Art I Made in Q2 2020
What is worth doing, during shelter in place? Why is the answer so different from regular life, whatever that means?
Plants
The unadorned fence could use some greenery. Here I use wood framing with fabric again to make angled planter boxes for ferns to live in the shade of our gazebo.
Oh, right, I also made this planting table. It’s been really handy and I guess I spray painted it green. Sometimes other people like to leave Amazon packages on it.
Scarecoronas
An actual art project with batch production and everything! Renée proposed that we make little sculptures to frighten away coronavirus. So I made a few of them and hid them in little parks in my neighborhood.
Decorating Packages
This bottle of Jasco oil got a hole in it when I squeezed it. Time for a new bottle! But the label has so much important content about safety and directions and cleanup. Must reproduce the label, only cuter!
I also took the time to redecorate a bunch of odd shaped containers I’ve been holding on to.
Decorating the Car
I got a new car. I had been planning on it for a while, then suddenly had the free time and the used car market slumped. This was a red car when I got it.
Truck bedliner is tough and looks it. I like to use it on the roof of a car so that I can store things there without scratching any delicate paint. I also want it on the bumpers, so I’m immune to scratches. (The trick is that even when something scratches the liner, which is possible, I can just add more with a brush in five minutes.)
I had a sheet of magnetic material that I’ve used before to make car magnets. Renee suggested I might turn it into spots and make my car a ladybug! So nice.
Art with Trees
The Albany Bulb is a nice spot in the universe. No one is trying to make money on it or gain face with their property, so you can actually do fun things with people and try out ideas!
My first camping trip of quarantimes was to a friend’s property where they invited us to build a play structure for goats! They had a nice pile of beat up scrap wood and we put together this fun thing for goats to climb and play upon.
Tree Spiral. I had the idea for this one and then had to figure out how to get it to stand up on its own. I made several prototypes to figure out how to get the curve of the spiral right. It turns out that a really proper spiral would be much too aggressive and vertical for this location. Still, it adds some cheer and sometimes people like it.
Conclusions
I can’t help but feel disappointed in my work from this time. Everyone is so chock full of negative feelings, it’s almost impossible to make work that gives them positive feelings. I feel trapped between “why try” and “just do something.”
Probably my work here is more colorful and childish than usual, with extremely low barrier to entry for an audience, as a result of these conditions. I hope that becomes a benefit in the long run, as it seems to me now as just a loss.