So this most recent Saturday I worked with Eric again, and we had a pile of additional helpers and guests, including Eric’s aunt Karen and three generations of her family. Twelve more kernels were made, four by me, three by Eric and five by guests. I’ve made a set to catalog all of the images from this project, which is here, and, incidentally, I’ve also started a new Flickr pool, Documentation is Everything, devoted to art process and exhibition documentation.
This time we were mixing all custom colours, which gave me an introduction to Eric’s tinting and colouring shed (some of the tints we were using at top). Eric’s pretty much set up to paint custom cars – his works usually drip with the kind of mutli-layered pearlescence associated with low riders and custom cars. I’ll have to post images of some of Eric’s other works, they’re a combination of wooden airframe aesthetic, physics exploration and ecstatic colours. They eat and reflect light.
The colour shed is Willy Wonka-esque in potential. Every shade of flake, glitter or pearl is there for the experimentation, as are an astounding array of colours with names like Honey Lust, Lazer Blue and Raspberry Kandy. It’s hard to go in there with an idea and come out with it unchanged. It’s the rabbit hole.
Above – One of Eric’s other helpers, Nick, turns the gimbal. As you can see, this weekend was more colourful than last weekend. That pink one in the upper right hand corner is one of the ones I coloured – It was just multiple layers of straight pink with a final layer with some opaque white and white pearl. It was positively electric when it came out of the mold.
Above – Removed from the gimbal and ready to pop. That one in the Center is layers of orange, with a layer of black mixed with confetti scavenged from Jennifer Faist and her husband Craig’s wedding. It’s crazy out of the mold, like futuristic 1970′s orangy-black shag carpet or something. Hard to describe. You can put stuff into the resin so long as it will fit in the hole and is light enough to flow around. Eric’s done a lot of kernels with metal and plastic shavings inside, some of the conical shavings come across like weirdly geometric seashells. I want to add a layer of hundreds of old school LEGO swords to a future kernel.
Above – Photographer Tony Sanders and I unbolt molds. This is more fun than it looks like. After a full day of spinning, pouring and waiting, you just want to rip these guys open to see what you’ve got.
Above – Eric, smoking triumphantly, opens a kernel, this one belonging to his cousin Tom (at left). Eric managed to really closely match the colour Tom wanted to achieve, by combining multiple layers of green and yellow. The molds make them look duller than the finished product. When they come out they’re covered in a thin green layer of mold release – when you peel that off, the transition, seeing the final colour, is awesome.
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