Persistancy is a GigerFool's best asset
It seemed like destiny.
Festifools, now it it's third year, was a year in the making for us. I was enchanted by the idea of a free-for-all parade with the din of bucketdrums and giant, looming puppets where the lines blurred easily between linearity, order or even between spectator and participant. I knew I had to go get me some of that.
The design is loosely borrowed from one of my original characters, a cyclopean alien with sinusoidal lines and veiny texture. The similiarities pretty much diverge there.
The core of the parade is an art course at the University called Art in Public Spaces. They have clay masters followed by plastercastings and a full studio space supported by tuition. I have styrofoam I fish out of lab trash piles in my kitchen's midnight hours.
Papier mache went well, being the bulk of the work. Lots of wallpaper paste (which is not as easy to find as I originally thought) with scavenged newspaper (also soon to be rare?) rounded out many nights.
Rosey liked to get in the way.
The skeleton was built out of PVC, which again doesn't have the highbrow aesthetic of bamboo, but at buck and change for a ten foot pole it's hard to refuse that kind of flexible strength on the cheap. Hot glue did the rest.
Shoe forms as scales/ectodermal nerve plexi/egg sacs. I scored about forty for a couple quarters.
My attractive graphic designer BFA-wielding wife was becoming concerned of the phallic nature of the beast as we neared the deco phase. "Don't worry," I said "Things will be better when we get this pink paint all over it." "It will be less obvious once we cover it in blue-purple veins." or "The single eye will detract from that notion." finished with "These additional tentacled hands will pull from that vituperative insinuation." I tried to say those things with a straight face. In all frank honesty I find perversion is in the pants eye of the beholder, but I never had such suggestions with my original design thrust. Still, this is why she gets dibs on next year's design.
Barely fit in our garage when finished. He stuck out two sides of my truck bed during transport.
Frida Kahlo creeps me out, man.
Ours might have been on the low end, but we beat out just about everyone in terms of sheer size and breadth. The Pink Panic's wingspan was a full seven yards and loomed about thirteen feet high as I lurched him down Main with my brother and attractive graphic designer wife. Jack was amused when we brought him over. The girl in the stroller next to him totally freaked out and refused to stop screaming. I...I might be responsible for some long term trauma there. I'm totally sorry, little girl.
I will destroy you!
My favorite, the wind was picking up.
We were a bit shocked by the sudden start to the parade, doing our best to get up to the Anorexicsaurus. Our understanding was two lines would approach from each side, pass each other and double back as many times as possible in the hour. Imagine our surprise when a Fool worker began giving us complex directions: Move like a conveyor belt, then we'll do two passes, three swells and swiftly depart! What? I'm holding a giant puppet, lady. I'm totally going this way.
Great fun, great times. I'm totally stoked for next year.
Festifools, now it it's third year, was a year in the making for us. I was enchanted by the idea of a free-for-all parade with the din of bucketdrums and giant, looming puppets where the lines blurred easily between linearity, order or even between spectator and participant. I knew I had to go get me some of that.
The design is loosely borrowed from one of my original characters, a cyclopean alien with sinusoidal lines and veiny texture. The similiarities pretty much diverge there.
The core of the parade is an art course at the University called Art in Public Spaces. They have clay masters followed by plastercastings and a full studio space supported by tuition. I have styrofoam I fish out of lab trash piles in my kitchen's midnight hours.
Papier mache went well, being the bulk of the work. Lots of wallpaper paste (which is not as easy to find as I originally thought) with scavenged newspaper (also soon to be rare?) rounded out many nights.
Rosey liked to get in the way.
The skeleton was built out of PVC, which again doesn't have the highbrow aesthetic of bamboo, but at buck and change for a ten foot pole it's hard to refuse that kind of flexible strength on the cheap. Hot glue did the rest.
Shoe forms as scales/ectodermal nerve plexi/egg sacs. I scored about forty for a couple quarters.
My attractive graphic designer BFA-wielding wife was becoming concerned of the phallic nature of the beast as we neared the deco phase. "Don't worry," I said "Things will be better when we get this pink paint all over it." "It will be less obvious once we cover it in blue-purple veins." or "The single eye will detract from that notion." finished with "These additional tentacled hands will pull from that vituperative insinuation." I tried to say those things with a straight face. In all frank honesty I find perversion is in the pants eye of the beholder, but I never had such suggestions with my original design thrust. Still, this is why she gets dibs on next year's design.
Barely fit in our garage when finished. He stuck out two sides of my truck bed during transport.
Frida Kahlo creeps me out, man.
Ours might have been on the low end, but we beat out just about everyone in terms of sheer size and breadth. The Pink Panic's wingspan was a full seven yards and loomed about thirteen feet high as I lurched him down Main with my brother and attractive graphic designer wife. Jack was amused when we brought him over. The girl in the stroller next to him totally freaked out and refused to stop screaming. I...I might be responsible for some long term trauma there. I'm totally sorry, little girl.
I will destroy you!
My favorite, the wind was picking up.
We were a bit shocked by the sudden start to the parade, doing our best to get up to the Anorexicsaurus. Our understanding was two lines would approach from each side, pass each other and double back as many times as possible in the hour. Imagine our surprise when a Fool worker began giving us complex directions: Move like a conveyor belt, then we'll do two passes, three swells and swiftly depart! What? I'm holding a giant puppet, lady. I'm totally going this way.
Great fun, great times. I'm totally stoked for next year.