Masks and other Art

[Buster's Uncle]

...Mylochka's kinda like you about 'in fashion' when it comes to creative stuff.  So am I, for that matter...

But that's the thing.  The broken doll is in fashion.  But not like THAT.  They are all drab grayscale things that don't look natural at all.   

I'd happily put it up over any of the standard available stuff:

https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C1GGRV_enUS751US751&biw=1630&bih=911&tbm=shop&q=broken+doll+mask&oq=broken+doll+mask&gs_l=psy-ab.3...52632.53448.0.53790.6.6.0.0.0.0.214.214.2-1.1.0....0...1.1.64.psy-ab..5.0.0.eCSH422yLdQ

I told Sis last night that Big Doll Face needed a coat of varnish to seal the mold in, and is done, as-is, and she loved the idea.  I wish I thought that wasn't because it involves her doing nothing, though.

[Buster's Uncle]

Good news - I could hear my wimminz in the other end of the basement while I was making the last two posts - Mylochka had come down -she only found out last night on FB because she was feeling too crapulent the next day to come sit on the porch and talk when I tried to do my due diligence- and spared me the mold-wiping.  She thinks everything is clean enough to not interfere with painting.  She's leaving everything to dry for a day, because she naturally re-dampened with mold-killing cleaning spray -and I'd gotten everything at least twice- and come back tomorrow to -wait for it- PAINT.

-Mind you, she'll probably wake up feeling dead tomorrow morning, but if she has a good day in the next week, I think she's feeling motivated...

I hadn't even inspected the backs of any masks, because I handled everything the least I could -still astonished I haven't had hell's own allergy attack anyway- but she did, and the latex back coats seem to have repelled any mold problems there.  I dug out the bases for the crone mask and the warped wrestling mask, and they are in front of the dehumidifier -running continuously because of the second rainy day in a row- drying back to their proper shapes.  Many others are widened, but look like they are supposed to be that way, and I see no great need to correct.

[Buster's Uncle]

http://alphacentauri2.info/JKStudio/Links-JKStudio.html

Hey Uno!

[Buster's Uncle]

I'm not much for giving a pat on the back to someone for finally coming through very late - but it seemed gracious and a good idea to encourage Mylochka by laying out some paper on the table and arranging the masks off the floor.

They're much improved.

The wrestling masks are nested together, and four masks are in front of the dehumidifier - Big Doll Face was looking wavy around the edges from the right angle, and the newly re-caucasianed Captain was looking a tad catty cornered, so I found their bases, too.  -In fact, it's finally just stopped raining for the first time today, and nothing's drying fast - I'm considering taking the lot into my bedroom until tomorrow.

Naturally, Moses -he and Goblin came in from the rain a couple hours ago- decided to "help".







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In other news, I may have set in motion getting us on the gallery's web page -remember that I've had little contact with anyone over there; my siblings have done all the dealing with them, and I knew working through those two wouldn't get prompt action- it hit me that whomever kept up the VHAC Facebook page was probably on the publicity committee and had something to do with the website, so armed with the links to our website and page, I messaged their page...  She's going to get back to me about the website -somebody else does that- but wants to feature our masks if we'll provide pics of the set in the gallery and some commentary text...

[Spacy]

Cool

Oh, links are working today.  Wasn't a refresh, I think, but who knows for sure.  Either way, working. 

[Buster's Uncle]

Hey Elok - do you glance in here?

[Buster's Uncle]

That external links page is crazy way more work than it has any right being; I got up at nine -I think that's the new prescriptions at work- and have spent most of the last two hours adding Elok's book and fiddling to get the links to all format/dispaly the same...  I don't know what the problem is -and I spent way too much time on this already yesterday- but I have to copy/paste the first link, then change the text and then the link.

[Buster's Uncle]

Just got back from taking pictures of masks at the gallery the lady asked for for the Facebook thing - and either we've sold a bunch in the last week -Mylochka says run-up to Halloween- or we've been ripped off pretty bad.  I never kept track of what is and is not there, but we should have the five doll-scale masks I made in a day, for absolute sure, or the money, unless there was an improbable run on masks too small to put on a real baby this week.  There was one left, accidentally hidden behind something else, that she found when we looked around the booth.  -I didn't know she'd finished those mini-masks and put them out, actually, just that the three we did before that for gallery Christmas decoration were never on display anywhere we know of and have been AWOL ever since.

Not counting that one she did find, the two recently-painted cat masks we took over today, to add, and the crap bird-beak mask in the window that we didn't bother with, I count TEN masks.  Mylochka thought that was light, too.

I wish I could be sure of what's going on to know how angry to be...

[Buster's Uncle]

           













       

[Buster's Uncle]

Okay - now the website home page has its own non-stub purpose through the end of October.

-And GK, it totally mentions selling now.-

It felt weird to get that major alteration/update knocked out in half an hour to my satisfaction after the way the links page fought me tooth and nail yesterday and this morning.


M rooted around after we got home and turned up with a box of masks, saying "We don't even have the good ones out".  11 masks, 8 in excellent condition, two of the rest that may push back into shape in a few days nested firmly together with strong masks off the same base - and the black white and red truncated skull pictured on page one of this thread, which began as a bad mask -I made it too thin- and remained a bad mask after M did a decent job painting it.  It's most of the office wall six DotD masks, three excellent horned oni halfmasks, the original crone mask from Touring Mayaland -the show and mask set that started it all- and that box is what became of the Red Skull.

She wants me to string them and put the JK labels in the back, and put them out at the sto'.  Since someone's stealing our masks, I only wanted to leave one of the cat masks when we left.  -But the worlds a happier place when I give others their way all I can stand to, and she thinks Halloween coming will sell masks -and the Red Skull is certainly a winner there- and I may settle for persuading her to hold back the original crone.  (I might not mind selling it, but peeing it away to the thief, no.)

I'll get pictures of the set when I'm working with them tomorrow, of course.  I've been VERY glad lately of my habit of documenting what I'm up to with my art on the forum - the JK Studio website folder only has two images in it, but a lot of .html files...

[Spacy]

Luck with the sales!

[Buster's Uncle]

Hmmm.  Mylochka is setting up to paint as I type this...

[Buster's Uncle]

I didn't get around to looking in until 12:45, by which time M was long gone, but nothing's completely unpainted now...





Fingers crossed - I think she's delusional about Halloween sales until October, but if it helps motivate her to action in a useful timeframe that completes some stuff in the next three weeks, I'm not about to stick a pin in that balloon...

-It will also tend to have her thinking in the direction of stuff that looks like masks you would wear - I'm with her in tending to think of our masks more as fine art to hang on the wall -serious- than the costume pieces that got us started on mask-making, but costume-y decoration will sell more easily, and I find that  unobjectionable...

(There's something wonderful about the surprise of making cats and getting back cat-shaped van Gogh paintings, but y'all can see that doesn't line up so well with something to wear for Halloween - ball masks and realism and stuff is going to be pretty universally appreciated for what happens to be the rest of our time at the gallery...  I should work up a press release, actually, for about the beginning of October, when I reckon it'll have some feature appeal to local papers...)

[Unorthodox]

Halloween sales depend on your target audience.  Might shock you that most sales by volume happen in April. 

But that's an entirely different audience. 

[Buster's Uncle]

I was involved in the local arts scene somewhat quite young -local amateur theater somewhat pulls the same crowd of women with three names as turn up with everything artsy in the county- and have yet to encounter or hear of anyone from the usual suspects having anything to do with the gallery, or any one previously known to me at all, save the patron, a local gadzillonaire my mom has known all her life.  They've somehow failed to connect with those people, not that most of them have any talent or taste, IMO, but they don't shop there or spread the word, either.  The limited extent I've been in the gallery and not pretty focused on what I was crafting to the exclusion of what's around me, the people that wander in strike me as unvaryingly ordinary.  No people with scarf over a turtleneck and three names, no goths or Halloween weirdos, just grocery store crowd without the crowd part.

I did find out something about my skull candles getting picked out of the candle crowd and featured up on the top of our booth wall behind the Buster figure display -I haven't mentioned that have I?- talked to Buster this afternoon, and she said someone had taken most of her fairies and displayed them up front; she found out by finding it that way of course.  THAT's what had been there before.  I knew that, but didn't think it through.  Fun fact: There appear to be some wear-it-on-their-sleeve Christians involved in the place, and I've got four pagan idols, more or less, to one (1) Jesus among the candles, so it seemed politic, when I was arranging the lot two weeks ago, to subtly head off possible static by putting Jesus out front, and kinda burying the skulls and the3 pagans in the mob.

Someone saw fit to reverse my arrangement unsubtly, no doubt thinking of Halloween coming, which is also why I decided to be cool with the arrogant high-handedness of it.  -Yeah, but we. are. getting. the. [fuddle-duddle]. out of there, no matter what sells, come Halloween...


However, I realized there's a good reason to complete the gallery mask and donate it - the press release thing.  We can't promote sales at a physical location without promoting the physical location, that mask ought to make a great visual hook for that, it ought to get featured at the sto' -like, window space or something- at just the right time to Move Some Masks, and generally throw whatever promotional support the gallery can behind a PR push, everybody winning.  -And its STILL good people politics, worth it if we needed to finish and donate the mask for other reasons anyway...