Archives for category: Fun

ebrace series.indd

I so want to get back into the swing with the Dedes. I am sitting here trying to write the story that made me come up with the “Embrace Diversity” Series. This is a project I did two years ago for an exhibition and it consists of six images of unexpected Dede puppet pairings. Back then I well and truly believed you can understand everyone if you only tried hard enough and inject a little bit of fun, yeah right! Two years later I have to say, you might be able to understand everyone and their actions, but you still might not be able to solve a thing. There is this German saying: The best can’t live in peace, when his neighbour doesn’t like it. I at least finally understand what that means :).

To tell you the true story now: Unfortunately Rob in this image doesn’t have a chance in hell as Bobby is a high functioning alcoholic. There is no way Rob will ever get out of prison and he might as well give up now! You can virtually see, that Bobby will never trust Rob and will blame him for everything that goes wrong. Bobby just wants to appear as if he is playing by the rules. You never know, someone might be watching.

Last week my sister-in-law, Kelly, organised a fundraiser to help her finance her PhD studies. As a poet she invited her artist friends to interpret one of her poem visually. It was a fantastic evening, very well organised and I believe also very successful.

My contribution was of course a stop-motion film depicting her poem “Get more reads on your poetry”. I think it is very selfexplanatory :)

more exercise

It is the end of the week. Hurrah! Next week I am back to part-time work, finally. I am so looking forward to continuing on the Artist’s Survival Cookbook. For now I am still watching Millie doing her air acrobatics.

exercise

Millie is surprisingly agile and she uses her rope to do acrobatics. I really like how content she looks.

recouperation

While she was recuperating Millie sat mostly on her rafter and observed what was going on below her in the classroom. There is still a little wound visible on her tummy. She is wearing her leash as a safety harness so she won’t fall off.

harakiri

Tony had a concerned comment yesterday, that Millie looked quite depressed. I can assure you she is definitely on the mend. Her life in the class room started around six month ago, when my students had the brief to develop a magazine ad series for raw milk. One of the students just couldn’t find an angle into it and so I brought the cow along to illustrate some options. I had found her at the salvation army store the same day. When I came back the next day, the poor little thing was lying neglected on the floor. I just picked her up and hung her in the rafters to symbolise another idea had died. To make sure the message was received, I also stuck a chopstick through her body (and before anybody gets up in arms: It doesn’t go right through. it is attached with blue tack). I do love my job and my students :). The students of course decided the cow has to live!

millie

This week I am working full-time again and have heaps of menial stuff to do as well. The Dedes are waiting and waiting and waiting patiently in the art cupboard until I find the time to attend to them again. I am a little distressed as my creativity is at an all time low. I had to come up with a quick solution to breath some life into my blog. Then I spotted Millie. Millie is a toy cow I donated to my students a while back and ever since she is having a life of her own in the rafters of the class room. The picture shows her how she was chilling over the weekend. She will be the star of my blog this week, sorry Dedes!

ah well

3 days to go on the crowd funding campaign for the Artist’s survival cookbook and it is clear it didn’t work. Well,  to be honest, it would have been a miracle if it had worked, as I am not well connected. Though it was worth a try. It was an interesting experience. What surprised me the most, was how many times I had to explain what crowd funding actually is, even to young people. On a postive note, 7502 hits on the little film is a great result! It is definitely good to have in the marketing mix, though the question is how much effect it will have on the book. I had a look where the most viewers came from and first of course is New Zealand with 3300 views, but the second is Vietnam with 605 views. Even more bamboozling, there are more viewers in Nepal than in Brazil, where I know the Dedes have some really good friends. Beats me :)

Ah well, the Dedes will battle on…

sams brain

Ah yes, the Dedes are on the back bench for a little while again. I so wish I could work on my book, but at the moment I am overloaded with work at my part-time place. The foundation course I am teaching on has just finished and all those poor teachers out there know what that means: Heaps of marking, following up slackers and other administrative tasks. Last Friday though we had a wonderful exhibition and it was a brilliant send-off for all the students who have been working together for 18 weeks. One of the last modules I taught was fibre arts and the picture shows the work of Sam Hall. I am confident he is one we will hear more of in the future. He is now off to art school in Oxford and I wish him all the very best for his career. The artwork is a felted brain doused in red wine. The helium balloon smiles at you for a while, but when you come back a few hours later it will lie limp and deflated next to the damaged brain.

Yesterday I had a workshop with kids at the Michael Park School in Auckland as part of their Art in Action event. The kids were absolutely fabulous. I am always amazed about the creativity and how they turn simple things into effective props.

My PledgeMe campaign isn’t going too well. Over 2800 views of the little movie, but only 7 pledges.Thank you so much Tony and Mike for your pledges!

No idea what else I could do. I do like the little film and Cash Cow really fainted.