Channelbone, 2007, Megan and Murray McMillan, installation overview
Channelbone, our show at White Flag Projects in St Louis last April, is reviewed in the November issue of Art in America by critic Margaret Keller.
We blogged the whole process of working on the piece here.
Here are images from the installation of our new video, Channelbone that opened this weekend.
The whale is done. Just a few odds and ends to finish up today, mostly building and installing the TV shelf that goes where the cord is hanging down.
ChannelBone
Two Days Only
Opens Friday, April 6 from 7-10pm
and on view Saturday from 12-5pm
White Flag Projects
4568 Manchester Ave
St Louis, MO 63110
www.whiteflagprojects.com
photo credit goes to Matt Strauss (thanks!)
Just had a visit from the fire department. The alarm keeps going off because of the propane heat gun, and the fire department was automatically called by the gallery’s excellent alarm system. Nice guys, those firemen. Took a show card. I hope they end up coming to the opening.
Here’s where we are now.
Here’s where we were this morning when we got to the gallery. We were too tired last night to finish the last bit of woodwork, so we had about 10% still to go.
Lucky for us that Murray’s wonderful students from 3D Design and Creative Strategies showed up to pitch in. They helped us finish the wood, cleaned up the gallery, and even mopped for us. Every speck of sawdust had to be gone before we could start working with plastic. That plastic is like velcro: everything sticks to it.
The students also helped wrangle the plastic. At 20’x100′, this stuff is a nightmare to manipulate.
Tonight we finish wrapping the structure, then heat-shrink it. After that, we’ll attach the heat-shrunk flippers and hang the internal television. I picked up a gorgeous 1984 Goldstar TV from St Vincent’s today, and we’re going to hang it inside the whale’s ribcage.
Believe it or not, we’re right on schedule.
Tonight will be a late one for us. To keep on schedule, we need to finish the wood portion of the whale that we’re building for the opening at White Flag Projects on Friday. Tomorrow is the day we put on the plastic “skin.” We’ve got a class of students coming to help us wrangle that 20′ by 100′ roll of industrial plastic sheeting — so we have to be finished with the structure before they arrive.
This morning started with the head of the whale.
Next came the ribcage, which will be open to the audience. The video will be playing on a monitor inside the structure.
What’s taking us forever is all the connecting pieces between the circles. As soon as we finish that, we’ve got the flipper mounts to place (we’re hanging the flippers themselves after we plasticize them). Then we’ll be done for the night.
We’re making a life-size whale for White Flag Projects, opening Friday.
Webster University students are helping figure out flipper placement.
Yesterday we hung the spine of the whale. Today, we’ll install the ribs, the fluke and the flippers.
ChannelBone opens at White Flag Projects Friday, April 6 from 7-10pm. More info here.
We’re building a humpback whale for the opening this Friday (April 6, 2007) at White Flag Projects in St Louis. These are some of our reference images.
Humpback whale: before assembly
Flipper: using a stretch cord and tape to find the perimeter. It’s like analog vector drawing.
Flippers: ready to be skinned. We’re using a clear plastic.
This is the blueprint for the wood: all the curves we need to make the whale skeleton. We start installing in the gallery on Monday. Our first step will be to mount the flat-screen television from the rafters, then we’ll build the whale around it.