Making Things Happen, Day 1

Day 1 in the gallery

Today was a great start to the Making Things Happen (For a Week Straight) show. We got the gallery basically put together, showing some of our existing projects and making it into a big studio of sorts. The major projects of the day were painting the title wall, getting a new adapter for our LED sign, and starting on some wire + newspaper baskets for what’s casually been dubbed as hanging seed bombs.

our paint colour, kind of rough, a little more yellow and a bit softer

The tools to start the title wall.

the time-lapse camera

The camera setup for time-lapse … I think the time between shots was probably too long, still trying to figure out the best interval to go with, 3 minutes might be too much.

the blank title wall

The wall ready for action.

the painting begins

The paint we got was mixed from a swatch printed off of my cheap colour laser printer. For some reason, it always seems to tint things fairly pink, so it was difficult to get the yellow/green the right colour.

trying to figure out the time-lapse camera

Going back and forth between the two laptops to try to get everything working for the time-lapse before Michelle could start painting.

Michelle starts painting

Michelle starting the paint job on the title wall.

first coat of yellow / green

Michelle ended up doing 3 coats to get this nice and greenyellowy.

painting the wall

We need to reposition the lights, as the top left corner has a really strong bright-spot on it.

the letters for the wall

The letters printed out for the title wall. BROKEN CITY LAB as one letter per 8.5 x 11, the subtitle, approximately two to three letters per page.

Michelle and Josh move the table

Michelle and Josh moved the central table in from the Green Corridor room.

the tables - assembled

They then flanked the big table with two other tables from the lecture room. It’s a good sized work space now.

a fairly empty table, early on in the day

The morning was pretty slow, cutting out the letters for the title wall took a while, Steve and Immony dropped by for a while.

all the letters for the wall

The letters cut out and ready to be stenciled. We decided against using the mylar and ending up with the positive stencil in the grey colour Michelle picked out. Instead, we decided to paint over these letters once they were stuck up on the wall.

trying to work with the letters

I went about trying to make the perfect strange angle for the text.

letters before painting

I think this was pretty close to where we ended up with. There was a moment we considered not painting over them, but I would have preferred to get some vinyl cut if we went this way with it.

Michelle and Josh work on the subtitle

Michelle and Josh organize the letters to prepare them for spray-adhesive.

Michelle working the spray adhesive

Michelle sprays the back of HAPPEN.

putting up the subtitle

I place the subtitle, MAKING THINGS HAPPEN, on another weird angle.

Michelle starting to paint

Michelle spray paints the letters with a solid grey.

the table around noon

Around noon, and after the wall was painted, Immony and I moved some stuff into the gallery from my studio.

that thing from the wheat paste demo

This is the sticker-board from the wheat paste demo.

the 2009 Strategic Plan

This is the 2009 strategic plan and a map of Windsor we bought this morning.

Talitha and Billie watch the inaugural lighting of the LED sign

Talitha and Billie watched as we lit up the LED sign after hanging in on the wall.

wall-mounted LED sign

It was really bright in the dark space, we ended up hanging it with 4 nails, and all the soldering stayed in place from the last time we worked on it.

proof

Strangely though, the adapter we were used, pictured on the plinth near the basket, burnt itself out. It would heat up, then make the LEDs dim, then flash really fast. We always pulled the plug after that, but eventually, I guess, it killed itself. I went to The Source to get a variable adapter and instead of 9v (like the original), I set the new one to 7.5v. The LEDs are a little dimmer, but better that than some destroyed LEDs or another dead adapter. If anyone has any idea why this happened, put it in the comments, please.

flagging tape

The flagging tape leftovers from the tests.

the paint can

The can of paint.

better shot of the 2009 strategic plan

A better shot of the strategic plan.

Immony and Danielle working on the hanging baskets

Later in the afternoon, Immony, Danielle, and I worked with some wire Mike found to start making some small hanging baskets to eventually install on fences, poles, parking meters, and other places otherwise not attended to by Windsor’s Park and Rec.

the new adapter for the LED sign

Here’s the new adapter for the LED sign, so far so good—it lasted the rest of the afternoon.

Danielle's protection - red gloves

Danielle wore some protective gloves to work with the wire. Her basket was the sturdiest, but also took the longest to assemble.

Immony working on a large basket

Immony’s basket was the largest, but really complex.

my basket + seed bomb stuff

My basket was really small, pictured hanging above the origami boxes from the seed bomb demo.

my basket with newspaper

Here’s a closer look. I think design is pretty close to what we need. Something fairly small, flat-backed, and then lined with some of the newspaper we recently received.

the wall with some letters falling off

The wall as we left it for the better part of the day, seeing which letters would fall first.

the wall with the falling letters removed

Eventually, we just took them all off, but also a bit of the green undercoat with it. The spray adhesive had prevented some of that paint to dry, so we need to probably touch it up a bit tomorrow.

the borrowed chalkboard workstation

I also dragged in the wooden chalkboard for our message board / collective sketchbook / guestbook.

Make Things Happy

Leesa pointed this out — Making Things Happy !

Tomorrow there will be lots more, stay tuned.

12 Replies to “Making Things Happen, Day 1”

    1. Awesome!! I think we probably need to talk about further expanding our web reach… seeing as you were so absolutely right about Twitter… any other ideas???

  1. Hmmm…well the only thing that I can think of is starting a facebook group for BCL, but I know how anti-facebook you are, haha.
    Are you trying to expand beyond Windsor?

  2. yeah, what time are you coming by?
    I’ll be there until around 3pm, we’re heading over to Massey, then back again for Office Hours at 7pm.

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