Chain Stitch Binding

Aaaaand here's some more bookbinding!


This one's called the Chain Stitch, not to be confused with the Chain Stitch that you use to embroider. The more signatures the better when it comes to this artist's book, because then the stiching on the open spine becomes more apparent. I wish I had a better picture to show you guys.

This is what the open book, between two signatures, looks like:


Were you to open the book within a signature it would look the same as any old book, with the stitching running vertically down the middle. This book is filled with blank pages, as well as glassine sheets (thin transparent paper for archival purposes) and found pages from another old book, which you can see above. The spine has a nice loose but strong feel to it, and is very flexible (obviously).

Garden of the Gods

This is another roll of Super 8 I shot on my camping trip in March. This area of southern Illinois is called the 'Garden of the Gods' for the strange rock formations.

Accordion Book

Actually this is a double accordion. An accordion book is one sheet of paper, encased by two book board covers, folded like an accordion between. For this little experimental book, I took two folded accordions, slit each page vertically to its midpoint, and then scissored them together to create this diamond effect. The book can be opened from both sides, and has the additional awesome factor of an inside space, kind of hidden pages. The covers wrap around and clasp at either end to make a nice package.


Sorry updates have been kind of slow and all book-related recently. I usually try to mix up the mediums that I write about for interest's sake. Right now I'm working on a backlog of photos I took last semester, since the school year ended in May. I've been pretty busy with summer fun and trying to find a real job while scraping by on part-time or one-off gigs. I still have a comic in the works, as well as a couple things I haven't scanned or photographed yet (including - yes - more books!) And just this weekend another project of mine came into fruition. I had a series of works about Llama Man installed at the IASD Dream Art Exhibition, including Llama Man himself (the costume posed on a freestanding armature I created for the exhibit). My film, For My Psychopomp, was installed as a loop on an old TV I got at a thrift store. I got a lot of really great feedback from a community I was incredibly happy to show my artwork to. People were really interested in the dream and how I've worked with it over the years, as well as in awe of Llama Man's towering and terrifying figure. Sunday night was the reception, and I won first prize in the Nancy Richter Brzeski Dream Art Awards! Now I have some money to buy more film to make more creepy movies. Yes! I am so excited and honored to have been recieved in such a wonderful way, and win such a great prize. Thanks IASD!

Coptic Binding

More from last semester's artists books class. This is called coptic binding, and uses multiple signatures (groups of pages). I triple wrapped the thread each time I came to the head or tail of the spine to create the thicker number of lines there.



I also made a cover for this book, out of cardstock and bookcloth, and colored paper for the inside cover.

Pamphlet Stitch

Here are two of the books I made at the beginning of last semester in my bookmaking class, while we were learning the pamphlet stitch. The pamphlet stitch is one of the simplest bookmaking techniques, and I've used it before in both of these.


You can see in this second one that I've also included a tab on the back cover that folds over the front cover to clasp shut the book. Very cute and simple. These books were made out of recycled and found paper.

Squishsacks

These are sketchbook pages wherein I've been working on the design for the characters who inhabit my newest comic. They're called 'squishsacks', and they travel in a jellyship. They're bloblike aliens composed mainly of fluid containing their and their species' genetic information. They have three sacks inside of their main body sack which contain only their own genetic information, and they can come together like soap bubbles to communicate through a fluid exchange. They can also meld into the jellyship, a completely organic spaceship shaped like a jellyfish doughnut, which propels through space by manipulation of its many tenticles.

Frame Faces

Recent doodles.

Llama Man: Documentation

Here are some photos documenting the making of my final film for the semester. Most of them are from the super 8 shoot, which happened in early March in the Chicago Forest Preserve and on Montrose Beach.


Mark and AJ helped me out with this part, AJ working the camera and Mark helping me get my costume on and off and move stuff around.




At first we were having a really difficult time as it had rained the previous day, so these big fields we were in were very muddy and my stilts got caught in the ground. This is a disaster for anyone who knows how to stiltwalk; because you have no ankles or toes on the bottom of your 'feet', you must keep in constant motion to stay balanced, and that is impossible if your legs are glued to the ground.




We finally had to find places for me to walk on concrete drains or paths, with a natural background to make it appear as though Llama Man were walking on the grass. This is why, in the film, you'll see that his feet are cut off in several shots.




AJ did really well considering he didn't know that much about film or shooting film. We'd frame shots together and then I would yell at him through my mask how many seconds I wanted him to roll. The time was around lunch, and there were lots of working men on their breaks, eating in parked cars and watching us.




Llama Man must have looked really bizarre to them, especially since this girl kept emerging from behind the mask. I would wave at them in costume as often as possible, and usually they were good sports about it and waved back. A couple cops stopped to ask what we were doing, if we were shooting a horror film. I said yes because I didn't really want to launch into the whole explaination.



The shoot for the 16mm stuff was way different and much harder. Most of the time was spent constructing the set.


My crew could not have been a better group of people. They were all very patient and supportive and I owe them eternally for it. Here's Zaven, my camera man, on the dolly at probably around three in the morning:


Thanks guys!

For My Psychopomp

There is sound in this clip, and it's kind of quiet; I suggest you turn up the volume on your computer and also click the 'high quality' (HQ) button on the viewer.



Here it is, my final film for the semester and what I've been working on like a demon for the past three months. It's screening tonight for the first time. The word psychopomp is one that my mother brought to my knowledge, during a discussion of my film. I was telling her how I wanted to make a movie not only about my recurring childhood nightmare (you know, llama man) but how my relationship with that narrative and the character who inhabits it has changed. "He's turned into something like a muse," I told her, "he's like a conductor between my unconscious, which is where I think a lot of my creativity comes from, and my waking life, bringing me ideas."

Psychopomp literally means 'soul conductor' and refers to those people or things that act as escorts to the afterlife. In Jungian terminology, it means the mediator between conscious and unconscious minds. I dedicated this film to Llama Man, who I've decided is my personal psychopomp in the Jungian sense, and the dedication doubles as a title. (This is also why he shows up in the first pages of Night City, as a welcome committee.)

For My Psychopomp was shot on 16mm and Super 8 Tri-X film stock. All the stuff outside is Super 8.

Room Tone

I drew this poster last weekend in preparation for my upcoming screening at The Nightingale, Room Tone. I'll be showing two films: For My Psychopomp, a ten minute exploration into the origins and character of Llama Man, and an edited version of House Fuck, which will actually be projecting on real film. (Gasp!)

If you're in Chicago or visiting Chicago this Friday, please please come, it will be a great show! A lot of us helped each other make our movies, too. All the info is on the flier.

The Crocodile

This is a chalkboard I was hired to draw and write on in January of this year. It's eight feet across, four feet high, and on the ceiling above the bar. It took me about twenty hours to complete fully, stretched across several weeks of precarious balancing on chairs on top of chairs on top of bar tables and plywood. You can see it if you live in the Chicagoland area by visiting Wicker Park.

Zine Purchase

One of our first assignments in my comics class last semester was to go to the local independent comics store, Quimby's, and purchase a zine that someone had put out. We then had to respond in a two page comic in our sketchbook. This is what I drew:



The drawings get lazy towards the second page, but that picture up top is a sketch of the actual zine, which was full of weird, tiny little exquisite corpse drawings that I half-heartedly tried to imitate.

Spring Break

This is an edit I made of three rolls of Super 8 Ektachrome footage from my spring break camping trip last March. It's the first film I edited with tape splices, on janky plastic super 8 rewind arms in a small dark room. I like it.

Tough Times

Assignment: A one page comic with movement in every panel. From earlier this semester.

Stationary: Owl Print

A set of ten two-color prints on scrap paper (the scraps from the paper I used to make this) I turned into simple stationary earlier this semester. The print is a smaller scan and copy of the stencil screenprint I made last year.



I started making the envelopes at Pantheacon this year, absentmindedly folding them in different angles until I reached a design I liked. It was important to me that you be able to see the owl when the envelope is opened, like how you can see the owl before opening the card. I also wanted to keep with the kind of strange folds that didn't meet each other that the card had going on.


To seal the sides of the envelope and make it functional, I decided not to glue or tape it, and sewed it instead. The paper is very soft and tactile, and it felt appropriate. Also, as you all know, I like nothing more than stitching things that aren't supposed to be stitched.

Triptych Triptych

Three series of three photographs. Three locations important to me, in California. These photographs were taken in February of this year.




The Doubletree Hotel, in San Jose, where Pantheacon is currently held. I like to hang out in the bathrooms and think about the women who come and crimp the tissues every day. That's my mother's flask sitting on the entertainment center, overpowered by the reflection of the lamp in the gloss on the particleboard; I like to think about who polishes those surfaces, and the surface of the faucet. I'm aware that the job is most likely a boring/grueling one, but when I imagine myself performing these tasks, it is in a meditative state. This is the state in which I took these pictures, and the state in which they ought to be viewed.




Ragle Park, in Sebastopol, where I spent many days between the ages of one and sixteen, and which I visit every time I'm in town. It is a beautiful, expansive park, with creeks and hills and little paths and little gardens, tadpoles in the summer and mud pits in the winter, and lots of trees to climb. This spot in the park, specifically, is special to me. It's one of those places that feels completely magical and private. It is always lit ecstatically. The branches of these trees defy logic, constantly flexing to extend, heavy, further away from the trunk and parallel to the ground. These photographs look unreal, and for that reason I find them more factual. Look at the blue here, and the gloss.




In-N-Out Burger. There's not much to say that hasn't already been said about how amazing it is. I encounter a lot of people in Chicago who are jealous of my California heritage soley based on the fact that I get to eat In-N-Out every time I visit. I really love these photographs because of how eerie they look. The restaraunt looks like a demon hellhole with grey zombie employees, somehow still spotless while infested with decay. All of which just makes me love In-N-Out more. Quality you can taste.

Night City (Part 3)

A composite dream narrative, compiled from various nighttime adventures, both conscious and unconscious. We had the option to either write a ten page paper or create a six page comic in response to a graphic novel, and I picked one of my all time favorites, Daniel Clowes' Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron. There was no penciling in the creation of this comic. Everything drawn straight up with a pen, yeah.

part 1
part 2

Night City (Part 2)

part 1
part 3

Night City (Part 1)

part 2
part 3

Stationary: Long Day

This was the first set of stationary I ever made to sell at Pantheacon, about a year and a half ago. I cut a linoleum print of a witch with a cigarette and a martini, made 20 prints, put together 20 different cards with scraps of found patterened paper, and then designed 20 envelopes for them.



You can see here how the envelope opens; it's pretty cool, you don't need tape or anything. The five pictured at the top are all of these I have left.