Tree of Life - The Supplies

I spent time at the beginning of my Sculpture III class on Thursday cutting my OSB and 2x4s the Tree of Life.  I'm hoping to begin constructing the base tomorrow.  I've moved all the lumber into my studio: 

The small box contains the smaller, 1/2" and 3/4" flex tube lengths.  Yesterday UPS dropped off the giant box of of 1" flex tube:

It contains 300' of the black 1" flex tube cabling.  On top you see about 10' of gray flex tube.  I wanted to see how dark the gray was so I ordered a small length of it. 

The first digital frame has arrived!  I ordered a 12" Aluratek digital frame.  The size is perfect but money is now becoming an issue..... 

To help raise money I do have a Kickstarter campaign running.  Please check it out and contribute if you can.  I'm also going to be at the Art Market 316 at The Soundry tomorrow morning from 8am to 12pm selling artwork.  I also sell polymer clay pendants through The Soundry's in-house gift shop.  I have a Zazzle store too!  

Construction begins (almost)

Yesterday I finished cutting the 2x4's for the base of the Tree of Life v2.0.  This weekend I'm going to buy the plywood and start construction.  I have the chicken wire and about 2 dozen packages of flex tubing.  The only thing that's an uncertainty is the size of the frames that will be mounted in the tree.  Currently my budget can only really handle the 8" frames which run $35 from Amazon.  I was at Best Buy to see how to see them in person and realized they really are tiny.  Amazon's next price level is $99 which actually gets me a 12" frame (the 10" frames are oddly more expensive). I'd really like to get those so I'm trying to scrape together money from every source I can.  Sadly I don't really have many sources.  :(

I've also purchased all the apples for the tree and more copper wire.  I have to harvest more red cabling to see if I have enough for the four red apples.  I've been using Freecycle, Craigslist and driving around on garbage day looking for discarded computer equipment to salvage parts and cabling from.  Unfortunately there is precious little red cabling inside of a single computer / TV / monitor.  That means I'll have to purchase some at either Home Depot or Microcenter if I can't salvage enough.

I've made some progress on the USB-NA sculpture.  I ran into a small snafu when I discovered that conduit benders were a bad idea.  They crimp the copper tubing rather than bend it nicely.  The internet came to my rescue with tons of helpful tutorials on how to bend and twist the copper tube with just a torch, some welding gloves and some clamps (well, a few other things, but you get the idea).  My professors in my sculpture III class are going to assist so me so when I go to Home Depot to buy plywood for the tree I'm going to pick up a 10' section of copper tubing.  Thankfully I found a great source for USB extension cables so at least those are cheap. 

Pictures of materials will be coming soon! ....maybe even later today!

New video on the Kickstarter Campaign

Kickstarter recommends that you upload a video on your campaign.  Well, I suck at videos.  For the last several days I've toyed with concepts and storyboards and finally decided on a short video produced in After Effects. Video and animation are not even remotely passions of mine.  I've never had a proper class in producing videos so I was kind of winging it.  I used After Effects as that was what we used in our 2D animation class (yes, I know, it makes no sense, everyone else learns Flash).  

Please consider making a donation to the campaign.  Even a single dollar is appreciated.  The cost of printing the two digital prints and getting them framed will eat up most of my budget.  On top of that, I would really like to purchase 12" digital frames for the Tree of Life v2.0.  Those run $99 a piece (at least the ones I'm looking at do).  Between printing, framing, and digital frames, my budget is pretty much shot.  The Kickstarter campaign money, after the rewards are sent out, will determine whether or not I need to make cuts like reducing the size of my prints from 24" x 36" down to something smaller and purchasing only 8" digital frames.  Both cuts will severely reduce the effectiveness of the exhibit - especially the frames.  The prints I can always have reprinted for later showings but once the tree is finished it will be extremely difficult to retrofit larger frames.

Tree of Life v2.0 begins

As promised, here are the 3D renders of the base of the Tree of Life v2.0.  The tree stands 90" (7.5 feet) tall.  It is made of three separate sections so it can be moved easily.  The base section (pink) will be 31" tall, the middle section (green) 46" tall and the top (blue) approximately 13".  The base will be constructed out of wood covered in chicken wire.  To the chicken wire will be attached the computer cabling and flex tubing. 

These were done in Milkshape 3D, a program actually designed to create low poly models for video games.  I use it when I create mods for The Sims 2. 

Preliminary Sketches

I assume that not everyone will open and read the proposal PDF found in the very first post of this blog.  The presentation contains the first round of really, really rough sketches for the proposed artwork.  Most of the sketches were done within the wee hours of the morning as the concept began to take shape in my mind.

The Tree of Life v2.0

The Apple(s)

USB-NA

In the next few days I will also post the 3D model I created of the base of the Tree of Life v2.0.  I will also begin photographing the raw materials for the project as I have begun to accumulate them in my studio (and car). 

The Square Project

Our first, and presumably only, mini-project in the senior project class was called the Square Project.  It started by having the entire class collectively making seemingly unrelated lists of things like colors and current events.  There were a total of 5 lists.  Then we were asked to write a narrative using at least one word or phrase from each of the 5 lists.  Since it was suggested that we could use automatic writing as a technique for the narrative I used it for the latter half of mine.  I won't share that with you, as I doubt many could read my handwriting (hell, I can't read it half the time).  For homework we were to draw a picture based on our narrative.  The odd part is that I never intended this to be remotely related to my exhibit, nor was the assignment intended to be linked to our exhibits, but it certainly turned out that way. Drawing was never my strong suit and I honestly haven't done any serious drawing in several semesters but I was surprised that everyone seemed to have to stop and look at mine.  It certainly wasn't the best in the class but it was definitely the 'darkest.' 

"Judgment of the Fallen"    Heather Miller, 2010

The Last Sin Begins

To find out more about the requirements of the project, as set forth by the university, please read the syllabus:  AVT497: Senior Project Syllabus Fall 2010 (PDF)


To read the first draft of the official proposal for The Last Sin submitted to my professors:  The Last Sin Proposal (PDF)