere and a flatmate who had covered the windows with a sheet to stop us from looking in.

We slept straight through the whole thing, neighbours reckon they saw it from their bedroom, flames coming out of the ceiling. No one called the fire dept, not even the flatmate. He, in his inebriation, put it out with our poor water pressured garden hose. The room was the one right next to our house, also right next to our gas bottle. it could have been all kinds of tragic and fatal. Instead it looks like insurance will sort it all out and hopefully things will be fine.

Now, I can see, is the time in my existence where I can pick up the mantle of cynicism and world weariness and really make it my own. Let it become all snuggly and comfy. A dark place, albeit, but still, somehow satisfying. I'll understand everything, as everything will be fucked in one way or another. When you look for the worst in people, you're rarely disappointed. Because, I guess, we're all pretty flawed. Why wouldn't you find the worst?

I don't know if I won't. Perhaps this is just the way it works. Every stage for every age, something you grow into, like a middle age adolescence. But now your angst has matured into something finer and sharper... I dunno. Funny thing is, most people who know me casually would assume I'm already there....

Who knows? I'm supposed to be moving into a different area of teaching next term and will be getting a new flatmate once the flat is renovated. I'll keep you posted...

Artfire-alicious!

2009-06-03T17:11:00.003+08:00

In an attempt to spread myself even thinner (yet not get thinner, what's up with that?) I've signed up for yet another online CraftBay thingie. You can check it out here. Not sure why...maybe to test out what the competitors offer? There seems to be some different pluses and minuses to each. Not sure if I can offer anything intelligent to say about either right now. Perhaps it was simply because of the mention of fire in it's name....maybe that's it :)

On a side note, I managed to sell a silly amount of jewellery on Etsy, without doing very much. Not quite the quit your day job stuff that some people seem to manage, but still, considering my effort put in was nil.... Perhaps I can become the queen of Slacker Etsy? Nah...that smacks of effort...

Get Creative Magazine!

2009-05-17T08:25:00.002+08:00

The lovely Jacqueline Byron interviewed me for Get Creative Magazine. Get this months (May's) edition and you'll find a huge spanky spread on me and Adam Arber's work. I actually expected it to be pretty brief and only have a few pics, but I'm pretty sure anyone would be pleased with the amount of pics and text! Thanks very much Jaq!

Is this ring too big?

2009-04-26T20:53:00.003+08:00

Okay, for the 2.5 people who look at this blog every couple of months, I have a question for you...is this ring too big? I made a rough example after casting some resin in a balloon. I'd been doing some plaster in balloons last year and wondered if this would work as well with resin. I like the smooth round Mod like shapes and the colour...but...is it ridiculously outsized?

I always seem to make big things. Even when Im holding back i look at the final result and wonder where I'm going to find the ten foot tall person suitable to wear the thing. I can't seem to help myself! Perhaps it's my sculptural background. I'm itching to make great big monoliths when I'm only making rings and bangles. I made this one to size (for me) and kept trying to make material off to make it slimmer and smaller and less Holy Shit Did You See That Ring! It's comfortable enough to wear, but I wonder, am I teetering at that place where it all just becomes ridiculous dress ups for grown ups stuff?? I'm considering just putting it on some leather and wearing it as a pendant instead. Anyway, I'm open to feedback!

Me on the radio....again!

2009-04-26T20:46:00.002+08:00

The lurvely Kristine Walker of Hot 100 radio fame will be interviewing me this week, after I sold her some resin pieces at the Craft Fair. Not sure when it will be aired yet, but will keep ya posted!

Craft Fair Success and Tooly Goodness!

2009-04-26T20:39:00.003+08:00

Yup I did alright at the Ol Hi to the Dry Craft Fair. $490 Australian pesos in the pocket. I was most pleased. I actually then sold a bunch more when I took my stuff to school to show a colleague and she proceeded to sell half my stock to the English Dept. Thanks ladies!

So this has enabled me to purchase my new tooly-ness, with the assistance of the noble Lori! One Ryobi drill press and one Ryobi bandsaw (with a laser as the BF cooed). Not exactly De Walt or some speccy brand but it'll do this humble amateur.

Been having a little play already and trying out some new stuff, which I'll post soonish. Yay!

Housework love!

2009-04-26T20:30:00.003+08:00

I knew I probably loved my boyfriend when he saw me mopping the floor, dead on my feet and feeling very tense and anxious ( I was going through a bit of a bad patch with the ol depression and anxiety) and he walked up and took the mop from me, even though he was also very tired, and finished cleaning the floor from me.

Despite the fact that I make jewellery and toys, I'm not really a diamond ring, or fluffy bunny kinda girl. I do like flowers though, sunflowers or irises if anyone's in the mood. And pretty smelling roses, not artifical hot house non smell blooms. Yech!

But to me, a person who will help you out when you're obviously at the end of your tether, someone who gets in and puts their shoulder to the same wheel you're trying to shove up hill...this to me, dear friends, is true love.

The BF and I are pretty constantly running around trying to tidy up the mess two dogs and a phalanx of cats leaves, as well as make jewellery, make art, renovate the house, write books, sleep, relax, meditate, practice mindfulness, spend time on the internet looking at geekery (BF..not me!) and sometime at some point, spend time with each other. I spent a whole afternoon this week backyard blitzing our veranda in preparation of the arrival of new power tools (more about that soon!) to the BF's amazement. So, when he takes the time to do things like this I have to stop, have a look, be reminded how much i love him...and then burst out laughing!

He could have mowed over it afterwards though! It's still all long and tufty, right in the middle of the grass!

Hi to the Dry! Craft Fair on the 19th of April

2009-04-12T14:56:00.003+08:00

Anyone who lives locally and would like to pick up some hand crafted awesomeness should toddle over the the Territory Craft site at Bullocky Point (just next to the Museum and Art Gallery) next Sunday between 10 and 3 methinks. I will be there, as will be my buddy Marita Albers (it is her wonderful stuff in the pic above) and the fabulous Jo Dodd of Viva La Soap fame. There's going to be displays, Ingrid Gersmanis, craft diva and Jacksons manager extraordinaire will be displaying her mosaic skills, as will many other local artists. I will be making a cake apparently to be sold in the refreshments area, so there will be much to look at, see and buy. I've hand labelled about a 100 odd resin rings...yay!

Musings on desire and creative process

2009-02-10T17:11:00.006+09:00

Gratuitous cute pic of my dog Max and my Cat Marky. I always get more hits from my images or whatever when the little furry bastards are in something

I was scurrying around in the dark cave that is my house on the weekend. I'd had some ideas for some new pieces (pics soon!) during the week and had scribbled some ideas down. I'd also managed to find a couple of small sand dollars! Something I've been looking for, for awhile now. So creatively, there was much to do.
I'd also had the flu for much of last week. The darling boyfriend is a very capable domestic technician and does a lot of the cleaning around the house, but when I'm sick, not sure how, we both seem to fall down on domestic duties. Or the animals run around and throw more of their fur about in the joy of having me in a snivelly pile at home. Not sure, but the house looked like a giant cat had thrown up fur (and dirty dishes? How did that get there?) around the house with gay abandon. BF also couldn't find his birth certificate. Bookshelves had gone from having a patina of dust and dog hair to a shag carpet.
Something had to be done
So before I would allow myself any chance to get to my artwork, I needed to clean. This is a strategy I developed, as I can get a little side tracked by my work. If you've read my other posts, you may be aware of my all consuming, be distracted by nothing else desire to make. So, to make sure I didn't live in completely festy conditions, I activated my inner parent and set down the rules.
"No artwork until you've cleaned your room/house/done the dishes for the first time this week"
This used to work. I'd get stuck in early Saturday morning, get everything shiny and pretty and sit down with a sense of satisfaction to make some stuff and be filled with that unique kind of self satisfaction that seems to come with cleaning (what else could you get from it. Minute I make my millions from plush/jewellery/whoring out the BF for ten bucks I'm getting a cleaner!)
Of course, something had to go wrong...
I don't believe in astrology. I think it a lot of bollocky bollocks that helps sell newspapers and brain wash the masses. Of course, the devout say that as a Taurus (yeah, no surprises there right?) I would say that but they can y'know...go fuck themselves. But in the case of my mother I will make an exception. if there was ever a card carrying picture perfect example of a Virgo, she'd be there, perfectly clean house and a white glove on her hand.
How does this relate you may ask? Well, like all people, I'm pretty good at tuning in to the Hits of the 80s: Distorted Memories of your Parents channel of internal radio, and so a little cleaning and order becomes I Want My House to be Perfectly Clean Right NOW!
I clean the bathroom sink and shower, and notice that the inside of the drawers are dirty. I clean the toilet and notice the very back at the S bend where we have a leak is collecting dust. I haven't cleaned all of the kitchen cupboards for awhile. When are we going to put up that pergola? Haven't been able to leaf blow because it's been raining. And on and on and on.
I have only the basic understanding of Buddhism and the concept of Mindfulness. I have been using a lot of Mindful Cognitive Behaviour Therapy stuff whilst being on stress leave last year. It's been something I've found really useful, probably more than anything else I've tried, and I've seen me some shrinks over the years, and from my understanding Mindfulness is this.
Being in the moment, not planning what to do and not thinking about what's happened but just right now. So for instance, I'm sitting in my office, looking out the green cotton curtains I washed a week or so ago where the cat fur formed little pellety balls rather than be removed, out onto my front garden, the hum of afternoon traffic apparent as we live on a main road. My left shoulder blade itches, the place where the edge of my laminated desk has come away a little is cutting into my left arm.
The opposite to mindfulness, and the preoccupation of human beings is desire. We talk a lot quite guiltily in Western society about our excessive levels of desire. How we have to have a wall length plasma flat screen TV when we had a perfectly serviceable old one. How we have two, three, four cars in a petrol starved world. How kids get given everything and value nothing. We are a culture of consumers, and we love to consume, almost endlessly, from TV shows that seem to be catering for a lower and lower common denominator to new products which always seem smaller, or bigger and therefor better than the last one. Who buys something now because the last one wore out or broke? We want, desire, the new one, way before the old one we desired has expired.
I personally don't have a lot of possessions in that respect. We are a no car family, we both live within walking distance to our works and major shopping centres. I have an old TV, a new Playstation 3 (the 2 makes the most disturbing whirring sound and takes about 10 minutes to load a game) and a newish Olympus camera. Apart from that, it's all furniture, animals and fur and resin and art.
I find consumer fetishism weird. I don't really value my own work that much. Once it's made, the glow is gone, I sell it, give it away, get rid of it. I don't collect very well. All the artwork I have have been swaps with friends, i chew through my materials so quickly I don't get a chance to be fond of them.
So, as a result, I tend to mistakenly think that I am low on the desiring front. I don't want a bigger and better house/BF/car. I'm okay with what we have.
But this is the trickiness of desire. Not falling for the shiny new toy ploy....ahhh...time to play a different game. Let's get her where she lives..
I want that cool rush you get when you have an idea and start making it and it just...works. No struggle, no revise, rework, improve. You might do better ones later, but right now, this is perfectly like what I had in my head
I want that in all the colours I have and more. New colours can completely transform a piece. I've pulled pieces from moulds, particularly late in the afternoon and just had them...flare in my hand. Resin is good at sucking all available light into it and reflecting it back with this sulky look closer and I'll show you how pretty I am glow
I want to make new prototypes. I want to feel like a runner must feel, stretching myself, working at full capacity, just surrendering yourself to the process of generating and testing ideas
I want to spend time with the BF. He's lovely and supportive, and even if it was just because he deserves it, I want to do it
I want to walk outside and see the slate tiles are leaf free and clear. I don't know why but i feel better when I do
I want to comb the dogs. They're huskies and they're shedding
I want
I want
I want

This is how I came to be at 1pm on a Saturday afternoon, collapsing into bed for a nap, completely exhausted and having done no artwork and a slightly cleaner house. I think the Buddhist point about desire is it jerks you from here to there, completely at the whim of a transient state which is never satisfied (I think I have Deleuze and Guattari's desiring machines sorted out now...) and never stops. The fact I was still ill, had depleted resources, had been through a couple of years of low energy and resilience is ignored in the face of it. That I'm thirsty or hungry. That my feet are hurting, my back is hurting. All put to one side for desire...
I ended up writing down everything I wanted to achieve, as the ideas and wants and plans and desires got so many that it was making me quite agitated. In black and white, i realised I was never going to get it all done. Not even if they declared a "Serena gets a week off to do her shit" holiday at my school would I have got it all done, and even if i had, I'd just have more things I wanted to do.
I feel like I should be leaving some kinda profound message here, but really, I was just amused by the fact that desiring something that seems good (to be creative, to make art, to have a clean and organised house) can be equally destructive to your piece of mind as lusting after the neighbour's wife/husband or addictive substances. Friends of mine, especially ones with kids, I can see getting ground down by the even bigger 'shoulds/wants' of being a good parent and what that means, and trying vainly to fit some 'me' time. I guess, I'm curious, what is it that you want so much that you're prepared to drive yourself nuts to try and get it?

Contemporary Wearables 09

2009-02-10T17:06:00.002+09:00

Toowoomba Regional Gallery in sunny Queensland (that's Australia for you non Oz residents) has a jewellery show bienially and is currently seeking applicants.
"Entries from Australian and New Zealand Jewellery Artists are currently being sought for the “Contemporary Wearables ‘09” Jewellery Award and Exhibition, curated by the Toowoomba Regional Art Gallery and sponsored by Toowoomba Gallery Society Inc.Available to venues in Australia in 2010, as a Touring Exhibition.1st Prize: $5,0002nd Prize: $3,000Acquisitions up to $7,000Conditions of entry and application forms can be obtained from the Gallery.Entries of digital image files on CD-ROM and entry fees must be received by: 8 May 2009Toowoomba Regional Art GalleryP.O. Box 2352, TOOWOOMBA, QLD 4350Ph: 07 4688 6652, Fax: 07 4688 6895Email: Art@toowoombarc.qld.gov.au531 Ruthven Street, Toowoomba"

Send em an email and you'll get the details and application form. Am thinking of putting something in perhaps.....

The Devil Wears Etsy...

2009-02-07T10:50:00.003+09:00

The lovely Capitola Girl featured my glass cab rings over on the Devil Wears Etsy. Very kind of her! I need all the plugs I can get :) Go over and check out the nice little mention they made of my stuff, as well as checking out the multitude of other talented people who have been selected for feature. Personally I'm just glad that Meryl Streep wasn't there, busting my arse and beating me over the head with a wet fish for crimes against fashion...

Plus sized jewellery commitment

2009-01-29T20:23:00.003+09:00

It is often bemoaned the lack of cool funky wear for the plus sized. I know, not being a slim slyph meself! But what often amuses me is weird stuff, like jewellery and shoes. Okay, fash designers need to keep fatties away from cool clothes so as to not diminsh the oddly rabid consumer fetishistic relationship we have with fashion, trends and clothing. Don't want people seeing their own fab item of satorial superiority on the rounder form of some size 26-er, it just ruins that whole secret fashion Nazi club

But shoes? Jewellery? Okay diamond gold solitaire boringness can be left for slimmer ladies, it's so yawn worthy I don't want it! And Manolo Blahnik's or whatever passes for a leather formed faux vagina shoe these days can be restricted only to sive six and below. But are we so freaked as a culture by the rotund (which I think I am part of the majority, not the minority now) that we must run around barefeet and bling-less?

Here at the House of Kuhl (yeah, I'm working on it. Paris, Milan, London, Darwin????) there is a commitment to the creaton of bigger bling. I have a size 10 ring finger, so from sheer selfishness, i want to wear my creations. There are plenty of smaller sizes in my pieces as well, but if you're like me and have drag queens standing next to you because you make their hands look smaller, I'm your girl.

All the big bathplug/UFO rings are size 10. I recently got some cabochon ring blanks that are size 8-10.5 adjustable and have some pretty glass cabs glued on them already. There will be 3.5 and 4 inch bangles aplenty as soon as the silicone comes in and a bigger than Ben Hur sea urchin bangle as well. The sea urchin I bought is 13cm across, so that's a whole lotta room to make bangles.

So, plus sized resin craziness something your hankering for? Check out my Etsy or contact me directly in the comments. I can hook you up!

Layering resin fun

2009-01-29T19:55:00.004+09:00

The posts will probably slow down now. I'm back at school. This is a good thing. I've been in front of kids for the first time in awhile today, and it was good. They're remarkable creatures, children. Everyday I am amazed at their perceptiveness and good humour. Some are little monsters (and some not even that small :) but the vast majority of children are pretty amazing. It's funny, the 80s gave us the stereotype of the wild eyed teenager, rebelling on the edge of destruction. People think I stand in front of classrooms with a whip and a chair getting emotionally and physically brutalised every day. It's really quite far from the truth.

Anyway, back to me. And that's reeeeaaallly important. All you childcare workers, teachers, mums and dads will know of the seductiveness of throwing yourself and your own needs under a bus for kids. They seem like such a wise investment of your time and energy. They're still beginning, still fresh and new-ish and if you invest too much of your energy into them, well at least you've helped give them a leg up in life.

So when I drag myself away from the radiant smiling little wonders, I still potter on my verandah making resin jewellery. I have run out of my hideously expensive silicone, so all my plasticene models are hidden in a cupboard at the moment, waiting for more to come. Instead, I need to play at different ways to cast the same moulds I have, to keep things fresh.

R.Sobral is like a god to me. I love his and Jackie Brazil's collections of multicoloured layered resin jewellery. I posted a pic of my first stab at trying this technique and people ooohed and ahhed over my excellent bracelet (it wasn't mine, it was Sobral's! Something I thought I had made clear!) And if anyone wants to buy me one of these for the thousands it's no doubt worth, go right ahead! But I have been tinkering with the basic premise of the layering of colours in moulds and come up with this!

Bow down before it's majesty, most beautiful of all rings! Okay, not really, but it's pretty special for me. I keep making this stuff I really like and not wanting to part with it! I'll need to wear a different ring on each finger every day of the week at this rate! This ring was made with layers of every colour in the rainbow slowly added over time

This one is a sea urchin ring that I reshaped with the Drememl. It can be a little spiky (though not really, which is suprising) wearing sea urchin rings, so this is a nice solution, also revealing the stripes of colour.

This bangle is for sale on my Etsy. The same batch of blue hued resin

So how do you do it? I personally now let every layer dry! I don't want another burny bubbly event. I make up a batch of one colour and then pour in multiple moulds, each a little yellow, green, blue etc, letting each set and cool between layers. once you've filled the mould, pull out and voila! Finished stripey resin jewellery. The thing I like a lot is the complete uncontrollable nature of it. You never know where the colour will go

All Darwin residents, looks like there's a possibility of me running a resin jewellery class in the second semester for adults, so keep an ear out if you're interested.

Also going to try out the Nightcliff Markets as a place to hawk, so I'll catch you in a couple of weeks if you're in town!

On Ebay!

2009-01-26T10:47:00.004+09:00

Usually I just use Flea Bay to sell old clothes and strangely obscure computer games I've collected, but thought I might try it out for as place for the resin. So there is but one, lonely lime green cell bangle out there, if you wanna take a look. My toe in the water, so to speak....

Lessons learnt from AC/DC

2009-01-21T19:41:00.002+09:00

My name is Serena Kuhl and I was a teenage bogan

(For non Australian readers, a bogan is kinda like Joe Dirt, but mullets were actually cut that way, not fused to our skulls...)

Yup I had several pairs of black Faberge stretch jeans, not like today's skinny legs jeans, half the kids who wear them at my school can actually fit their hands in their pockets, back in the day stretch jeans were tiiiigght. Recently K Mart has released a range of pre-distressed looking heavy metal t-shirts, looking all retro etc. I owned at least a couple of them in the original 1987 non distressed state. I had so many black band t-shirts I once worked out I could go without washing them for at least a fortnight and still have a clean one to wear to school everyday. It was sad, it was tragic, but thankfully, it is over.

But this legacy has allowed me the rare pleasure of enjoying the wide ranging phenomena of AC/DC cover bands.

I loooooooved AC/DC. I used to draw pictures of them from photos, draw the fly character from the Fly on the Wall album cover everywhere, write the bands name on my bag, my pencil case, my shoes... I had pretty much every album I could get hold of and knew exactly which ones I still had to buy. The somewhere around 88' I kinda just got over it all. And the Nirvana arrived with Smells like Teen Spirit and Kurt Cobain was so much prettier....

Anyway, for those who don't know, there is a lot of people putting out AC/DC covers.

There was of course Celine Dion's effort. (I hate you, please die in a fire now!)

But much more interestingly is the cross genre stuff. Hayseed Dixie do bluegrass renditions. AC/Dshe are an all female tribute band, cock rock without the...phallic symbols?

Nashville Pussy (wotta name! I admit to having several of their albums. anyone who writes a song suspiciously George Thorogood sounding called 'Gonna Hitchhike down to Cincinnati to Kick the Shit out of Your Drunk Daddy' is alright in my book!) seem to like to cover them in weird sleaze rock style

But it gets way weirder. If you have a look at "Highway to Hell" on Itunes you get sum interesting stuff...

"Church Lady plays Organ parodies of AC/DC"

"The Angry Samoans?"

"The Day Glo Abortions" sing 'The Jack' in a pretty bad garage punk band manner. They had an album called "Two Dogs Fucking."

Ex KMFDM (y'know, the drug against war) does "Who made Who?"

The Vitamin String Quartet: Back in Baroque

And Wing....

You don't know who that is? Think back to a South Park episode, where a falsetto voiced frail little Asian lady was put in the ring by the kids in Slyvester Stallone's boxing reality TV show and had the crap beat out of her. Yup, she sings Highway to Hell

This shit makes me happier than it should...really. I can face any day with any amount of shit with this little rendition buzzin in my head.

The Budda Lounge Assembly do meditation music versions of "Back in Black"

But these, these are my favourites. Antiq Corazon de Cuba. I don't know much about salsa music, but there's something huge, over the top and slightly fake sounding about this, as it was partly created by drum tracks or computer. Funnily enough, the kind of straight ahead, no bullshit or pretensions appeal AC/DC had back in the day (sorry kids, I think they're almost caricatures of themselves now. Rock is a young man's game) is actually epitomised by this track!

So today's message, as I haven't anything smart to say about art or stuff is, when you're feeling opressed, confined, embaressed or afraid, get your silk cheongsam on and rock out an AC/DC track in a wavering little old lady voice. Wing does it, to aclaim and fame. What are you doing?

Yup...I Etsy-ied

2009-01-20T21:11:00.004+09:00

Apologies friends, this post comes across more whiny than I intended....

Well I have put me first lot of resin stuff on Etsy. It's sitting there, in amongst the fifty billion creatively derived goods the world has to offer. It may just continue to sit there. Quiet, pale, resiny, used to be smelly and toxic but now small smooth and sculptural. It might become one of those little quiet places with small brooks and fields like you see in docos about Europe. It might became the internet equivalent of a secret idyll, only spoken of yet never actually visited. Maybe you might have picked this up, but I am deeply ambivalent about the Ets. Everytime I do Etsy, I think, is this a good idea?

The forum's are full of helpful litany's on how to get noticed and make sales. How if you make posts on the forums and heart other people's stuff and buy from other people and post your shop and goods on other sites who's sole purpose is to further promote Etsy goods and promise your first born child, you'll make sales. Some people seem to be Etsy queens, they've sold their soul to the devil or something and have managed to sell a billion crafted masterpieces. There seems to be almost a critical mass, once you achieve a certain level of sales you achieve Etsy zen, where people find your jewellery, even if they were looking for orange cordouroy pants, you're unavoidable, inevitable, drawing others to you with a gravitational pull rivalled only by Jupiter.

I can't even get jealous. I like Etsy. It has nice minimal grey on white layout. It's out there to help people who make their own gear sell stuff. What's not to like?

But in the greater scheme of things, it doesn't rate all that highly in the Kuhl masterplan. Exhibitions are exciting as work goes to different places and I have to think of new ideas and stuff to make to put in them. Selling in stores is cool, because people tend to buy my stuff more when they pick it up and play with it. And you have your designs sitting beside some of the designers you really respect and like, like it's supposed to be there, like it's equal. I know people love it and can see objectively how it might be so, but Etsy doesn't excite me that much. It's like fibre in food, I appreciate it being there and respect it's purpose and think it does a damned good job at doing what it does but apart from that.....

I think I'm ambivaletsy

So here's the Kuhl Masterplan for Areseing about on Etsy and Not Really Trying (Hey Any Sales a Bonus when you're not Trying!)

1. Sporadically put up a whole lot of items, after leaving your shop empty for six months. It's tells people, I'm ambivaletsy. I might be here one day, I might not the next. You just never know. You become the craft equivalent of those guys who sell sheepskin car seat covers out of trucks by the side of the road. You better get in quick and get what I got....or just drive on by and ignore me.

2. Read a whole bunch of posts about what to do and how to market thyself in the forums and follow the instructions...sporadically. I've looked at heaps of pages (and actually come across a lot of artists stuff I like thanks!) and hearted things like a Hello Kitty on speed (I dunno, the Kitty always seems to have hearts and stuff....I'm sorry, bad analogy). I've checked out the 'competition' to see if my prices are pretty in line with theirs, made sure my spelling in my shop is right (hey someone said that this was a real turn off? Like you don't buy from fly-by-night illiterate crafters?) Then stop. You didn't really want to do this anyway. You like to help people out and comment on people's work and do tutorials and answer people's questions. You already do that, on Flickr and at work and at home and with friends and to the random emails that come in occasionally. That makes sense to you. It's more....genuine. Playing with the Etsy forum kids (who are lovely by the way) just for the sake of phantom sales that may or may not happen just seems insincere and contrived. You're a teacher, you do insincere and contrived at least a couple of times a day, do you really want to do that at home?

3. Start selling something completely different than what you usually sell. That shakes the few people who do follow your shop up. So...thought you were gonna see toys did ya? Well here's a fistful of resin rings! How bout that!

4. Spend much much more time making and teaching other how to make rather than promoting. You are Australian, and let's face it, self-promotion is for those other people in that place that starts with A and ends with merica. You don't want to be a stinky, show off, big head up yourself cow now do you?

5. Forget to even do the most basic of self promotion: mention it on your blog. Yup, usually it takes me months to remember to post about what I'm doing...

6. Have your shop's banner reference your soft toy designs when you're selling resin!

So there! That's how NOT to succeed at Etsy! If you wish to dither about, participating in things whilst not being completely sure this is what you want to do, follow my golden rules! I'll keep you posted, this might be a part of a whole new online selling revolution. Down-selling rather than up selling. the path of least selling resistance.... I'd go a write a post about it on the Etsy forum but y'know....

More resin attempts and a little bit of hypomania

2009-01-19T18:20:00.003+09:00

This has all the little dots of resin on my workbench embedded in it

Just to clarify, I'm not bi-polar. I know, because it was discussed as a possibility this year with my shrink. Why did it come up? Because I have a tendency to get a little teeny bit over excited at times....

I love creating stuff. It is my drug of choice. I had one of the those crushing moments when I was 17 when I realised I was going to have to do "other stuff" to make my living other than creating. I should have been well prepared, my mum staged quite a few preparatory crushing moments well before this time. I think she was telling me there was no way I was going to art school when I was still in primary school, and isn't writing fun, you could be a journalist....

I realise now that going to work and having to attend to a schedule other than the one I set for myself when making is probably a good thing, as I tend to get a little involved in my work...

Ideas are heady heady things. That... "whoah! I could...." moment is a rush that only depictions of drug addicts on tv seems to approximate. I used to love 70s drug poems for that reason. No Virginia, despite the psychedelic coloured furs and insane imagery, the Kuhl machine is run on a strictly no illicit substance regime. My brain is more than capable of producing thoughts and delusions scary enough when straight without adding psychoactive substances along with it. But that careening, thrilling, everything dropping away and only your crazy little mind powering away for all it's worth feeling seemed to be discussed ad nauseum by poets who all seemed to die very young (or get straight) when experimenting with various chemicals.

I've been up since before 5am this morning, playing with resin. I have no plans to kick Dinosaur Designs from their pedestal or conquer the world of resin jewellery in an extremely stinky wave of translucent and opaque colours. Whilst I'm gonna stick some stuff up on Etsy once it's add sanded and finished properly, that'd probably be the extent of my plans for the resin, that an a couple of local craft fairs. So why, might you ask, on my holidays, the week before I go back to school, coming off stress leave, why would I be driven to sand and pour and mix and cast and dremel until my arms ache and I've gone through three changes of clothes?

Dunno. I just wanna. I always wanna. When something's on my mind, I just connect with the idea and everything else seems to not matter. I had horrible eye strain for three days (sounds like nothing but suprisingly painful) because i was so transfixed by the whole GIMP and Flexify thing as something fun for the kids at school to do I spent hoooooouuuuurrrrss looking at it, hours past the point when my eyes were dry aching husks in my sockets. My physio tells me off for not taking breaks from whatever it is I'm doing and straining stuff. It's crazy.

But i suspect I'm not alone.

This post is not so much an indication of my own madness and more a call to arms. I think you're out there, little art geeks obsessing over some material, process, image or idea, ignoring the calls of your friends, families and bodies in pursuit of some unidentified goal. People always assume 1. that I have some huuuge money making scheme plannned for all this. Why else would I be making such an effort? 2. I'm obsessed and somehow making this stuff is assuaging some deep down problem. it's odd, that the pursuit of something, for itself, no big fame, fortune or goal in mind, just 'cos is seen to be pathological.

Matt's hands....to scale

Anyway, the fun that's been had of late, is to try to layer colours inside a mould. Seems to work with simple things, not so much with complex shapes as you will see in the pic of the sea anenome ring. I made a big green bangle from scratch. I have to as I had monster lobster claw hands (seriously, I'm 5'10 and my boyfriend's 6' and my hands are bigger than his. Though he does have freakish Cabbage Patch fingers....). All the pretty bangles I've made so far don't fit me. So...if you also are plagued by large hands in a catering for child's sized paws world, never fear, larger bangles (3" diameter and bigger) will be at hand...in my Etsy shop as soon as I get my shit together. So the pic of the bangle below is kind boring, but I made it completely from scratch, plasticene around a plastic bottle, cast, reshaped, sanded....and I'm not finished yet :(

I also have new pretty colours! Fluoro yellow, orange and green (the colour of the bangle) and some Pearlex coming. SO despite trying to phase gently back into going back to school, there could be a few more 5am mania days of production ahead....sigh...

Ahhh, Mike Dransfield. Lookin all dark and Jim Morrison-y like that on the front cover. If you'd given him a flannie, ridiculously tight jeans, and a Holden Statesman, I'd have so gone for him!

"alerted by some signal from the golden drug tapeworm that eats your flesh and drinks your peace; you reach for the needle and busy yourself preparing the utopia substance in a blackened spoon held in candle flame " Michael Dransfield, he died 7 days before I was born in 1973. I was completely set up by his and others like his work. I imagined stoners to be these elegant effete characters who spouted beautiful words of obscure wisdom whilst their pupils dilated exponentially. That was never going to happen in Darwin.

By the 80s, everyone I knew who took drugs were like me, working class. So it was more black Faberge stretch jeans and Metallica t-shirts than musings about esoterica. It was kicking someone's puppy to death because it ripped up someone's dope plant and watching someone's Dad vomit on the table and not move because he was so wasted. People who shot up weren't quite so full of lassitude. Even if you're too fucked up to get up, there was always still that nasty, furtive anger that just seemed to bubble away. It's weird, it's like Kath and Kim getting fucked up, just as noicely banal and surburban but never quite so funny.... And just in case you want proof, here's a lovely pic of 17 year old Serena with streaked AND permed hair. Dear god.....

More resin attempts

2009-01-17T20:34:00.002+09:00

My most recent exploration has been explosive...to say the least! I have been enamoured of the work of Brazilian artist R.Sobral since I stumbled upon his work (I think he's a he?) on Ebay. Apparently the darling of Parisian fashion, the multilayered pieces utilise resin that is a byproduct of some industrial process in Brazil? (Yup, I'm woefully ignorant). The resin is then built up in layers of beautiful colour and then turned into gorgeous jewellery as you can see in the photo of the bangle above.

So, whilst I didn't really think I'd be getting to Sobral's level of proficiency right off the bat, I thought I could do something with layers of resin as well and see how it went.

So, I'm always a little cavalier about how much catalyst I put in my resin. Which is probably a bit scary as I live in the tropics and it is HOT right now. You are supposed to use less catalyst in hotter weather but hey... all in the spirit of Australian bodginess right?

So I set myself up a whole lot of little pots of resin with the different colours and dyes I have around the house and then got started. Mix the catalyst into the first colour, pour into ice cream container, wait until it gels, then add next layer. All good in theory.

I got a little gungho with the catalyst, added the next layer a little early (only part of it had gelled) and then added probably too thick a layer. In moulds, as the pieces are so small, it doesn't seem to matter so much. Heat might be absorbed by the silicone, or not generated as much in such small pieces....

This time, the resin started SMOKING! Belatedly I remembered a mate from art school telling me about a boyfriend who set his resin on fire by over using catalyst when repairing a surfboard... The resin popped and smoked and I got out of the way (burning styrene fumes...mmmmm) and then waited for it to cool. tried another layer which also bubbled furiously and then CRACKED before giving up on this particular batch!

The next lot I used a lot less catalyst, much thinner layers and a smaller container so less heat was generated all round. It worked! I have a nice pancake of red brown, deep blue, light blue, light pink, green and khaki resin now on my work bench. I chopped a piece off using a tiny cutting disk and the dremel and then shaped the ring above. Beloved boyfriend drilled the pilot hole for me for the centre, I ground the rest out using a garnet bit for the dremel and a sanding wheel and then sat down and polished it up with two more grades of finer sandpaper. And voila! It doesn't even come close to the wonder of Sobral I know, but not bad for a first attempt (minus smoke...) methinks!

Resin Tutorial

2009-01-16T08:51:00.004+09:00

1. Making your prototype.
I don't make my ring or bangle bases from scratch. I tried and didn't have a lot of success. the Plasticene I'm using is very soft and doesn't make rigid forms like rings etc very well. So I shortcut by buying cheap acrylic rings and bangles. You can get bulk rings on Ebay very cheaply, or pick up some of the wonderful 80s inspired plastic jewellery that seems to have sprung up everywhere again, like brightly colour pustules on the butt of fashion.
So either way, make your ring, or use an existing one, now your going to add the design elements. I use plasticene to make my jewellery prototypes as it doesn't dry out and doesn't shrink like clay, and isn't expensive like Sculpey and Fimo.
An important point! If you are going to make your mould from RTV silicone, as I do, then you have to make sure that the clay you are using does not contain sulphur. Sulphur stops silicone from curing, and you'll end up with a goopy mess rather than a mould. And silicone is pretty expensive! I bought 4 kg from Adelaide Moulding and Casting Supplies for $25 bucks, and that's enough for a looooooot of jewellery. If you're not sure if your clay has sulphur in it, do a small test with your silicone before casting your prototypes. (kinda gross that cheap kids modelling clays can have sulphur in it as a filler material!)
2. Made something your happy with? Check out this video from Aldax. It's an excellent tutorial that shows you how to use RTV silicones to make flexible moulds (important if you wish to make reusable resin moulds).

You can make moulds from a lot of different materials. Plaster is difficult as it is rigid, you'll need to coat the mould with a mould release and then chip it away a lot of the times (there are methods where you don't need to, but that's kinda complex, so a book on mould making for you if you wish to go down this path). You can also use latex, which is a brush on liquid. Kinda laborious process and stinky! Also you need to know what kind of resin you are putting into a latex mould as polyester resin (which I use) tends to degrade latex over time.

I like silicone as it's easy to use over and over, gives great reproduction (I have finger prints reproduced all over my jewellery!) and is relatively no fuss. But it's expensive. I get my silicone from Solid Solutions and a huge 20kg bucket (you can get much smaller quantities!) it's about $200 bucks cheaper than most other Australian sellers, so I'm happy.

What you don't see in the video is that if you are using plasticene, you'll then need to scoop it out of the mould. It's pretty easy, sometimes you can simply flex the mould and bits will pop out quite easy, but, if you need to dig plasticene out, like I often do, get yourself a wire tool

The ones with the little loops on the end are the best for getting clay out.

Now, it your mould is free of plasticene and the original ring (should just pop out, like the video) then you're ready to cast!

3. Which resin? I use polyester, because it's cheap and readily available where I am. Epoxy, another commonly used one, is about three times as expensive where I am, but there are some cheaper craft Epoxy's I think on the market, especially in the US. Each resin has it's pros and cons. The big thing with polyester resin is it's catalyst (very corrosive and dangerous to get in eyes and on skin!) and the styrene fumes that polyester gives off. Styrene is a weird chemical, I think I was reading something about it mimicking, or affecting different endocrinal processes?

Wikipedia has this to say:

"The US Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) states that human exposure to high levels of styrene (more than 1000 times higher than levels normally found in the natural environment) may induce adverse nervous system effects. These health effects include changes in color vision, tiredness, feeling drunk, slowed reaction time, concentration problems, or balance problems [4].
Styrene is classified as a possible human carcinogen by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC).[5] The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) does not have a cancer classification for styrene, but is evaluating its potential carcinogenicity. The EPA has described styrene as "a suspected carcinogen" and "a suspected toxin to the gastrointestinal, kidney, and respiratory systems, among others."[6][7]"

So it was very bad of me to follow in the footsteps of my ex partner, and do my first few casts mask free, no gloves, in the good ol Darwin tradition of ignoring all health risks and doing it anyway, standing in your thongs, cigarette in one hand and a flammable liquid in the other...

Yup, well I got some on my skin and it stang! Quickly washed it off and used some acetone to get it all off (acetone removes polyester). for the rest of the day my skin crawled with the kind of weird allergic reactions I get to things. the next time, when I wore gloves, I still got all crawly and itcy from the smell! So I now use a respirator with a P2 filter, and whilst some people think these are next to useless, I definitely no longer smell the stinky styrene smell. I also got some LSE resin (Low Styrene Emitting) which also helps. I use latex gloves, (tried big corrosive resistant ones but were too bulky to use), I use another respirator when sanding and safety glasses, wash all my clothes once I'm finished mucking about with resin, seperately and try to be a better OHS bunny from now on. No more crawly skin or allergy.

Must be extremely careful when using the catalyst and the resin. This is probably not a process to do around children. I do all my casting outside, at the back of my house, with safety gear and no kids. It apparently takes huge amounts of air to dissipate Styrene fumes, so not so good for little lungs playing in the backyard as you make jewellery. Epoxy might be much better in this regards? Not sure, I don't know that much about the different resins at this point.

Make sure you recap catalyst bottles safely, keep all these chemicals out of reach of kids etc

I use fibreglass resin, I don't do a lot of embedding so I don't need the water clear effect polyester casting resin has. Fibreglass resin looks a lot like honey, is thick and yellowish and goopy and I colour it with polyester resin dyes, oxides, and resin paste colours. You don't need a lot of any of these to colour your resin quite deeply.

4. Okay. Mould on flat even surface, clean, dry and free of plasticene. Resin and catalyst, kitchen scales, disposable plastic cups or some other mixing vessel which you won't be able to reuse for anything else. Flat stirrer (paddlepop sticks, or tounge depressors are good). Dyes or stuff to embed (glitter, hundreds and thousands etc).

You can work out exactly how much resin to use by filling your mould up with water, then emptying it into a measuring cup (or a plastic cup and marking the level with a pen). I have so many moulds I measure out my resin per hundred grams and then fill as many as I can.

Measure out resin on the scales. The catalyst bottle will give you a ratio (often 3ml to 100ml on cooler days), so if you don't know the weight of your resin, you won't know how much catalyst to put in. Too much catalyst? Your piece can crack from the heat generated by the catalyst. Not enough? Your piece will be tacky and gooey. It's important to be fairly precise.

Don't add catalyst yet! Add any colour, dye, or additions now. Stir them through with your paddlepop stick until mixed through then add the catalyst.

Catalyst must be measured in a container not used for other things. Silicone catalyst and polyester catalyst apparently are hazardous if mixed. I got tiny little measuring cups from my local hardware store. Measure it carefully but be aware, one little splash of this on skin or eyes (or anywhere else for that matter!) is very hazardous, so keep your distance and be careful when measuring.

Add catalyst to resin, stir through thoroughly and then pour carefully into your mould.

Sculptural resin jewellery moulds often have problems with air bubbles than most. there was air, obviously, in your mould when you started and pouring the resin into it displaces that air. an open mould (one with smooth rounded shapes like the ring in the video) will have few problems, but ones with little protrusions like my stuff, air will tend to get trapped in these cavities in the mould. The resin is rushing in, but no where for the air to go in the small space.

There's a few solutions to this

1. agitate your mould. I usually use a paintbrush handle or something and try and wobble the mould to get all the airbubbles out

2. You can create a pressure chamber. Apparently people do this using paint pots (the kinds used in high pressure spray painting) and attach them to a compressor and get the psi up to about 20-25? I don't know much about this, it's beyond my technical capacity right now, but apparently this gets rid of a lot of air bubbles

3. Dust your mould with talc. Not sure how or why or if this works, but I've seen reference to it as a technique

I always slightly overfill my moulds. Polyester likes to 'creep' up the sides of moulds, and as it sets, seems to almost 'suck' back into the mould. if you have details right on the surface of the mould, you'll lose them as the resin 'sucks back'. By overfilling, you end up with a blob of resin on the end of your piece which you have to later remove, but you get all the detail.

Now let it set. The directions for your resin will give you approximate times as to how long this will take. Basically the moulds will get hotter, as the chemical process takes place, and then it will cool down and the resin will get steadily harder. Be careful about being too gungho and pulling your pieces out when still a bit soft. You can distort and mark the surface of your piece if you wrestle it from the mould too early

5. Remove pieces from moulds and then clean them up.

If you have resin blobs you want to get rid of, now's the time to pull out the trusty Dremel. I was trying to do this with hand tools initially (files and sandpaper) and it can be done, but it's time consuming! Just a note though, power tools will often turn resin white due to the heat generated by their use. I use a Dremel with a coarse sanding wheel to take off most of the blobs from my work, and then go back and sand them smooth by hand, removing the white marks.

You can get polyester to a very high shine...if you're patient. this means going through different grades of sand paper, getting finer and finer as you go, until you end up with a very smooth surface which can then be shined up. I like matte, it's easier and looks pretty!

Resin Jewellery

2009-01-16T07:42:00.006+09:00

So I'm having a little holiday from toymaking at the moment. It's getting incresingly harder to find shops willing to take on stock from someone who isn't represented, or a name. I've been aware for awhile that I need to make the move to do more self promotion, like...make a website or something! But it just hasn't happened yet.

For those not in the know, I've been on stress leave for a month or two this year. I'm a senior school art teacher and burnout has well and truly kicked my butt. Making is a pretty important part of my existence, the kick of generating ideas and struggling to see them made 3-D is my drug of choice. But all this icky schmoozin, networking, self promotey bollocks leaves me cold. Even though I know every indiustry in the world thrives on it. And that it's virtually impossible to get your stuff seen if you don't. And you may as well just lock yourself in a box with your little fabric effigies and beat yourself with a stick if you don't bother. Did I ever mention I'm kinda stubborn? I need to do a lot more to promote my work if I want to keep making it but ain't got the juice to do it.

So how do I solve this dilemma? By playing around with something new! I've always loved resin jewellery since the early 90s Dinosaur Designs explosion. Even though I did many years of sculpture at art school, we never did cover resins, probably as they're a bit dangerous and whiffy and y'know, bad to breathe in

This is Dinosaur Designs latest stuff, not mine!

So in the spirit of getting back to the fun stuff in making, I've had a stab at making resin jewellery.

It's nice to get back to I guess what I was trained to do, modelling. I actually started making soft sculpture as a reaction against modelling (by this I mean taking a substance and shaping it into a sculpture as apposed to the construction method: welding, wood, carving etc). Modelling was always something I found relatively easy and sewing was a whole new challenge: how to get forms by constructing fabric into shapes.

So it's been a long time since I've squished some plasticene into shape! Jewellery poses an obvious challenge in that everything is so tiny. One of my lecturers used to talk disdainfully about making sculpture with dentist tools: in other words, tiny little tools which you wield with the kind of care toy prototypers do. This obviously didn't fit in with his idea of the heroism of large scale sculpture!

The colour of resin is just amazing. the transparent stuff just seems to suck in light. I pulled a bunch of kelly green pieces from moulds the other day and they just flared with radiant light as I got them out. I'm casting ridiculous amounts of resin right now, just to try out all the different colour combos I can make! Anyway, tutorial following this post...

Pictoplasma Residency!

2009-01-16T07:41:00.000+09:00

Exciting news kids! Pictoplasma, gods of intellectual burrowings into what a character is, are offering a lucky punter a chance at a residency, as part of the famous Character Walk which they hold each time they have a conference. Not much of a lead time (proposals in by the 26th of Jan) and works to be there by March but a seriously awesome opportunity

"Pictoplasma and DISK/club transmediale offer young and upcoming artists the opportunity to present their character driven work to a wide, international and interested audience.
As part of the official Character Walk, running from the 17th to the 21st of March 2009 and opening the world’s largest festival of contemporary character design and art, the renown project space General Public in the center of Berlin will serve as the perfect stage for the winning proposal.
The awarded artist will receive up to 10 days of accommodation in Berlin from the 11th to the 21st of March 2009, a grant of 500,- Euros to help realize the submitted proposal, all our support to set up the exhibition in the “General Public”, as well as free entry to all of the Pictoplasma Festival and Conference events.
We are open to your wildest, most daring, stylistically sure-footed character exhibition proposals, not limited to any media or style, ranging from video work, photography, performance, installation, painting, print, drawings or sculpture.
We expect to receive a detailed, written exhibition concept, some sketches as a first reference, a selection of the entrants previous work, an artist biography and all contact information via email until the 26th of January 2009. All material should be sent to
pictopia (at) pictoplasma (dot) com
A jury panel composed by former speakers of the Pictoplasma Conference, club transmediale and Pictoplasma will select the winning proposal and inform the future resident no later than the 5th of February. Should any questions need to be clarified, entrants are requested to be reachable via email AND phone during the first week of February.
In 2009, The Character Walk will once more guide numerous international festival attendees, producers and fans through over twenty selected locations in Berlin-Mitte, showcasing different positions of artists working in the genre of reduced figuration.
Artists exhibiting at previous Character Walks include:
Tim Biskup, Rinzen, Nanospore, Moki, Shoboshobo, Juju’s Delivery, Nathan Jurevicius, Gary Baseman, David Shrigley, Derrick Hodgson, Doma, Rob Reger, Jiacong Jay Yan, Genevieve Gauckler, Ian Stevenson, Steak Zombies, Friends With You and many more…
Miro Delija