A few brief meetings with artists: O'Marah, Arnold and Callaghan, and musician Mark Simon of "The Boyfriend"
This past week was chock full of solitude and its opposite. I met with Skip Arnold at the CFA to go over his progress and veerings. He needs someone to help him construct the apparatus with which he will activate the action of his 'rice throw' and I say rice throw loosely.
He has a back-up plan, but I must say, it strays quite far from his personality and working style, so that I hardly recognize it as his...but that's not to say its not a good idea. Its very romantic. Its up to him.
Michele O'Marah and I met the next day at the site. Originally it was talked about that she might use the basement and elevator to stage her portrait studio. After walking through with her though, the more interesting it became to have her in the center of the action - an after dinner interactive activity. I liked the idea of the guests going to the basement to have their picture taken, but right in front of the main window her powerfully lit backdrop would up the atmosphere as it gets darker.
Mark Simon came over to my studio and showed me a DVD of The Boyfriend performing two numbers. This musical group, comprised of Chris Kuhrt, Stephen Schilling and Mark Simon, have sung together for years. When he brought up the idea a year or so ago, I knew that this trio of gay gentleman singing "I just want to get married,” would be a powerful addition to our group. It would lend balance and address the very real very sad issue at hand, that gay people in LA can’t be legally married, yet. I felt that it would have been irresponsible not to address gay marriage when working on this project.
I selected Joshua Callaghan to do a piece about the car decoration for many reasons, but I was particularly inspired by his sculpture in which he constructed a full size car out of Victorian style domestic objects, lamps and furniture. I was also interested in his decal project commissioned by Los Angeles’ printed art project, Public Art. In this work, he applied digitally printed adhesive decals to urban electricity boxes throughout the city. Their imagery depicts the landscape that is hidden behind and camouflages the unsightly boxes, transforming the environment into a piece of art. He gives us an imagined view of what we would see if the boxes were absent. The fix gap bwdecals were coated to prevent graffiti and distress on their surface so that their vibrant imagery will remain seamlessly uninterrupted.
Initially, I thought it might be interesting for him do a photographic decal version of a Just Married car to put on the couple's own car, but he took that concept and turned it into a far more interesting and participatory idea. He conceived of transforming the wedding car into an ice cream truck. Once Bec and Ruben were involved, he only had to take some measurements of their car to begin the process. The finished truck was truly imaginative and celebratory.