We are finally at work on “String (Figure) Theory” with less than a month to go! We have been testing our ideas and making models! But before we scale it up there was some serious art thinking, people meeting and inspiration gathering trip to the big city, New York. We got to see some great friends and some great art. We started out at the Knoll showroom in Chelsea. Can’t beat some great furniture and great people at our first Cranbrook alumni event.

Christian Marclay "The Clock"

Our favorit was the new Christian Marclay video installation at Paula Cooper Gallery. We had to wait in line for an hour, but it was worth it. “The Clock” is a 24-hour single channel video loop. We sat and watched it from 3:05 -4:10pm. Here is an article from the New York Times about the video project. Our second favorit was an installation by Kai Althoff at Barbra Gladstone Gallery. Hand painted yellow floors, floating carpet, and a wall of wax mugs, can’t go wrong with that!

Kai Althoff

Jim Drain at Greene Naftali Gallery

Some of Jim Drain’s other sweaters

Robert Pruitt

Robert Pruitt, Bubble Gum Gun

We have recently had the great pleasure of working at the Fabric Workshop and Museum in Philadelphia with resident artists Jim Drain and Robert Pruitt.  Along with the wonderful studio staff we have helped to create some amazing work for an exhibition that opens Friday Feb 4th on the 2nd floor of the Fabric Workshop! Here is a link to a great article on Jim and his Miami studio from Sight Unseen. He talks a little about the sweater project at FWM. Please come and see it if you are in the area!

And a link to Robert’s work at Mary Goldman Gallery

In Kurt Vonnegut’s novel “Cats Cradle” his character Newt used cats cradle as a metaphor to illustrate the futility of human existence.  So when pasta is used as the structural string it is both malleable when cooked and fragile when dry.

Ruthless Animals has proposed a big new project! String (Figure) Theory a three-day performative installation that incorporates sculpture, video, audio, performance and viewer participation.  The work will investigate “string figures,” a practice also known as cats cradle, as a metaphor for connections between individuals and information.  Over a three day duration, we will present information about the string figure practice, build a rope, and create a large-scale string figure with the help of viewer participation. More to come on that soon. Here are  a few paragraphs on string figures from an article by Meg Swansen I came upon in an issue of Vogue Knitting Magazine. It mentions an amazing book that we will use as a major reference.

One’s hands are often much cleverer than one’s brain…

Decades ago, my children and I became obsessed by Caroline Jaynes’s String Figures and How to Make Them (Dover Publications). This fascinating book, published in 1906, leaps miles ahead of the two-person string games called Cat’s Cradle and Jacob’s Ladder; it descibes how, with a loop of string, you can make the most eleborate string figures by yourself. The author traveld the world and found amazing, complex designs in Africa, the Solomon Islands, Caroline Islands, Torres Strait Islands and the Philippines–as well as in Alaska and Native American villages.

The kids and I memorized dozens of different designs by practicing daily through a long and lazy summer we spent in the country. Many years later, as adults, we discussed that distant “string figure summer,” and each of us grabbed lengths of wool in order to relive the action. To our dismay, we could remember almost nothing, and the harder we tried, the more elusive the moves became. I had had set up the opening position and turned my attention to a conversation about something else entirely–then suddenly, there in my hands, was Apache Door! I was astonished. My hands had know perfectly well what to do; it was my brain that had interfered and blocked the process.

My Sweet Lord

“‘My Sweet Lord,’ an anatomically correct milk chocolate sculpture of Jesus Christ by Cosimo Cavallar0.

Cavallaro beat me to it, but he’s not the first:

Butter cow on moto – necessary? probably

Winners drink milk.

Cheesescape

butter and bunting

McCain and Obama in butter

It kind of looks like pizza

Lisa Lyon won the first woman’s bodybuilding championship in 1979. In 1980 she started working with Robert Mapplethorpe and they collaborated on a series of photographs that was later published as a book called “Lady: Lisa Lyon”

Lisa Lyon

Diana Dennis preferred to call herself a performance artist that was also a bodybuilder. Since coming onto the professional bodybuilding scene in 1981, Dennis has used her body as an artistic tool. She still maintains a photography practice and has an overwhelmingly intense website for her fans.

Diana Dennis

Claudia Wilbourn finished second to Lisa Lyon in 1979 and was one of the early pioneers of female bodybuilding. In addition to her brief professional career she spent 7 years studying sculpture in college. Unfortunately I haven’t been able to locate any more info on her involvement in the arts.

Claudia Wilbourn

TRIΔNGLE + HEΔRT

I LO♥E HEΔRTS

I LO♥E TRIANGLES

I LO♥E  YΔCHT

YACHT is about group consciousness. YACHT is about the individual man or woman. If you believe these assertions to be contradictory, consider the Triangle: it is both a collection of points and a shape.

Official YACHT tattoos

Ann's Tattoo, same place different symbol

Jona Bechtolt and Claire Evans of YACHT in the desert

Heart shaped people in the desert

One of many YACHT press photos.

These balloon sculptures are definitely something…until they pop! and become nothing.

Some of these images come from photographer  Paul Graves they are definitely amazing! Check out more

There is so much more where this came from! WOW!

Main Goal #1

Lauren and I recently ventured to Zakoor Novelty in downtown Detroit, (thank you Lisa) a once flourishing balloon and party supply wholesale and warehouse business. Today it remains as a ghost of itself with half filled shelves and faded stock. This presented us with exactly what we wanted! To find and purchase  500 peach colored balloons. These fleshy marvels will be used in Lauren’s next sculpture.

Tools of the Trade

As you would imagine the ballooning world is quite fantastic… so If there’s a will there’s a way and there is always a Tie-A-Balloon. Don’t forget the More video instructions. You have got to learn how to be a pro!