Blair Thomas - Hard Headed Heart

I got the chance to see the amazing Blair Thomas perform Hard Headed Heart at In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre. 

Heard Headed Heart is made up of three of the artist's solo pieces.

First, Mr. Thomas performed "The Puppet Show of Don Cristobal" which is a raunchy and violent throwback to Punch and Judy-style puppet shows.  He makes a lot of innovative choices in the technical and poetic front.  For example, he wears a façade/costume that can transform from one character to another with a single spin.

Second, he performs his interpretation of "Saint James Infirmary" —which features unique marionettes, a story scroll, and live jazz orchestration which Thomas provides as a one-man-band with the help of a loop pedal.

"Structural Model" of Creative Consciousness

I was thinking a lot about what made my strongest past work strong and what motivates me to create. A topic on which I'm always generating new theories.

Sometimes I say "it's a common aesthetic quality, a matter of taste."
Sometimes I say "It's because I crave artistic challenges and puzzles."
Sometimes I say "It's all about educating people."

But every time I come up with a generalization like that, I can see where it doesn't apply and I quickly throw it out.

Then I realized that my FAVORITE work resonates on all three levels.
An unconscious level, a personal level, and an interpersonal level.

These three "levels of artistic consciousness" correspond roughly to Freud's idea of the "Structural Model" of the psyche — Id, Ego, and Super-Ego.

Diagram of Art

(Diagram and statement from 2010)

On Art's Place in the Scope of Unique Human Activities.

There is often debate among both artists and critics about what constitutes art. To some, art comes from the play instinct. To others, art is about communication. To others, art is about self-expression and is deeply private. Others see art as public and believe it is about improving (by either provoking or beautifying) the community.

Proponents of each definition of art sometimes are at each others' throats. Each could cite perfect examples of things that are purely communication, purely play, purely private or purely public works —or some combination of two or three of these attributes— that are not *quite* art. Frequently, Theorists use these examples of "not-art" to attack their opponents positions.

Art isn't synonymous with Communication, Play, Public Work, or Self-Expression. But it IS these things!
Well... Which is it?

Winter Dreams at HoBT - Design Internship

NOW PLAYING at In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre (1500 East Lake Street, Minneapolis, MN):  A show called Winter Dreams

Winter Dreams  is about the ways that all the animals of Minnesota manage to sleep through the winter.  See hibernating bears, turtles who hold their breath for 3 months, snakes who bury themselves in a pit in the ground, frogs who freeze themselves cryogenically, and more!  It's a kid-friendly show with some ingenious puppetry —some of which was designed by ME.

To be more specific, I took a design internship at HOBT this fall and did 3 jobs:

1.  I performed image research and factual research to figure out what certain animals look like and just how their bodies work.

2.  I was tasked with designing and building a shadow puppet sequence based on the Wood Frog —The frog that can tolerate being frozen solid in the winter and resume living after it thaws itself out.

3.  I was also put in charge of fleshing out a sequence that had already been started - one about bees.  In a beehive, the worker bees will crowd around the queen and pulse in order to keep her warm (fun fact, the drones, who usually hang out at the hive, are sent out one by one to die during the Fall)

So I took copious WIP pictures.  So without further ado, this is art in progress.

(read more for pictures!)

Blood Splatter FX - Resources

My friend Sam has tasked me with helping to develop special effects for his upcoming film, Saint Mark's Hooker.  Today, we discussed techniques for shooting a full-on shotgun blast to the chest.

I didn't know anything about making bloody explosions before I did my research, but now I have a working knowledge of the techniques involved and the ideas have started to flow.  There are a lot of good resources on the web that I'm compiling here to make the search easier for anybody on a similar quest.

The first (and probably the cheapest) method of making a fake gunshot that I found is from IndieMogul.  In this video Keir MacDonald shows us how to put a condom full of fake blood under a target's shirt,  and use a washer attached to fishing line (if you're inside) or black thread (if you're outside) to snap the condom, making the blood burst out.

In Keir's method, you might need to cut the shot so it begins when the washer exits frame, or else it breaks the illusion.

Resurgence of Dreaming

Resurgence of Dreaming Manifesto
By Thomas Boguszewski and Michael McConnell

     An abundance of cameras and global internet access have made everyone into photographers, filmmakers, and journalists. This new media of the masses has made a critical mass aware of the flaws in our system. Thus, artists pursuing social realism become redundant. In this era, what role do artists play?

     I pledge to bend my art to a new purpose.
     From here on out:

• I enact a resurgence of dreaming. 
• I take responsibility to provide a plethora of alternatives to society. 
• I posit potential solutions to the problems people face. 
• I make my visions attainable, though they are born of dreams. 
• I am aware of and celebrate human nature. 
• I find hope not by denying reality, but by admitting to it and adapting it. 
• I provide examples of how one can live a happy, virtuous life in a world where the traditional cycle —Schooling, employment, earning, consumption, procreation— has been exposed as flawed. 
• I believe that we must never give up on happiness even when old methods have failed. 
• I know it is folly to cling to failed methods! 
• I actualize my personal visions. 
• I also give voice to, and interpret the dreams of others. 
• I depict characters who step outside the normal system. 
• I break the rules and make my own. 
• I encourage others to do the same. 


• I make it clear that any world I dream may be useful and may make us happier, but is not the best possible world. 
• I do not know the one right way to do things. 
• I do not have all the answers (anyone who says he does is out to hurt you.) 

Furthermore,

• I know that this set of goals is only right for certain times and purposes. There are many wonderful reasons to make art out there. 
• I do not sanctify this or any document. 
• I break this pledge whenever I want.

(X)______________________

Dino Hunt! - With MNZero

I got together with this group called MNZero —which is something of a minnesota-based rendition of the immersive, real-life art-game called SFZero— to play a game dreamed up by my friend Kate Saturday called "Dino Hunt". 


In this game,

"Tribes of prehistoric vegetarians hunt dinosaur puppets with wiffleball spears, while trying to avoid the predations of ptreacherous pterodactyls. With each meatless kill, they claim a new dish for their vegetarian picnic."

It was a lot of fun.

Each dinosaur had a number of hit points, which represented the number of times it could be hit by the wiffleballs tossed at it by the tribe of vicious vegans.  When the dinosaur is killed, it dies dramatically and offers up its bloody, yet still somehow humane, bounty.

Always Bringing, Always Taking Away - Onboard the Mississippi Megalops

So I spent the last few months working with Kate Saturday and Olli Johnson (as well as the musicians Erik Ostrom and Brian Rowe) on an experimental puppet show called "Always Bringing, Always Taking Away"

"Always Bringing, Always Taking Away" is a 15-20 minute long puppet show about the river ecosystem. The puppets are abstractions of animals, people, and machines made entirely out of ribbon. The show was designed to be performed on a paddleboat called the Jonathan Padelford as part of the "Mississippi Megalops - a Floating Chatauqua" project created by the arts organization "Works Progress" for the "Northern Spark" art festival in Saint Paul, MN, which was organized by Northern Lights.

The boat trip was very fun.  I invited my family and my friend Spencer Riedel to come along for the ride.

Watch the video of our performance onboard the megalops here:



After the stress of prepping for the show on the boat we're taking a break. But I bet there's more to come from this show in the near future. Stay Tuned

Transforming Raven Mask

I made a mask that transforms from human form to bird form.

I was inspired by this kind of mask

 

And I wanted to combine that aesthetic with this one:

May Day Parade 2011

Throughout April, I attended community workshops where I helped to build the props and stuff for May Day Parade
by In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre in Minneapolis.

 

On May 1st, I marched in the parade.  My section was called "The Network of Infinite Connection and Possibility."  We built a big electric device that made sounds when audience members touched it.  We were in the larger umbrella section called "Universe of Union"

Info on this year's parade can be found here