I haven’t used rubber cement in a few days but the scent is stuck on me. In the car. On my run. At my kid’s dance recital. I can’t not smell it. It’s bad for me, but I love it.
I’m radiating it because for the past few weeks I’ve been putting finishing touches on some art that will be on display for the month of June. Last year I started a local design meetup and in December I applied for us to have a group show. We got it, and time is up, first Friday is this week!
But what did I make? Well the exhibit is called “side quest” and it’s about the work that graphic designers want to do when they’re not making work for others. The stuff that doesn’t get us paid. I’m one of a dozen others who will contribute to this show and things are all over the place, and I love it.
I decided to make a physical version (or three) of the weekly semispheres design exercise that I started last year. But this time no computer. No Figma. Just paint, wood, and Xacto knife, various papers, wood glue, a saw, and rubber cement. Lots of it.
The process was a lot different. I had to work backwards to think of the finished piece first on a technical level. I wanted these things to be big. I bought two 4×8 boards and cut them into thirds, leaving me with six 32”x48” wood panels.
But then how big should the quarter circle be? I settled on just shy of 4” with plans to simply use ink on a cut piece of linoleum. And that’s what I did, on different boards of different colors (yellow, white, black). Then things got weird.
I didn’t love the way it looked. The ink wasn’t transferring well to the painted wood, even though it looked perfect when I tested on paper. I knew I had to change a few things, so I just set it aside for like a week.
Eventually I realized that everything was working except how each shape was represented. The size and layout was right, but I didn’t just want ink on a board. So I decided to cut three different materials to fit the 5×9 grid. Things took off from here. What did I use? Aluminum foil, a 2016 Rand McNally road atlas, and some new age ridiculous book that I got from a little free library.
These things took time. Dry time. Measure time. It felt like a hinderance at first but I learned that the slowdown was beneficial. I’m not inpatient when something seems worthwhile. And this was close to seeming worthwhile.
The rest kind of hummed along. I still worried about alignment and measured and taped in ways that others might have found overkill. But it was working, just slow going. Even finding the right amount of rubber cement to apply took some practice.
The key with the foil was to mess it up first. The key to the book pages was to make sure they were full of text. The key to the map pieces was to get a variety of the country. Each one was wonderfully relaxing in their own way, a kind of joyful monotony that I also find in type design.
None of these needed a frame but I felt like they deserved a frame. This ended up being the most expensive part of the project, aside from the yellow paint (the other paints were just laying around). I ended up oak corner moulding, which was already sanded and ready to go, after a few easy cuts. Things really felt finished when that last part was figured out.
And so here I am, finally satisfied with my contributions to this show. My Side Quest. I can’t wait to see what everyone else has been working on. Am I going to keep making these? Maybe, but with some different methods. I think a mid-size scale might be easier and equally fun. Something tabloid sized. My house truly isn’t big enough to keep doing work at this scale. So unless I get a studio space, these are some very limited editions. This work will be on display at the CAP ArtSpace starting Wednesday June 3.
