THREE-DIMENSIONAL ART

Here's a group of mixed-media sculptures I've made. First is an assemblage I did in college inspired by the Hole song "Doll Parts". I used a lot of my old dolls, in addition to creating some weird creatures with doll parts I bought. Next is a zombie bear I created. I used one of the little bears from the Doll Parts piece and painted it to look like a crazed zombie. Finally is a miniature nicho I made to celebrate a birthday. The metal nicho I purchased, but I painted it and created the scene inside out of wood, clay, and fabric. The second picture includes a penny to show the scale.

MINIATURE PIANOS

The miniature piano sculptures make up a whole group of their own. I collect miniature pianos, and I also have made several over the past few years. I have made pianos from fabric, cardboard, foil, paper, toothpicks, and even pasta! To see more of my mini piano collection, visit my website MiniPianos.com.

Before I present the pianos I'll start with my mini harpsichord made out of toothpicks. The reason it became a harpsichord is that toothpics don't bend, so a more angular harpsichord was easier to craft than a curvy piano body. The body, lid, soundboard, keyboard, and legs are all made out of toothpicks; the only other things used are cardboard underneath the soundboard for sturdiness and then gold thread as the strings. The black keys are etched into the toothpicks with a knife and the white keys are individually painted on.

In addition to the harpsichord, the next two I consider my finest creations: the piano fountain and the transverse piano. They are inspired by Salvador Dalí paintings entitled Musical Tempest, which depicts a decrepit white piano with a fountain flowing in it, and Atmospheric Skull Sodomizing a Grand Piano, which depicts a piano with a keyboard along the side instead of the front. Additional inspiration for the piano fountain was taken from Sentimental Colloquy, which shows a similar piano in blue. The piano bodies are made of cardboard and the legs of wooden beads. For the piano fountain, I distressed the surface using paint and charcoal and painted the large cracks to look three-dimensional. I surmised what the top of the piano lid might look like and painted water leaking out of the cracks. The water spray itself is made of thread. The water basin was achieved using layer upon layer upon layer of blue saran wrap. The transverse piano's keys are tiny chopped-up bits of painted toothpicks. You will notice that I made this piano exactly in as in the painting, with the suggestive opening the naughty skull is probing! Maybe I'll make the skull someday.

This next group of mini pianos is made of paper. The first one is made out of sheet music. Connoisseurs might recognize this piece as a Chopin nocturne. The piano body itself is hollow and the legs and prop stick are rolled up papers. Even the keyboard is made out of the nocturne sheet music: I cut and taped together pieces from the music staff to be the white keys, and the black keys are painstakingly cut from the music bars! After that you'll see the first mini piano I ever made; it was for a theatrical design class in college. It was part of a scale model of my living room and, as such, is meant to represent my real piano. I made the body out of thick paper and the legs are actually from a lollipop stick. The piano is colored and detailed with watercolor pencils and the sheet music is detailed in pen. The third piano is made out of wadded up pieces of paper encased in a wrap of clear tape.

Next we have some pianos made from metals. The first one I made out of gutter wire, cut and then sewn together using wire thread. The keyboard is a photograph of my real piano's keyboard. Then there's a piano simply made of aluminum foil. The following piano is made of floral wire, which I bent into the piano shape. Lastly are a trio made from metallic pipe cleaners.

This next group of pianos is made from fabric. The white one is a prototype made from fabric I had lying around; the keyboard is drawn on with pencil and I sewed in some gold thread as the piano's strings. I made two from black plush fabric. The larger one has a white ribbon as a keyboard, with the keys marked on with a black pen. I made a second one like this with keyboard-patterned ribbon as a present for Tori Amos. The last example is made of cardboard and wrapped with white string. I think I got the idea from a publicity photo of Tori Amos that featured her playing a mummy-wrapped piano.

This last piano is one of the more unusual. It pays homage to my favorite TV show, Seinfeld. It was inspired by the episode where Kramer makes a little statue of Jerry out of pasta. He calls it "Fusilli Jerry" as it is made out of fusilli (chosen because Jerry is "silly"). George was less fortunate. Kramer was making his statue out of ravioli. Now I didn't know what pasta would be appropriate for a piano, but I used some I had on hand: tri-colored radiatore pasta.

WOOD BURNING

From time to time I like to use my wood burning tool on plain wood items I buy. There is a plaque I made with a quote and photo from the movie The Piano; portraits of pets; a sun and moon; and an item I decorated with a Bosch creature.

COMPUTER ART

Here is a series of variations I made on a photo I took of myself. All I did was alter the color pattern for each variation. The original photo is shown first. I used a similar technique on a picture of my cat and made a collage; the original photo is at the bottom right.

MORPH-O-RAMA

I found an amazing site that lets you upload a photo and then morph it in all kinds of ways: change your age, race, or sex; morph with another face; and morph as though painted by some famous artists. Check out the site here: Face Transformer. Here are my portraits in the styles of Sandro Botticelli, Alphonse Mucha, and Amedeo Modigliani.