After about 10 attempts, I think I’m finally getting the hang of the marbling thing. I’m a rank amateur, to be sure, but can see possibilities. I love the psychedelic, lava-lampy aspects of this one. Of course, the colors emphasize it. I’m still working on finding a good palette. I have a motley assortment of Golden liquid acrylics and the garish assortment of inks that came with the mini-marbling kit I purchased at Art Media. Click on the picture for the full sheet so you can fully admire my air bubbles and mysterious black splotches (315k). Click here for a trippy close-up (173k). The trick seems to be to really load the tray with color and then smear it up a bit with a chopstick or some such thing, before combing through it. I learned about the smearing up part by looking at pictures of marble artist Ann Muir doing her thing. I just ordered a sample book of her marbled paper patterns, which are extraordinary, from Bookmakers and hope to find a sheet that will complement my cabinet.

This entry really clashes with my site color scheme. Perhaps, I should consider a color scheme that is less vulnerable to clashy-ness.

To my extreme disappointment (also terror, horror, nightmare, whatever you can think of that is very very bad), I was unable to completely finish the cabinet. However, I did make it fully functional and interactive so that the cabinet could be explored and the collection accessed. This is what I presented to the thesis committee.

Two of the doors still need letters � “B” and “C.” The gray drawers have yet to be covered with fabric. All drawers will have numbers affixed to their fronts. All drawers will be faced with marbled paper. It’s probably about 12 hours more work, I’m estimating. These changes will be completed for the exhibit on May 22nd. I think I will focus on that instead of a super fancy installation wall treatment or something.

Though it wasn’t completely finished, the piece was strong enough conceptually and functionally that I wasn’t cast out from PNCA or anything like that. I was docked for it, for sure, but I passed (whether you passed or failed is the only thing you are told at the time) and received points for ambition. Loose ends aside, the thesis panel seemed to get a kick out of it and I greatly enjoyed watching them poke through the drawers, look at the stuff and wonder about their owners. I garnered praise for creating the accompanying catalog, as that made the project richer on many levels. I was particularly pleased when one of the panel members read out loud from the catalog a bit that he found particularly intriguing. All things considered, I was pretty proud.

So, yeah. I expected the whole thesis presentation thing to be much worse. I worked on the thing round the clock for the last three weeks and I’m still trying to figure out how it could have taken me less time. I don’t know. It’s a really complex, labor intensive piece!

So, it’s over! For the sake of posterity, I’m going to play a bit of catch-up here. I’ve been working round the clock the past couple of days and haven’t had a chance to post more pictures in progress. That chance is now here.

April 16, 7:44 pm. Building the boxes. Bases have been cut to fit the quirks of each shelf. Fronts, backs and sides have been cut for all drawers with similar measurements (so they could be cut from the same template). Four drawers completed.

Inner doors cut and covered.

April 17, 3 am. All drawers completed � some still require some adjustment in order to fit easily into their compartment.

After this, I was pretty consumed with finishing the thing and didn’t photograph more. Here’s a hint about the final outcome - it took 35 minutes minimum *per drawer* to cover those drawers with fabric. And that wasn’t the only thing left to do. You do the math (my presentation was 11am Monday morning).

I’m finding this visual record keeping of my progress to be really helpful. It’s so easy to lose track of everything one does, and I hope this will give me a good sense of what a project like this required should I think about it in the future.

So, yesterday I covered the exterior edges and the vertical and horizontal divisions with black cloth. It wasn’t that difficult, but it was very tedious. Each of the shelves is covered individually.

I lined the outer doors.

I picked up the book from the bindery. I was disappointed for reasons that I won’t go into here. But it’s done and lessons were learned. It proved to be a useful reference for following stages of the project.

I mixed up some marbling size out of methycellulose, ammonia and vinegar. Thank goodness it seemed to turn out right - my previous attempts (which I’ve been using as adhesive) are just lumps of goo like something out of Ghostbusters.

I treated some paper with alum (no pix of that, sorry) and hung it on the clothesline in the basement.

I cut bases and fronts for all the drawers - keeping in mind their eventual contents. Each base and front was individually fitted to its home to account for screwiness. The bases are all about the same depth, except for two that had to accommodate extra long contents. This was also pretty darn tedious work. If you look closely you’ll see the first set of inner door hinges, too.

As a break from measuring and cutting, I mucked about with testing liquid acrylics on the marbling size in a tiny tupperware container. I achieved interesting, but not very promising results.

I made a marbling comb out of toothpicks.

I burned out and went to sleep.