Party Girl

The other day the Hubs asked me whether or not I missed New York City. I do and I don’t. I was fortunate enough to have access to the entire city pre-911 as a young adult and absolutely took advantage of it. This was why I related to Parker Posey’s character in “Party Girl” so much…from the carefree lifestyle of staying up and staying out all night long, the unapologetic 90’s fashion, the fantastic music, the great people I met who were into the same things as me…it was a great time to be alive. All that’s changed now. The vibe isn’t the same. I’ll leave NYC to the new generation!

I was a little surprised when someone presented me with the notion of painting “Party Girl.” It was one of those movies I saw at the Angelica and have forgotten about. Somewhere in the depths of my memories I also remember there was a TV version of it starring Christine Taylor, Swoosie Kurtz, and John Cameron Mitchell, who had been very nice to me at the Broadway on Broadway fundraiser event. The brief was easy enough, but the execution was very involved. I had a hard time finding the right images that’s not blurry so I could accurately depict all the details. It is also one of those sets that I worked on after after hours so it took a really long time to execute (not as long as my current after after after hour piece that’s been ongoing for the past 10 years, though!). At one point I decided that enough was enough and powered through it. I don’t remember much of it, except there was a bit of a dust storm in the studio, a mild panic attack at one point when one of the doll parts got stuck inside another one unbeknownst to me and I nearly accused the cat for being a thief (he’s not. The only reason he’s allowed to hang out with me in the studio is he never touches any of my things. Once I had accidentally left a piece of paper on the cabinet where he sleeps and he managed to curl around it so as not to disturb the paper. What cat does that, I ask you?) 

The photos aren’t the best, due to the fact that South East Queensland is experiencing the kind of rain storm that brings to mind Noah and his ark. I had to deal with an array of weather-related events as well involving an entire colony of ants moving from underneath my house into my door. Not through my door. On my door. They all carried little egg sacks with them on their heads and were ready to live on my door screen. As Liz Lemon would say, “Blurgh!” Still, I love how, living in Australia, if someone mentioned a particular set of dolls I’ve done, I always automatically think, “Oh, I was doing that set when that huge kangaroo jumped into my backyard and refused to leave (true event, I kid you not)”, or “Oh yes, when I was painting that one I accidentally left the back door open and a plague of baby cane toads came inside to have a look around.” 

The different “lewks” of Mary the Party Girl from different scenes. The last doll is “Natasha,” whom she danced with at Renee’s, featuring a very kicky soundtrack.

The bottom of the dolls are fashioned to look like vinyl records (still a “thing” in the 90’s. Bleeker Bob was an old haunt of mine!). All the records depicts the song played during the scene.

I blanked out whilst making these records so don’t ask me how it was done.

Once Upon a Cross

I’m not a big fan of death metal, yet somehow I’m surrounded by it for most of my life. My brother was into it, the kids I used to hang out with in high school were into it. Even in my Catholic junior high school I used to have a side hustle drawing death metal album covers on some of the guys’ Trapper Keepers. I was all kinds of nerdy and a weird ass kid back then, but if the guys wanted depictions of Cannibal Corpse albums on their binders, they knew better than to give me a hard time.

I thought those days were behind me, but apparently not. I was asked to create the two versions of the same album “Once Upon a Cross” by Deicide, a band mired in controversies, hence the two versions of this cover. The buyer was extremely concerned about my mental well-being when I was working on it, and I am quite touched by their concern. Sure, the subject matter is a bit grotesque, but I saw it through a clinical eye, as I had once contemplated going into medical illustration and had gone through all of my brother’s anatomy text books (he was a med student at the time) with a fine tooth comb. I’ve also been starting my work nights by going back to the roots, doing some warm ups by painting beetles.

The mainstream album cover plus the original version which the band themselves were afraid would offend their listeners.

The first doll had me contemplating for days as to what to use as a sheet. I finally came up with the perfect thing: A white plastic bag, which was painted over with acrylics. It was a surprisingly malleable material to work with and the variety I had gotten was almost wrinkle resistant so I was thrilled with the result. The second one involved some engineering, as I wanted to not just paint the bowels but make it 3D with removable parts so it can be stored inside the doll when not on display.

The Hubs helped me with that since I’ve been forbidden to touch the 3D printer but I did all the sculpting myself. I was thrilled to find there were miniature surgical tools for sale to further mimic the album cover even more. The sculpting wasn’t as hard as I’d thought, but trying to bury tiny yet powerful magnets inside was a bit taxing.

The buyer and I discussed my mental health throughout the process and after. I usually work on about 6-8 projects each night and streaming TV shows, movies, or listening to podcasts and audio books while I’m working. Lately my friend had recommended Peppa Pig, which is, of course, for children, but it’s so delightfully British that I couldn’t help but get sucked into the innocent little world of Peppa and her little friends too. It also helps that I tend to leave my emotions at the door when I’m working as not to get too attached to the pieces of art I create. There’s nothing worse than selling someone a project and then realising you can’t bear to part with it when it’s finished.

Audition 2.0

If you’ve been following this blog throughout the years, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that I’m a big horror movie fan. Back in my teaching days, my work friend/science teacher and I would compile lists of all the horror movies we think the other would enjoy. Some eighth graders found the list and my 50 minute intensive art clinic became a discussion session of horror movies. Let me tell you, you will not enjoy a horror movie more unless the plot of it is described to you by a 13-year-old in under 30 seconds.

Takashi Miike’s “Audition” was on the list given to me. I often find Japanese horror movies to be a bit disconcerting. The gore, the jump scares, the storylines, the villain…etc., are always exceptional. But as the Japanese as a race are exceptionally introspective and that reflects in every aspect of their culture, including horror movies, they are often slow with deep philosophical component to it, which is fine, of course, but sometimes you just want a dash of Michael Myers efficiency in your movie and then go on with your life, you know? I hadn’t liked “Audition” at first, but I’m glad I stuck it out and it quickly became one of my go-to films when someone asks for a recommendation. I liked it so much that I had painted a set of the film’s villain very early on in my career as a matryoshka artist. It sat in my drawer until a fan of the film took it off my hands…and asked me to paint an extended version.

My painting style has evolved over the years so I decided to re-paint Asami, the villain/heroine again. I did maintain the original style for the extended version, just so it would match the original set.

The original “Audition” set painted in 2011 featuring Asami as the torturer, the demure ingenue, and as a child where things in her life decidedly went downhill after enrolling in a ballet class.

The 2021 version.

The extended set was a little difficult to make, both mentally and physically. In the film Asami kept a giant sack in her home, which later revealed to be a man missing a couple of important parts of his body. I was asked to create the actual sack, the man inside, and the hapless dog which sadly was also mutilated by Asami. I had a bit of an issue with making the dog because I’d just acquired a cat/sweatshop mascot who had been abandoned and, judging by his behaviour, I guess he’d also been abused. I’d also recently caught a little boy hitting him and had not been in the best frame of mind to depict animal abuse of any kind (don’t worry, I’d gone straight to the boy’s mother and tattled the heck out of her son and subsequently made the kid cry). But I understand that the dog’s demise was part of the film and the actual dog had not been hurt in the making of it. Still, it was a hard one to paint. The sack relied heavily on the draping created with plaster bandages so I was working against time as it does dry rather quickly.

In the movie, someone told the lead character that they found a dead body plus extra body parts. That line always freaked me out so I decided to make those extra body parts, which were three fingers, an ear, and a tongue. When we finally meet the man in the sack, you can see he’s missing a couple of digits, an ear, and a tongue.

Everything went well because I’d established a safeguarding system when I make itty bitty little things. Wouldn’t you know it, as soon as I finished the final stages and set it aside to dry, I managed the knock over the entire tray containing the dolls and body parts. The fingers were so small that I lost one and began to panic straight away because it was A) 3 AM and I hadn’t slept in the past 32 hours and was eager to go to bed and B) it had taken me 2 days to get the finger sculpted, cured, and painted and I wasn’t about to go through it again. Luckily my new sweatshop mascot sashayed in at the moment and seemed to know what I was looking for and made a beeline for my supply cart. Wouldn’t you know it, the finger had rolled right down there! Whew. Crisis averted. I do like to think the cat had helped me locate the finger, but in reality, he probably wanted me to move the cart because he likes to sleep on the mat right on top of it.

Happy Holidays!

Happy Holidays!

This year has been tough for a lot of us but somehow we made it, with actual hope on the horizon. I started making this set last year but had to put it on hold due to a family crisis. Perhaps it’s a good thing this set got delayed because whilst working on it this year, I have found a new vendor that I adore, a way to fashion corkscrew curls without screaming in frustration, and a fresh approach to time management that gave me energy to do everything I needed and still spend time with loved ones. I wish you all the joyous of all joyous year to come.

Gentlemen, Start Your Engines!

My best friend from high school Fadi is someone who, if you are to meet him for “a drink or two,” you better clear all the events from that day on your calendar because you will NOT get anything else done. He’s the kind of friend you ring up when you want some adventure without having to pack a suitcase because adventures find him. He’s the kind of friend who is so into living in the moment that he sucks you into his world and you end up doing or seeing things you will not otherwise experience. He’s the kind of friend who, if you are to “just go out for a quick walk,” will end up bringing you to places unexpected and meeting a celebrity (whom he almost always knows) or two along the way.

On one of those adventures, Fadi and I discovered a brand new nightclub on 6th below 30 and made a tour of it. I immediately decided it’s not a place for me since it was much too glitzy for my taste and also I just wanted a $5 beer at my favourite Irish pub. Fadi, whose senses were much keener than mine, immediately sussed out this was no ordinary nightclub/bar and dragged me further inside where we were swallowed by incredibly tall and good looking women all dressed to the nines. And then we realised these glamazons were all men. I have always been quite comfortable with my overall appearance even though I don’t wear make up, I live in jeans and tees and my art school days during the Age of Grunge had allowed me to get away with chained wallets, plaid shirts, paint-covered pants and pass my unwashed locks off as fashionable. But I did feel incredibly inferior to these amazing looking women, or, er, men, who put in the extra effort to achieve supermodel looks. And what’s more, they’re all sooo nice. We stayed and talked to a few of them, turned down drinks (they went from about $15 to $50 a pop and you know those queens need to save every dollar for makeup from Patricia Field). I have nothing but fondness and admiration for drag queens, so I was thrilled to bits when a request came asking me to paint a set of them for Christmas.

I have never seen RuPaul’s Drag Race but it looked like fun. When the pictures came in I literally gasped and cursed my bad luck for having this project presented to me so close to Christmas but quickly decided to do something about my workload so I could really focus on this set.

It looked challenging at first glance, but after breaking it all down, it wasn’t all that bad.

Biggest doll to smallest: RuPaul, Sharon Needles, Alaska, Sasha Velour, BenDeLaCreme, Jinkx Monsoon as Little Edie, Alyssa Edwards, and Bianca Del Rio.

The best part of this set is hunting down all the supplies needed for the “extras” such as finding the right shade of wool for the wigs, looking for the right size rings to fashion them into earrings for RuPaul, etc.

I decided to go a step further by creating a removable wig so one of the dolls can do this:

It is also around this time that we have officially adopted a stray cat. He’d been around ever since we moved in a year and a half ago and he decided he wanted to live with us. Since he has also gone feral after being abandoned, there were a lot of trust issues. Eventually he came round and wanted to be a permanent part of our little family, giving us very little choice in the matter. As I work late into the night, he often sat with me in my sweatshop and, being a long haired puss, he would often leave in the mornings covered in all manners of glitter, sequin, and later on, fibre I used for the wigs. Maybe there’ll be a new feline version of Drag Race soon and I can enter my new cat. After all, he already has a reverse ombre thing going with his tail.

And here are the real queens:

RuPaul

Sharon Needles

Alaska

Sasha Velour

BenDeLaCreme

Jinkx Monsoon as Little Edie

Alyssa Edwards

Bianca Del Rio

Santa Selena

Okay, as far as I know, Selena Quintanilla-Perez hadn’t been canonized, but she might as well have been (there is a Selena Day in Texas, however). What an incredible life this singer has led. 23 is too short a life to live, but the legacy she’s left behind is aspirational and spectacular. 

Selena in various outfits from her Astrodome performances.

I was asked to paint this set and I immediately cleared a spot in my schedule for it. It took an ungodly amount of time to get it finished as it kept getting pushed back to the after after after hours of my work day. Then, at 3 AM, when all is quiet, I sit down with Selena to work on her costumes or beading and think about what a magnificent musician she was and what she had to do to get to the top and it rounded a usually hectic day up very nicely. 

The request is for the first Selena to have real hair. I’ve never made one of this particular nature before and had to think about it for a while, as I am not a wigmaker. I love requests like this since it exposes me to different materials although I had to consult Luba from Handcrafted Gifts for the type of spinning fibre which most resembles human hair. This exercise has given me the courage to make several more wigs for subsequent sets!

And, just for fun, I made a little microphone in case someone wants to sing along to any of Selena’s hit songs!

The Wes Anderson Diorama

Toward the end of my teaching career, I was invited to the Museum of Natural History for a professional development where the man leading the lecture was one of the curators of the dioramas there. I usually spent these PDs catching up on my sleep or daydreaming about what I’m going to do when I win the lotto jackpot, but that day, I sat, rapt and enchanted, and wished that I hadn’t turned down the opportunity to be an assistant to my ex-boyfriend’s friend, Taxidermy George, who, was one of the most illustrious taxidermist in the country back then and at present.

Taxidermy George, at the time, was running his business in his parents’ basement and was nice enough to have me over to show me his studio. I wanted nothing more than to quit my job right there and then and become a taxidermist, an impulse that practicality said a resounding no to. It turned out to be a mistake, as I found out, to even qualify as an assistant to work on the dioramas at the museum, I would need a rudimentary understanding of taxidermy.

Well, I probably wouldn’t have been too good at it since I’m not too crazy with the idea of working with dead things. But boy, would I love to do the backgrounds for the displays! As it was, the only time I got to really spread my wings was putting up the stage sets for the annual New Year’s performances at the school I was teaching and I wanted to do more of it. At 30+ years old, I felt it might be too much of a gamble to go into the set design/taxidermy business, so I kept it tamped down and wished that one day I would have the time and space to work on it, even at a miniature scale.

As it turns out, there was never time nor budget for me to indulge in this whim of mine, until one day I was looking for something in my loose dolls drawer and saw that I had an array of tiny “last dolls” that had been torn from its original set due to customization. I could turn these dolls into pieces for a diorama!

It took nearly two years for me to finish it, largely due to the lack of time. When the dolls were painted, I experimented with different ideas on the display itself and finally found the perfect frame. I learned how to do wood staining with materials I had on hand (isn’t YouTube tutorials wonderful?) and got to paint on flat canvases for the first time in years. It was a lot of fun putting the pieces together, and I wish I can remember most of the process as a majority of these dioramas were painted at around 3AM when I am in zombie-mode.

This is the first in the (hopefully) many series of a miniaturized large scale project. I admit it was a bit too ambitious for someone who didn’t have a lot of time and didn’t really know what she was doing. I chose to showcase some of the characters from Wes Anderson’s movies because I’d painted so many sets in the last 10 years that I didn’t have to do too much research. Just to let you know how long this project had taken me to complete: When I first drew out the rough sketches, “Isle of Dogs” didn’t even exist yet!

Bottle Rocket

Rushmore

The Royal Tenenbaums

Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou

Hotel Chevalier

Darjeeling Limited

The Fantastic Mr. Fox

Moonrise Kingdom

Grand Budapest Hotel

Isle of Dogs

 

 

Agatha Christie and her Detectives

I have started working in my new sweatshop (and already being visited by the cutest Kingfisher, massive grasshoppers, and a few cats) on a cold and rainy week. It was quite fitting that the first set I’m working on at the new address was Agatha Christie and her myriad detectives. Although I wouldn’t exactly classify her books as one of those “cozy little mysteries,” but the gloomy weather did invoke the kind of English afternoons where tea is poured and scones are warmed and maybe a body or two are stumbled upon and I was more than happy to get right back into the game after 2 weeks of straight up moving and shoving furniture and boxes into place!

I grew up with two voracious readers for parents and both loved mysteries as much as me so there were always copies of Agatha Christie novels lying around the house. It was a wander down memory lane now as I painted Hercule Poirot, Miss Marple, Tuppence and Tommy, remembering my parents first telling me the plot to some of Christie’s works and then later me reading it for the first time.

The set was proposed to me and even though I was given photos of the actors portraying the characters, we kept the physical descriptions of them based on the novels. Sometimes I wish they would do more of that in films because, judging from what I’ve seen of Lifetime Channel’s promos of V.C. Andrews’ “Heaven” series, I know right now I am going to be vastly disappointed! I’ll watch them all, but I will not be happy about it!

Spirited Away Revisited

Every so often I enjoy making a “shake-’em-out” nesting doll set. I am able to utilize all the loose dolls rolling around in my drawers and I am allowed a certain amount of freedom not dictated by dimensional restrictions.

My mother had introduced me to the spectacular Studio Ghibli animation when it was still only popular in Asia. My favorite had been “Kiki’s Delivery Service,” followed by “My Neighbor Totoro.” It wasn’t until I sat down and bawled my eyes out watching “Graveyard of the Fireflies” that I realized even with Kiki and Totoro, these animated movies are not meant to be lighthearted fares. “Castle in the Sky,” “Princess Mononoke,” “Howl’s Moving Castle,” so on and so fourth are all deeply significant in their own rights. I found a lot of it be rather upsetting as it talked a lot about the impact humans have on the environment with an air of hopelessness about it…that is, until I saw “Spirited Away.” To me that is the only Studio Ghibli movie which did not leave me feeling sad in the end.

Since my life has been on a bit of a roller coaster ride at the moment and I’m sitting on the cusp of yet another great change, I felt compelled to do another shake ’em up set and the subject naturally fell upon one movie that always gave me so much hope and comfort. In this version of Spirited Away I got to revisit some of the old favorite characters I’d painted previously and I included some new ones.

Among the new characters are Kamaji the spider man who works in the boiler room and Yubird who nests inside Yubaba doll. The Kashira heads are all loose and ready for some interesting configurating.

In addition to Boh, I made Boh as a mouse. I couldn’t decide whether or not to paint Haku as a dragon and ended up doing both on the same doll.

Lin is a new addition because I liked her character so much. She reminds me of some of the teachers I used to work with, hard bitten on the outside but quite kind on the inside and I always managed to win them over by challenging myself to make them laugh at least once a day.

I really enjoyed making the soot sprites and their “food” and was happy this set allows me to make more.

 

Arrested Development

I find that, over time, if I want something badly enough, it’ll present itself to me sooner or later. I just have to put it out into the universe and let the Great Being sort it out for me. Such is the case with this set.

I’d been wanting to do “Arrested Development” for a while now. When it was first on the air, I had been losing faith in television programming and was toying with the idea of getting rid of my set and picking up a new hobby. But the Bluths came along and showcased the kind of family dysfunction that I adore and I kept my TV and was glad the Television Gods have heard my prayers. The cancellation of the show was upsetting, but that’s another story altogether. In short, I was asked to paint the Bluths (plus Maeby’s boyfriend Steve Holt to round out the set of 10s), I could hardly keep myself from purchasing a ticket to NYC and hugging the buyer in person.

This is a massive set of 10 dolls (large to small) featuring George Michael, his Dad Michael, Buster, GOB, Lindsay, Tobias the Never Nude, Maeby, George, Lucille, and Steve Holt.