Sawdust Bear Makes Things

I had a really nice, self indulgent, weekend where I didn’t do anything business related and just worked on an assortment of art projects. I also was a bit sick, but that actually helped.

I got to return to the Specimen 7 project I’ve been working on/off for the past couple years and even though I lost a ton of work on it when my laptop got stolen, I’m pretty much on track to finish the art book/epistolary short story sometime earlyish next year. I’m having a ton of fun with it and trying to tell a story on business cards and meeting notes and specimen tags…aaa, so much fun.

Here’s something I did a while back that I think I neglected to post here. This is the non-profit that does a ton of ridiculous research, including into the Specimen 7 collection.

Sorry for the lack of monsters. I’ve been working on this other ridiculous project!

Here is a sort-of picture of it. To the left, is my last ridiculous project, now being stripped down for parts and wood. To the right, is my current ridiculous project which currently doesn’t look like much, but is eventually going to look sort of like a chinese junk boat.

However, if you do want monsters, I’ve still been updating Marlowe regularly!

I spent pretty much all of yesterday listening to the 8in8 project by Amanda Palmer, Ben Folds, Damian Kulash and Neil Gaiman and it was pretty amazing. I don’t have a single musical bone in my body(I went through five musical instruments before my parents believed me. And then we found out I was also sort of tone deaf.), so watching this music writing process unfold was beyond fascinating. Pieces of lyrics and ideas were sourced from the Twitter audience and it’s all really quite enjoyable.

The results of this experiment are up here on Amanda Palmer’s Bandcamp page. They managed six songs in twelve hours. The songs are alternately whimsical and wistful and rambly and DONE. They’re DONE and they’re RELEASED and you can listen to them right now. How awesome is that?

I’m feeling really inspired by that concept of collaborating to start and finish something really ambitious in a really short period of time. Maybe eight multidisciplinary artists and writers dumped in a room sometime in September trying to produce eight eight page comics in eight hours? Eight hours sounds nice. It’s the span of a normal workday. Lots of beer. Lots of snacks. I’ll rent an awesome loft studio space for the day. Hmm. Drop me an email if you’re an artist and writer in the LA area, have an awesome track record of getting things done, and might be interested and I’ll keep you in mind…

Anyway, I’ve been doing a lot of prep work lately, and not so much complete sculpting…but here are some Marlowe behind the scenes pictures.

You guyyyys. I just had the best con ever.

I had excellent neighbours, Doubleparlour and Michael C. Hayes. I met my one of my favourite authors, Christopher Moore(a total surprise), and saw two of my fave bloggers again, Jeremy and Amy.

I know I promised to update the shop, but I actually don’t have much to update with because I only had 3 specimens left! Two are in the Etsy store, anyway.

I have a ton of things in the works for 2011…some of it might seem sort of all over the place, but I feel like I’m finally doing the kind of work that I’ve really been wanting to do for a while. I’m having a blast and I’m eternally grateful to all of you for supporting and encouraging me!

Some of you have asked me photography questions and been disappointed with my answers which tend along the lines of “I really don’t know – my camera works well on auto.” It’s true – I actually know nothing about photography except that if you take 200 pictures, a couple will be okay.

Fortunately, I asked my photographer friend Eron for some macro photography tips and he decided to respond with a four part blog post, because he’s just super informative and helpful like that! He’s up to 3 of 4 as of this posting, and I have only begun to absorb their contents, but if you’re interested in the topic of taking pictures of tiny things and tiny sets, you should certainly read his blog, Curio. Thanks, Eron!

I’ve been working on more little terrarium things because they are fun to make(and no, I haven’t implemented any of the photography tips yet…but I will!).

This one will be at Wondercon(I’m there as Sawdust Bear…I still don’t have a banner, so look for the monsters, tentacles and jars.

Hey LA people, I’m participating in an art auction and fundraiser event this Thursday at Meltdown Comics. I’ll have a couple of tentacle plaques that you can bid on and there are gonna be a whole ton of other artists and voice actors and other anime-relevant industry people and companies around.

Here’s the flyer!

the pieces I’ll have there are:

I’d love to see you there!

I start projects a lot. I leave them hanging most of the time, a pile of photographs, a very short sculpture series, a story half written.

This is a bad habit, but I’ve learned to embrace it. For instance, it’s not that I don’t FINISH projects. I START projects! I’m a PROJECT STARTER, not a delinquent ADD un-finisher of projects!

Yeah, whatever works. Glass half full, baby.

Anyway, I started a new project. I’m photographing my miniature collection.

You can find it here: The Tiny Object. It’s a Tumblr site.

I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t really know how to use my camera, but I’m sure I’ll get better.

Above, Arne Jacobsen’s Swan Chair in 1/12″ scale. From the Design Interior Collection from Design Store Tokyo.

Renegade Craft Fair was wonderful. I am really tired, but it was a fantastic show.

I find myself answering questions about craft fairs and selling your work a lot, which I am always happy to answer, but I feel like I should start blogging more about the processes there.

For now, though, here is a Flickr set of my craft show and convention setups that I’ve been able to find. I’ll add to it as I find them, but you can see the progression of my displays and inventory over time. The earliest picture is from 2006, when I was still Strange Little Bear…

I’ve been selling stuff as Sawdust Bear for a couple years now, but I JUST made a sign.

I’m also updating my Etsy store with Renegade leftovers, and the last date to order for by-Christmas shipping is Thursday, so if you wanted to buy something from me as a gift, this would be the time!

I’m auctioning a Marlowe figure for a charity run by an acquaintance in the toy community here. The charity is as grassroots as you can get and literally involves two people going to the small township of Kayamandi, hiring single mothers to cook for the children in the area and helping the children that want to go to school purchase school uniforms. Anyway, I very rarely sell Marlowe figures, but here is a chance to get one! It’s the one from the “asexual reproduction” comic and features Chastity’s birth. There are also a lot of awesome artists(and some really big names in the toy world!) who are part of the auction, so please check out the rest of the art here!

I also spent a little bit of time yesterday wrangling Comicpress into a new design for the Marlowe website. It’s a lot more minimal now, and it’s not particularly complex, but it is a lot less default. I think it’s kind of cute.

Guysssss, I had such a good time at Designercon. I didn’t bring my camera, but it was really, really, really awesome. Next year, I’ll hopefully know what to expect and have energy left over to hang out more with people afterwards!

Here’s a cellphone picture of my table – but I took it towards the end of the day, when a whole bunch of my specimens and wall plaques had been cleared out. I have a craft show this Sunday(Patchwork in Santa Ana) too, and I think I’ll be spending Thanksgiving sculpting up some more inventory.

Hana from supahcute.com included Sawdust Bear and Marlowe in her “What you Missed” DesignerCon recap, and some of my work is also in this LA Weekly slideshow(yes, that is a very awkward picture of me).

If you’re here because I met you at DCon – I love you!