The End (Ceramics)

On new years of 2011, 3-5 thousand red wing black birds fell out of the sky in Beebe, Arkansas. Around the same time 150km away in the Arkansas River, 100 000 fish died. There was never any confirmation of a connection between the two events, nor was a concrete explanation ever offered. The media reports seemed sketchy. This completely blew my mind when I heard about it 4 years ago and I've wanted to do a project about it ever since. After several evolutions of the idea in my head, it finally came out in ceramic sculptures. I made 60 out of plaster molds.

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 Some documentation of all the birds together:

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Then I did a rather experimental street art project. I made the birds to fit on these otherwise useless decorative ledges that wrap around a lot of the buildings in Mexico City that I'm super into. I tried bombing a small area of La Roma the other night which turned out to be a bit of a social experiment. The birds didn't take too well. The glue I chose was a total fail (thanks to the ''knowledgeable'' people at the hardware store). Of the 17 birds I put out, only 10 remained in the morning. Two had been ripped off and left in the same spot. Two had their little leggies broken off, no leg remains to be found. By the time I finished taking photos of them, more had disappeared. Very disappointing. Lesson of the day is epoxy. 

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 In preparation of imminent disaster, I staged all the painted birds together near my house in San Miguel de Chapultepec.

I've got some more future plans for these guys.

The End Mural

Over the last couple of days, I painted a mural in the Mexico City boonies along the train track, finally achieving my lifelong goal of painting a mural by free hand spray painting. I used some stencils too though, and some black acrylic paint. I've been trying to move away from making things so graphic lately, but I was too cheap to buy multiple shades of a colour, so I reverted back to the comfort of the black outline. 

Alley Dogs

I scanned and digitally printed the originals and put these babies up in their rightful place in Vancouver under the Commercial and Broadway skytrain where they were initially conceptualized. This is more the set up I originally wanted: you have to walk to see them all and then connect them if you notice them.

Saludos (Greetings)

Finally I put these guys up in Montreal one fine spring night. They're in an alley off of St. Viateur. Thanks to my two friends that helped.

Dead Bird Under a Bridge

I thought I'd lost these!

I painted this one fine Sunday on a day off in Midway, BC under a bridge, over the Kettle river, right by my camp. I hadn't tried free hand spray painting probably since my mural in Barcelona in the Sitges abandoned water park. I was supposed to do this a lot over the course of the summer. I had a crate of spray paint in my car, but I failed miserably except for this one sketch. There's my dead bird, the mascot for winning and free love apparently. It was one of those times when I thought it was terrible and never wanted to look at it again, and then last minute on my way out of Midway at the end of the season I took a picture as an afterthought. I think it's pretty good for having no free hand skills. Getting good at this is on my to do list. I'm thinking about practicing with just dead birds until I get really good at them and figure out my style and some tricks. Also, I think I'm changing my street art name again. It's going to by Y-BOT. Just you wait. 

The Boulder Beautification Project Video

Check out how we managed to paint two giant boulders one solid colour. See the photos and original post here. 



The Boulder Beautification Project from shouldercat on Vimeo.

 I used this project to learn how to use Premiere Pro 6 and it's fucking awesome! I highly recommend ditching Final Pro 7 and moving on to the future! It was so much better already and I barely brushed the surface of it's capabilities.

The Boulder Beautification Project

The Boulder Beautification Project is Evan Sabourin's little baby. He really pushed the whole things forward. We trekked up an old block on day off and gave these boulders a make over. It's the most action they've seen in millions of years. We're talking about geological time here. I bet it's the most fun and attention they ever had aside from seeing tree planters pop a couple of trees by them a few years ago.

THE BOULDERS

The green one was especially cool because it was actually exactly the same colour as the background and was nearly impossible to see from the road. We made a giant boulder that has existed for millions of years disappear! It was also fun doing the least illegal ''street art'' ever. Middle of nowhere art.

Then everyone went and painted their own (smaller) boulder:

Evan 

Blinky and Winky reincarnated onto boulder by me and Annie

Garrett Jones everybody

Annah Tierney Mackay

THE PROCESS 
 

I shot a short video of the whole process (until my made in China battery cut out) so stay tuned for that later.