Things What I Make

The time I made a dress out of a computer.

fingerpainted — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 04:15:46 +0000

So a recent assignment for class was to make a garment/accessory out of recycled materials. Trying to think of what materials to use, I thought about bottlecaps, (interesting enough), about bubble wrap (didn’t have any–but would still love to have this dress to pop while wearing), and about used matches (would have to waste them in order to get enough–defeating the point of recycling), until I remembered about the broken laptop I acquired a few weeks ago when a resident of my building tried to discard it. Being the collector of useless things that I am, I took it, and lo and behold, it actually proved to be quite useful (for once).

To begin, I took the laptop and a broken printer I had also acquired and completely dismantled them, a process which involved some deft manuevering of a screwdriver and some not so deft bludgeoning with a baseball bat. I was left with a lot of clunky pieces of plastic, and no clue how to make them into a garment. A few days later, after some skillful avoiding of the task at hand, I returned to the project and devised a plan to create a bodice out of the laptop screen. The biggest problem I encountered was how to get it to fasten, and I came up with a sort of corset back, giving the bodice a very Xena-warrior-princess-fell-through-a-time-portal-into-a-world-ruled-by-robots feel (to actually see this happen, one merely has to watch Battlestar Galactica).

After I made the bodice, I had really gotten into the character of the woman I was creating, and being overambitious, decided to create not only a skirt for her, but a handbag as well. The skirt was constructed out of recycled plastic and the inside of a keyboard, as well as the keys of the laptop. The handbag was made out of the outer shell of the keyboard. The skirt also had a bustle made from the top of the printer–a futuristic shout-out to that wonderful butt-enhancing relic of the 1800′s.

Here is the dress, worn here by my lovely model Laura (who is also depicted in the painting below).

A close up of the bodice:

And a bustle shot:

Laura

fingerpainted — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 03:11:23 +0000

This small portrait was painted over a period of seven months, partly due to laziness, but mostly because I hated it. I would come back to it about once a month, try something new, feel very “blah” about whatever I did, and then abandon it. It underwent many phases, the only thing staying true throughout the whole process being Laura’s resemblence to some sort of megalomaniac dictator. She started out very Nero-esque, then went through a sort of Egyptian pharoah phase, moved on to Native American warrior, and settled at time traveling Mongolian feudal lord.

The dinosaurs were taken from the glorious comic book series Dinosaurs for Hire, as seen here. The comic is literally about dinosaurs for hire–as mercenaries, of course. It features muscular anthropomorphic dinosaurs, beautiful blondes, and a healthy share of violence–definitely worth checking out.

Stealth Nudity

fingerpainted — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 03:00:51 +0000

This painting was done from a live model, the focus of the work being light and shadows.

Another self portrait.

fingerpainted — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 02:34:46 +0000

Looking at this, one would guess that I live a life beset by tragedy. I do not, but I suppose it was just one of those days.

Self Portrait

fingerpainted — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 22:56:43 +0000

Looking for Love

fingerpainted — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 22:48:20 +0000

This was painted from a live model session, after which my teacher told me that I had “really captured the energy of the penis.” Well, OK. Thanks. In the spirit of that I used the “men seeking men” section of the The Phoenix (a Boston newspaper) to give the painting a little pizzazz. I don’t have a close-up of the text, but I trust you can use your imagination–just know that whatever you’re imagining, its probably not obscene enough.

hybrid portrait one

fingerpainted — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 22:33:15 +0000

These three photographs were taken in response to an assignment to make a “hybrid self-portrait”- a work composed of elements from the work of an artist working in the year of a parent’s birth, and one working in the year of our own birth. The artists I chose were Roberta Matta, the abstract expressionist painter, and Richard Wilson, an installation artist. The painting on her face (a very patient and cooperative friend) was influenced by Matta, and the tree ornaments (garbage) was the influence of Wilson.

hybrid portrait two

fingerpainted — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 22:32:00 +0000

hybrid portrait three

fingerpainted — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 22:28:54 +0000