Another full day of mural preparation. Yesterday I cut 121 vinyl squares. Today I cut 32 equilateral triangles, 75 or-so hexagons and about 30 circles (inner and outer). All hand marked and cut, so this took some hours of tedious work.
I had a request to change the bee because it 'looks more like a wasp', which frankly annoyed me. Apart from the ignorance of the comment, that honey bees are frequently confused with wasps and that my bee certainly looked like a bee and not a wasp, I also rather like wasps and it seems like a snobbish sort of racism to like bees and reject wasps. Both are equally important insects, and wasps, now under threat as a species, are maligned much more unfairly. Ultimately, what's wrong with wasps! And what's wrong if my bee looks like a wasp? If I'm the artist I can make it look like whatever I want. Perhaps I should make it a wasp as a statement of the fragility of nature under anti-environmental bureaucracies.
Sigh!
But no. I remind myself that I am not, entirely, the artist here.
I can reserve the right to complain about this working method of 'art-by-committee', which I abhor in the philosophy of art, but art-by-committee, to some extent, always is and always has been part of life when working with public art, so I will make adjustments (and argue the philosophical reasons why I don't think I should here). All of this artwork is an adjustment, after all.
I can paint something about the plight of wasps for myself.
The vinyl masks are now complete. The last step was marking cross marks for the grid lines. I need to draw that bee and to test the grid markings, then I'll test how the masks stick to the wall itself. I have the tools ready, but the paint is up to David. The job itself must wait for warmer, drier, times.
I'll spend most of tomorrow on more plans for this and finalising the grid markers, then I'll prepare for the Gunstorm release - yes! It's less than 24-hours until that game is unleashed on Steam.
