Challenge #9 Create a Portrait of a Townsperson

This one is easy. My portrait is of a well-known sculptor who was also my mentor. The piece captures my friend right down to his signature brass belt buckle and a redbird sitting on his shoulder. Materials: welded steel

Challenge #8 - Sell Yourself

I have an idea for a tattoo that has been rumbling in my brain. So a T-shirt with this.
Probably would get me booted but still...it wants to come to life, so...

Materials: T-shirt, paint Update: The T-shirt thing won't work. Four inches of snow outside...can't spray there. Don't want to be trapped indoors with that smell, so BADGES/PATCHES. Images painted on 100% cotton that contain provocative images which can be sewn to clothing, glued onto notebooks, etc. Versitile Art.

Challenge #7 Fiat - Use car parts

Well there are no random Fiat car parts in my vicinity, so I am going to use the dregs located in my car. (NO it is not a shiny red Fiat.) Materials: map, paper, foil wrappers

Challenge #6 Street Art

I don't have a 40' wall to play on, so I have created a pocket graffiti template. Ha! I did the mock-up on Styrofoam (left over from lunch, cut it with an Exacto, and sprayed a sample only to find out that spray paint eats Styrofoam! The sample was merely a model; I had planned to recut it in a sheet of copper (more durable), but wow! didn't know about eatability.

Maybe that's a way to destroy all of the Styrofoam clogging up landfills.
The image I decided on is an eye surrounded by a happy/sad, comedy/tragedy mouth. If you come upon it in the street you can see you have a choice-positive or negative, or it can be read simply as an eye. LOOK!

Materials: Styrofoam, spray paint + any surface, anywhere

Challenge #5 Rip it from the Headlines of The New York Times

"COST OF WAR"
Veteran's Day-the newspaper is crammed with articles and pictures honoring the service of men and women fighting in America's wars. Today's society thinks almost nothing of the current wars. It's an all volunteer military. It's sanitized. We don't think about it. We, as a nation, don't consider the destruction-physical and psychological scars and death. My piece is to make everyone think about it. We own the blood.
Materials: Newspaper, Marker, Paint, Tape

Challenge #4 Create a piece based on children's art

I would like to be reflective and see what emerges but there are no 10-year-old children in my life. So I will have to wait until I can find a kid who would up for a collaboration. Maybe I should just go to the elementary school and steal someone's discarded drawing out of the trash.
Okay. I swiped a drawing. Don't know how old the kid is, maybe 5? 7? But look, it is expressive.Snakes.

My piece "Commune Wedding Party, Summer 2011" depicts an actual event. At the outdoor wedding I had left the main dance tent and was walking to my friend's cabin when I saw children reaching into a gunnysack, pulling out sticks, and throwing them into the air. It was twilight, a bit undeciperable like in Camus' "The Stranger." As I neared the children I could see an odd shape to the "sticks." The kids were throwing black rat snakes into the air!
The whole event spooked me and I went home. The next day when I talked to my wedding friend she said the kids found 23 snakes! Normal rural fun, according to her.
This is my documentation of the event.
Materials: paint, canvas, wood

Challenge #3 Create Pop Art - make it for today

"Big Mother (SUCK)"
My idea here is a commentary on computers and how technology is consuming our lives. We fear Orwell's Big Brother prophecy, yet I think we should be more fearful of Big Mother.Big Mother is the computer we go to throughout the day for answers to all of life's problems, questions, and quasi information. Mother is being replaced. Do we need family anymore? The "X" marks the danger warning. Big Mother has no soul, no warmth, no love. Nipples are painted inside each disc. We suck. Our Mother. Big Mother.
Materials: CDs,gray wood frame, paint, vintage Bell & Howell film letters, plastic marking tape