I just came back to town from a family road trip through the southwest. This humongous electrical storm rolling through Beatty, Nevada was a highlight of the trip.
As seen from the Stagecoach hotel and casino parking lot:
(The bolt at the very end of the clip is the best one)
[flv:beatty_storm.flv 480 360]
The SF Chronicle reviews Down A Little Dirt Road here. I will be back soon.
Recent Ocean Beach finds:
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Here are some snaps from the set design of Down A Little Dirt Road to whet your whistle. Have I mentioned that this is your one chance, perhaps ever, to see 136 corrugated boxes assembled together in one room? Have I mentioned the 600 square foot screen print? Have I mentioned that this play opens June 9 and runs Thursdays through Sundays until July 3? Tickets are available at brown paper tickets.
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Oh shit, check this out!!!!
From Lincoln Park at Lands' End
See that??
Let’s zoom in:
…And clean up the picture:
That’s right: it’s the fucking Golden Coyote, sunning itself on the Lincoln Park golf course not 300 yards in front of me!
The only question now is what are the spirits trying to communicate with me?
My friends like to pretend that I pass my summer days lazily collecting sand dollars and breaking the law, but I will have anyone who will listen know that I recently executed the largest continuous screenprint of my life. This print makes up a floor and wall for the world of Down A Little Dirt Road, produced in my capacity as the play’s Set Designer.
How big is it? The main floor sheet measures about 350 ft2–with a few extensions including a large piece that crawls up the upstage wall, the total is around 550 ft2.
To produce this one serigraph to rule them all , we first purchased one large sheet of economy vinyl flooring from our local mega-home improvement garrison and then got to work on its backside. After a coat of Cracked Pepper Black was loosely applied with paint rollers, we got down on hands and knees to apply the screen prints in pairs, one painful square foot at a time. One person held the screen steady while the other manned the squeegee. After seven hours of this, the pattern was complete and the surface was protected with a polyurethane sealant known to the state of California to cause birth defects while wet.
Not too many days of artmaking have shortened my life expectancy like this one probably did. But the floor looks great:
 Backside of the flooring |
 After a quick coat of black |
 After screen printing |
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 Applying the selant |
 The pattern |
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Installed in the venue, I was happy with way the prints transformed the space:
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Unfortunately there was a heartbreaking amount of tearing when the flooring was unrolled in the venue. The vinyl just kind of stuck to itself:
 A small tear. |
Find out how this problem was solved: Down A Little Dirt Road opens June 9 and runs Thursdays through Sundays until July 3. Tickets available at brown paper tickets. Thanks to Jonathan S., Erin B., Molly A., Louel S., and especially Maddie for all the help making this happen.