A Friday with everyone around the table usually translates into a lot of excellent new ideas, and yesterday was no exception!
We spent the evening reviewing the progress we’ve made on some initial research and may have sparked an entirely new direction for the project. All of the excitement is after the jump!
Continue reading “BCL Report: February 4, 2011 (Repairs and Reviews)”
We made a lot of progress tonight, not only getting a considerable way through the first coat of red paint, but also testing a variety of techniques for applying the retroreflective glass beads!
We also got to spend some time talking through how we’ll be temporarily installing the letters in a variety of spaces. We figure that there’s still at least a few more weeks of preparation and tests, but we’re really getting excited to get these out into the world.
We are already nearing the end of our priming process for our letters after only beginning last week! While we got to painting the rest of the letters on Friday, I prepared a few things earlier in the week for our next step, painting the letters in a fabulous bright red.
Continue reading “Finishing Phase Three and Experimenting with Colour”
We’re on to priming the letters now, in anticipation of the bright red coat we’ll be giving them in the coming weeks. Things are moving ahead at a good pace, and hopefully will continue to, as we’d love to not be working with these finished letters in snow.
While we do get together every week, it’s usually only for a couple hours. As I’ve noted before, trying to find a common time between so many schedules is hard, when what we’re doing collectively is really above and beyond the responsibilities everyone has, so we’re thrilled with the progress… but a Saturday afternoon painting party might be in order.
Continue reading “Primer: Another Friday Night’s Worth of Collectively Making Things Happen”
We did it. With a lot of help, we plowed through the remaining eight letters, finishing the papier maché part of the process towards completing our ongoing large-cardboard letters project. On Friday night, we had ten people around the table, including our dear Cristina for a short while, and it was great!!!
Next on the to-do list — get some test paint on some cardboard and start planning how to finish the construction phase of the project.
On Friday night we played with some new things that Rosina brought over — retroreflective glass beads to be exact. We also made it through another three letters doing papier maché! And, we selected a colour for the letters, again thanks to Rosina doing some recon on paint chips.
Continue reading “Retroreflective Glass Beads Have Arrived, Weeks of Work Ahead!”
We had another great Friday night meeting, even though Josh was sick, and even though we underestimated two things. First, we struggled again thinking through this second residency/conference idea, and the letters took way longer than anticipated to papier mâché.
At any rate, with the autumn weather firmly setting in, it’s looking like we’ll be heading out with these letters with toques and mittens!!!
Continue reading “Getting Closer Every Week: Big Letters and New Titles”
This week’s meeting started off kind of slow. A long week had us collectively feeling strapped for good ideas, but we had a specific task list in front of us. Looking at the calendar, an idea we had talked about not all that long ago, suddenly has a pressing deadline.
We’re looking to put together another residency of sorts. This time, it’s going to be shorter, but more collaborative. Everyone who comes will have the chance to work with everyone else on a project that we sort out all together. The residency will be 5 days long, and then there will be a 2-day conference at the end of the residency where we’ll talk about everything that happened and more. There will be a couple of keynotes at the conference too.
To be able to pull off this conference though, we’ll need to write another grant. The deadline that we have to hit is October 15, hence the pressing deadline.
As you can see from a post we made a few days ago, we’ve been working on constructing a large-scale cardboard text statement. My job over the weekend was to re-do the first 3D letter we made–we made the letter ‘m’ too small horizontally and didn’t want it to be prone to falling over when someone sneezed next to it. This was my first time constructing a full letter, so I had to teach myself the ropes.
We met tonight and we’re feeling good. It was a long summer, but we know what we want to do in the coming months. It’s going to be really, really great.
And really, how could it not be? These letters are looking so good so far!!!
So much more soon.