going, going, gone

...as of 11:30pm last night they were in Sparks Nevada, so I have every reason to believe they arrived on the playa near 2am.
Today will be a busy day of installation...

FINISHED!

(composite shot without the bird panels--click to enlarge)

Thank you to all the artists and other contributers that helped make this huge project a reality-
Thank You!
Wendy Addison, Jennybird Alcantara, Lori Almeida,Gary Amaro , Lauren Ari, Todd Barricklow, Christopher Blaz, Michael Briganti, Ross Campbell, Margaret Clayton, Bill Collins, Claire B. Cotts, Michael Coy, Truman Coy, Jason D'Aquino, Troy DeBraal, Marylu Downing, Lisa Drostova, Barbara Elliot, Julian Farmer-Bowers, Mark Ferrari, David Fleischmann, Tom (Flip) Flournoy, Erik Friedman, Paul Gower, Wendy Halenbeck, Vaughn Hannon, Kevin Harden, Ema Harris-Sintamarian, Chris Hataway, Don Jackson, Donna Jackson, D. Lasdow, Joe Leonard, Lois Lyons, Monica Madeiros, Eric Martin, Richard Martin, Manny Martinez, Claire Maxfield, Lauren Maxfield, Chris McKee, Cassandra Mittlestead, Sequoia Raven Moon, Lex Monkey, Eric Nielsen, Mary Jean Nixon, Rik Olsen, Giovanni Pacheco, Marcel Patzwald, Tara Reck, Mike Reynolds, Adam Rosendahl, Melissa Santala, Marc Scheff, Paul Schneider, Irene Scott, Patrick Scott, Judith Selby-Lang, Nat Schumacher, Jeff Shauger, William Smith, Nancy Speir, Suzanna Stinnett, Charles Swensen, Mike Terry, Trine, Mario Uribe, Graham White, Pati Wilson, SallyAnn Wolanczyk, Neng Yang, Michael Yeates, Olivia Yeates, Thomas Yeates, Bob and Peter and Lori--I don't know your last names yet!, and hmm, maybe you. Cheers one and all!

soon, soon...

all this will be leaving for the playa.
In the meantime, added glazes push these pieces along, and stamps add lettering to the game wheels, and Lisa writes in the Game Board captions-and we find and paint our game pegs... (click to enlarge)

Two Days Left!!

Well, ok, now we're finally getting there. Lisa kicked some ass yesterday in her glazing-and our hero Lori came by once again to finish drawing in the snakes on the "girl" panel-who should be looking like the "boy" by late tonight."You should not have come back...hmmm, the force is strong in this one...oh well."

Sunday Night at the Art Farm

The Game Board. Lisa spent the weekend working up a beautiful set of warm color washes (or "glazes") for the game board. My late-night, low-light photo does'nt do it justice.
The "Girl" panel (minus the right side of her face-which is across the room). She's almost ready for the final varnish-just a bit more drawing and collaging to do. Gary Amaro spent the whole day and evening here working his magic on the birds, with Lisa adding alittle assist at the end. (We may wait until the girl and background gets started in color before finishing up the birds here.)
The "Boy" panel (sorry again for poor quality fotos!)-I'll be beginning my glazing of color onto this panel somewhere around midnight-and hope to finish most of it by late tomorrow. And it's hard to see them clearly-but Gary's ravens are looking really great-hopefully I won't mess 'em up in the final stretch! Again-thanks a ton Gary-and it was really great talkin' shop and music with you. Hope you and Claire have a fabulous weekend up this-a-way.
And speaking of thanks-I've just been too busy to blog my incredible thanks to everyone who has contributed to this monster of a project-and I suppose it's a bit premature to be talking about the project as if it's done (still several long days and nights to go)-but the hard part really is done-and that was done by the over 60 artists and cutters and gluers and other helpers that are the soul of this project and piece. Especially Suzanna and Lori-and again, Gary. And I finally got some great, almost late drawings from Wendy Addison, Lauren Ari, & Michael Coy last week that just barely made the deadline, anyway-thank you for being part of this! Oh, and thanks so much to Jason D'Aquino for the scans-they were all so amazing! Thank you!
Of course, biggest, most loving thanks to my partner in all this, who really in pretty much all ways has been a part-a huge part-in the struggle of bringing this beast to fruition, thanks Lisa.
OK-back to it-the project and i leave in 4 days! And there's still 7 days of work to do.

Two Art Farmers

...discussing the crop

Michael Coy, artist extraordinaire & one of our partners from Arches Gallery, makes some creative links on the piece. Michael is our latest Burning Man recruit (we think)-- he will go for the first time this year-- right?

With a little over a week to go...

drawing in some more snakes (you can never have too many snakes...)

Don't worry Booder, I'll protect you. (at the top center you can see Thomas's "mer-deer"-click to enlarge.)

Saturday Night Drawing (etc) Party

1) Gary Amaro really starts to breathe life into his ravens. (Gary, these are such a huge part of this-we only hope we can do them proud with whatever work we manage on them.)

2) Julian Farmer-Bowers & Marcel Patzwald check -out some resource books. These two came courtesy of our friend Mary Vaughn (check out her great paintings at www.maryvaughan.com) from the summer ArtStart program. (Mary was here this weekend too, and brought by photographer Barbara Elliott and artist Mario Uribe and his wife to see and contribute to the piece but I did'nt have the camera then).
These two, Julian and Marcel-along with fellow Art Starters, Adam & Chris, really gave us some great drawings. These guys have so much innate talent and I don't think one of them has hit twenty yet (oh wait, Chris is 21 but Marcel's still in High School)- Amazing. Thank you for being part of this!

3) Lori Almeida & Claire Cotts (& Thomas Yeats) draw. Thomas gave us another of the piece's highlights with his "mer-deer" and Lori and Claire also did some great drawings.

4) Suzanna (aka Bell) surveys the scene (and hey-it's Michael Coy there in the background! We're hoping he'll be in the foreground soon.)

5) Olivia winds down, near the end.

6) Adam, another of Mary Vaughan's ArtStart students, dropped by the next day and besides doing some great drawing, filled me with total envy over the rock concerts he's been to in the last year or two.

further developments...

(reminder! Last official Art Farm drawing party today! 4:00 on. And there is still time (barely) to send us drawings. But ready or not, paint starts going on these walls by mid-week next week-so hurry!)

...to the game wheel...Phyxx cuts a mean wheel-his other two are finished and ready for Lisa's paint magic. Speaking of, Lisa is really getting some nice colors down-these pictures (and especially the ones I take) don't do the colors justice. Hey, what am I doin' on my butt with only a week to go?

Thursday Night at the Art Farm


A wheel! A wheel!! Watch out, it'll make you queasy.
Bob & Lori dropped by to check in; Bell, our Master Glue-er surveys the scene; Phyxx built all three spinning wheels. Thanks!!!

Thanks and How About Some Pictures?

Huge thanks to every one!-- you are all making something that should not be possible actually happen. This thing is going to stretch alot of people's heads in Black Rock City.
In the category of drawing contributions specifically-- Big, HUGE thanks this week to Erik Friedman (dude-- seriously-- you rock. I can't wait to see your and Emma's show in October), and speaking of-- thank you Emma for your amazing contribution-- so, when do you sleep?-- , thanks also very mucho Jennybird-- they're really great. You kicked such ass last year at the Fun-House!, Nancy Speir-- my evil twin...no wait, I'm the evil twin...,William Smith (very cool, -- I still kick myself for not buying that great bumble bee at Roshambo), oh right, how could I forget-- from Minnosota -- Neng Yang. Neng, Lisa and I were pretty floored when we got your package. They're all great-- thanks tons. Oh-- a belated big thanks and greetings to Judith Selby Lang-- (are you going out this year? --Lisa and I would love to meet you). Very nice drawings--and it looks like you do all sorts of other cool art-things. Lisa collects colored beach plastic too. And also belated thanks to Mike Terry --again, still. Mike, you gotta lotta 'splainin' to do.
Oh-- and I never thanked Ross Campbell, so I finally will. When you see his pieces-- they are just so good. Totally raises the bar. Anyway-- go buy his 2 new books-- "Wet Moon 2" and also, well I really loved "The Abandoned". It's pretty brutal-- but a good zombie comic should be, right?
But maybe the biggest thanks this week goes to Joe Leonard. Joe-- you literally saved the day. your drawings and designs are so huge to this project, anyway-- thanks again-- and can't wait for you to see the finished project.
(And Lisa and I can't wait to see it too.)
Well, here's where we are with about ten days to go....
The game board last night
the two portrait walls
a shot looking from the doors, almost from outside

Lisa guest blogs for me (thanks Lisa)

Tony adds finishing touches to his circus-style letters; & the board takes a leap forward, with the painting of the snake's head & tail. Super last chance to pop yer drawings into the mail, or e-mail jpegs!

Art Farm Gathering

(Hey everybody-Last week to submit drawings! Hurry on up if you got 'em -we still need almost 300! But again, huge thanks to all who've contributed so far)(as always, click to enlarge images)
So-the second-to-last Art Farm gathering for this project was yesterday-alot of the Art Farmers said they'll make the next and last one this coming Sat.-the 12th, so it was a small group yesterday-but a very fruitful affair. We also received some great images from some other great artists-so the game board is almost done, and the "Boy" is getting close. The "Girl" still has a ways to go-but there's definitely light (black light?) at the end of the tunnel. Pictured above, from left to right-Suzanna ("Bell") gluing, Lisa and Don cutting, while Michael ("Phyxx")-who is our "wheel man"-surveys the scene (he'll make the three spinning wheels-one on each wall, as well as figure out how to best engineer their mounting and spinning), and Erik-who drew up a storm yesterday and last night.Lisa and Bell and that's Rich Martin-"Rico"-who brought in a bunch of his vintage sketch books-(which he's copying on our new copyer). We're calling him "The Closer"-both because he did some nice finishing touches on the game board, but also he gave us lots and lots of little details from his sketch books that tend to be great for filling in those last little areas. (Muchas gracias Sr. Rico!)Lisa strikes a pose while blocking in the girl's game circles. the two portrait walls-before yesterday and after
the gameboard later that night (Lisa and I are still figuring out the letter colors)

Here's a few close-ups...

(I'll provide some details about these details later)

Um, hey that's alot of drawings...

Wow-people have been AMAZING! Drawings are coming in faster than I can glue them down (and almost as fast as I can type).I'm ...it's getting hard to focus there's so many drawings. But keep 'em coming if you've got 'em. New deadline is Aug 10th if you send 'em or the 12th if you drop on by (and speaking of, remember-drawing party this Sunday the 6th and then the following Sat the 12th. Both starting around 4 or 5 (you choose). Call or e-mail for directions or questions-824-1587 (707) or fallguy@sonic.net)
So, it's late-I'll write more tomorrow and mention some particularly amazing art and artists-but for now thanks to all who've sent or contributed drawings so far-it's taken some turns I could not have forseen-but that's part of the fun-and though there's still plenty of work (tons!) to do in the next 2 and a half weeks-It's definitely getting there. Here's some more quick pictures-view of the two portrait walls the girl's wall. Just getting started-hopefully by next week she'll have more drawings than... the boy's wall, which hopefully by next week will almost be done.