Creating (and Sharing) My Happiness!

Spotting a pair of scissors has always brought me excitement and taken me down a long, wonderful road full of memories of my creations. My grandmother began having “Goodtimes at Grannies” on the last Sunday of every month shortly before I was born. During those Sundays my Grannie would have arts and crafts planned for all of her grandchildren; she even set us up our very own craft room! I spent countless hours in that craft room and while it may be a walk-in pantry today, I still cherish it as the incubator that fostered the artist in me. My Grannie has kept (almost) every piece of art made for her by her grandchildren. My childhood portfolio may not be as impressive as my college portfolio, but it’s a gift to have that I can look back at.

As an artist I’ve tried on different hats and used many tools, but few can be used between so many mediums and bring them together to form a cohesive piece of work. Whether I’m using a pencil, a paintbrush, a soldering iron, a welding torch, a skill saw, or a pair of scissors - I am always drawn towards combining disciplines and ideas.

One of my more recent big projects was done for my college graduation show. I created a series of interactive electronic art pieces including: Squeeze Me is a wearable piece and Kiss That Cobra is a “do-rama”. Do-ramas, or dioramas that do things, are my original creations and began as their own project. The entire series required mixing more media than I ever had up to that point.

This wearable art piece took weeks to conceptualize and complete. The jacket has a pressure sensor placed into a pocket sewn into the left shoulder and 4 servo motors one the back with “spines” attached. When the pressure sensor is squeezed the spines whip out from behind the back then return to their position when the sensor is released.

I wanted to create an extension of the body and ended up creating what could become a prototype for defensive clothing. This sparked a great discussion among my peers, and I have every intention of scaling the project up for artistic purposes.

Kiss My Cobra was one of the more involved pieces as it took all kinds of mediums to complete and required a servo I had not yet worked with. The origin series for this piece is called Cirque DoRamas and implemented nearly every skill I’d learned as an artist up to that point. The interactive elements are all electronic, the figure is 3D printed, the base is made of foam, painted with acrylic, the attached embellishments are hand-made and cut, there is a woven basket for the snake to sit in, and a silk cover to disguise all the inner-workings.

Cirque DoRamas was born out of my fascination with the history of the Circus and of the Freak Show, particularly the idea that presenting atypical features and ideas as art can nullify the apprehension when it comes to confronting them. The series played off that idea by drawing people in and then having them be confronted with something as a result of their interaction. Kiss My Cobra uses an IR proximity sensor to trigger a pan-and-tilt servo to activate when motion is detected within a 1-foot-range. Attached to this pan-and-tilt servo is a 3D-printed cobra that shakes back and forth until someone gets within that 1-foot-range then it strikes the plexiglass enclosure.

One of the best parts of the process for me is seeing how people react, or interact, with the final piece. Many people did not notice the arrows on Squeeze Me and some immediately grabbed the breasts of the mannequin which was quite entertaining to watch. Kiss My Cobra is also a rewarding piece to watch while on display because it’s usually the only one making people scream. Once the initial shock wears off people find themselves investigating each piece further to try to understand the mechanics, and continually causing the reaction to happen but this time with intention. Experiencing the development of the relationship between my interactive pieces and those viewing them is the driving force behind my process. The meaning of that relationship is fluid, but my intention is always to bridge gaps in communication with every piece of art I create.