Assignment 2: Stakeout! By Maxine and Flow

Assignment 2: Stakeout! 

Title: The Lollipop Tree

Provided by: Deb Sokolow

By: Flow and Maxine

     This turned into the most fun Assignment we have done yet. Originally we had waited on this episode because when it came out it was winter, both of us didn't feel like leaving something out side and watching it during the winter, we also felt that there wouldn't be many people to interact with it. After watching the Highlights episode  there was a lot of great new ideas that we had been given. We decided that it seemed like it would be more fun if whatever we placed outside had multiple things, giving more people the chance to see it and interact. After some thought we came up with the idea of a Lollipop tree. 

     We broke out the cardboard, markers, and scissors for this one.  The trunk is a paper towel roll, the bottom part of a box. Cuts were made in both so that it can slit together. Leaves were also made from cardboard, stuck on dowels and silted to fit more leaves. Holes were made for the lollipops to fit into. 

         We also decided we wanted little papers on them. One side had a quote, or a thought, the other said #theartassignment. We also made a poster. 

Which also had the hashtag on it. (I have now realised that spelling got the better of me for that sine... oh well...) Putting this together ended up taking longer than we thought it would. Which meant that we put taking it out for another day... because we wanted to go to my house and make this:

Nothing is greater than Desert Pizza... even art!

(some things are just so amazing you need to share them... instructions found here)

A few days later we took the tree down town. We set it up in down town Toronto. On the Ryerson University campus there is a road that has been turned into a Pedestrian aria. There are chairs set-up and lots of people walking thought it all the time. So it seemed like it would be busy but a calm busy (not like Dundas square busy...). First we put it on a table, but that table had chairs the people sat in as soon as we walked away, this stopped anyone else from touching it. So we moved it to a big rock. 

The tree had to be taped in place... and blew over a few times...

I wanted to try with no sign at first, I wanted to see what people did with no instructions. To my sadness they didn't really do anything...

So many people walked right past...

 There were a coupple exciting moments. The first being after about 5 min these two people..

Followed by this man who was very interested but in both cases they didn't axially take a lollipop in the end. I like to think that this is a point about the Canadian tendency for kindness... that when people didn't know why it was there they assumed that there was a reason and didn't want to disturb it. (This happened after about 10 min's of watching)

I love the way he walks past, 

Notices it as he was passing

and then approaches it

and so after 17 minuets I let flow add the sign. 

Take a Fruit from the Lollipop Tree. #theartassignment

Three minuets later we had the first person to approach it and take one! Success!! 

Hurray!

From here on we had many more people approach it. It was fun to watch there heads turn as they walked passed, or to see them reading the note we put on it. Lots of people took photos of our little tree, every time they touched there phone flow was hopping that they were looking for the hashtag. Every head that turned towards it was exciting, but some just looked and kept walking. 

Something going to happen... Something going to happen... /sigh nothing happened

     The most exciting moment happened a little bit off to the side of the viewpoint of my tablet. There was two mothers talking, on had two children with her. They talked a bit then walked off, the one with the children off to the right, you could see her head notice the tree like many others, but she approached it along with her kids. 

Hurray!

      But this Mom continued to on to do something a little different than everyone else, she dug through her bags, eventually asking someone else for a pen, and she got her girls to write thank you to us on the poster.

Your Welcome!!

      This little act was so exciting to watch!! We continued to watch people notice, photograph, and enjoy our little Lollipop Tree for another half hour before we packed it up. The experience was really fun, it was neat to watch people. The people sitting at tables nearer us could tell we were the ones that had put it there because we had to refill the tree a few times (and fix the tape...) one man was really interested in watching people along with us.  This was extremely fun, the best assignment yet. It had ups and downs, and moments where we didn't think it was going to work but over all it was great. I hope that anyone who found it liked it as well and you are all welcome, from Flow and myself, we hope it made you day a little better. Lollipops should always grow on trees.

Assignment 10: Make a Rug By Maxine

Assignment 10: Make a Rug

Title: Rug in progress...

Provided by: Frits Hage

By: Maxine

Episode 10 instructions: 
1. Gather old textiles (clothes, bed sheets, etc.)
2. Make a rug
3. Share your journey of making the rug and what you do on it

     In general when I do art I use two mediums, the first being that I draw, this is more the medium of my past though it is still one close to my heart. I love drawing an image by hand with pen and ruler, then scanning it into the computer, redrawing it in photoshop and spending hours coloring it... thats why I was initially excited by assignment 6... even though i haven't approached it yet... 

     My other medium, my current medium is cloth. I sew costumes, dresses cloaks and clothing. A lot of the every day clothes I where I made, and some of the special stuff too ( my wedding dress...). So when you are looking for cloth I have it... and old pieces of cloth have meaning to me. I see meaning behind this assignment coming to me from the places you take the old cloth from. 

     Here we are supposed to be reusing old cloth that once has a purpose and currently does not. I happened to have the perfect box for that. 

      That was a box of mostly towels that has been in my closet since I moved in here. When you are young and you move into a new home (doesn't matter if its like the fourth house you have lived in away from your parents a lot) you get (or well... at least I got... but I am pretty confident this happened to my cosen as well) all sorts of old stuff your relatives don't need that they figure you can use... I have way too many towels/sheets... 

     The story of these pieces are a path of the places I have lived since I first moved out. The Red fabric is from jogging pants I had in high school... I really liked the top that matched them... The sheet that I used in the center is from my grandmothers house when I was little... all the parts to her guest room matched it... the pillow cases, the curtains, the comforter.  That Green piece of cloth you see in the image above is the sheet from my room in the first apartment I lived on my own. A curtain from that same room is in the box too (though at some point in time I lost one... so I only have one curtan...). This box has cloth that speaks to me of the past. 

     I started this over a few times... the first time I tried to use the red peace that you can hardly see... its from jogging pants... so its a thick cloth but not as thick as the towels... the second try worked a lot better and it was with a sheet.

     It was very difficult to move from the sheet fabric to the jogging pants... I suggest when you know you are running out after a big piece like that to make things loose... I also started off trying to tie the different fabrics together... this didn't work. I actually found that they stay fine if you just start with a loop. The start is not easy... I really don't know if I was doing it right, but I just grabbed old parts and connected the new to it... around and around... the edge now works fine, and its mostly a circle... it already is getting big fast... and my apartment is nowhere as big as a studio... so I don't even expect to use all that is in my box there... But I have a plan now... I'll show you when its done. 

     One other thing that I noticed is that it DOES get easier as you go... and once you start to get frustrated put it down for a bit then come back. I stopped for a bit here before adding the brown towle in the top photo, stopping and starting again made things easier.