From left to right (click on images for larger photos):
1) The cabinet on its pedestal. The catalog sits on the shelf. The artist statement is contained in a silvered, distressed frame (to match the cabinet hardware, natch) mounted on the wall behind the pedestal.
2) A 3/4 view of the outer doors and inner doors opened. The drawers are velvet lined, faced with marbled paper (by Galen Berry) and opened via grosgrain ribbon tabs. Each drawer is labeled.
3) Section “B” with its contents artfully exposed (artifact styling courtesy of Caton). A “dramatization” (heh!) of the visitor’s experience—normally the artifacts are not hanging out of the drawers like this. It looks neat, though, huh?
4) A close-up of the catalog. (View a pdf of the catalog content [2MB].)

I’m sorry I had to abandon you, cabinet. I hope the student volunteers treat you with care. I will see you on Monday!

For all of you who wanted a peak inside once it was finished, you’ll have to come to the exhibit. I took some pictures for the sake of documentation for the thesis paper, but they aren’t that great. It’s a piece that’s meant to be interacted with and pictures don’t convey much. Okay, maybe I’ll show some close-ups of the interior. Tomorrow. Or something. Eh. I’ve spent too much time writing blog entries this evening. I should be painting or cooking!

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!

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).

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.

With all the super-thick binder board cutting, Fat Max has been put through his paces. I have had a couple of near misses — fingers and thighs (thank goodness for denim) are the usual targets — it’s surprising this hasn’t happened earlier. It’s only a flesh wound, but still not for the squeamish.

This took me all day yesterday (9am – 1am with breaks for lunch and dinner) – the first photo is from 12:35 pm. I built the shell of the inner case that morning. I had three separate boxes that I had put together with too little sleep, and realized that it was better to make the top and bottom all one piece. Fewer variables for screwiness – and I have to account for screwiness in the materials every step of the way. Also, note that the previous door knobs have been replaced with knobs of a more appropriate scale for the piece. It’s hard to find small wooden knobs!

These are the papers I bought for the drawer faces. I’m really tempted to just use the marbled stuff. The pattern reminds me of a flashback sequence.

There are three groups. I will be adding one more item (a key – have to reshoot it) to group “B.” I also have two other groupings — (1) an uncle-nephew relationship with geology samples (2) something Victorian/Edwardian for which I have yet to figure the story kernel but whose items would be the niftiest and most obscure — that I have yet to shoot, but which I might feature instead of one or two of these.

In any case, I’d appreciate any input about layout or comments on the current groupings. I also would like a critique on my brief introduction. I’m thinking of asking Grossenbacher to include a cloth bookmark which I will place on the introduction page to hopefully guide folks to read it. I’m not happy with the design of the introduction page, it’s pretty boring, but I only have so much time to spend on it!

My goal is to wrap this up today and get the thing to Grossenbacher tomorrow. Then that will be out of my hair and I can get cracking on the cabinet over the weekend and before I get my paper back from David Ritchie on Tuesday.

These are “novels,” or more appropriately “autobiographies” in visual form, and an attempt to identify each object or justify its use will be as sterile as reading a novel one sentence at a time. Read these pieces for the effect the juxtaposition of objects may produce. Consider this exhibition as an excursion into the world of real things, objects directly seen, without amplification or intermediation, other than that of the artist’s hand and eye as each artist has created and guided the placement and interrelationship of the things contained within these small spaces.

— Thomas H. Garver in Cabinets of Curiosities: Four Artists, Four Visions. University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2000. p. 53