There are 8 days remaining in my Geneve Journal Kickstarter campaign. Join in the fun and reward of supporting this project...thx.
If you've been reading this blog recently, you may have picked up on the fact that I've got a Kickstarter campaign currently running.
The goal? To raise $5000 to fund a working residency in Geneva Switzerland that will result in a body of work including artworks and documentary components that comprise a multi-form, multi-media memoir.
In keeping with the Kickstarter program of offering rewards to project supporters in exchange for pledges of support, I've lined up several which are available exclusively to funders of the Geneve Journal project.
Here's a rundown of the rewards available at different levels.
For everyone who pledges, I will transmit my thanks via an actual person to person telephone call. Yes. In person. You and me - talking. Me saying "thank you", you saying "Oh you're so welcome, I'm happy to be part of such a worthy and creative endeavor."... or something like that. Real heart to heart stuff. If however, this is to much, no pressure...I can send you an email of thanks...But, if you do want to give me your number, then game on!
At the lower end of reward offerings most Kickstarter campaigns of the art variety offer up emailed images or digital prints. This quite nice, but for me, it's important to offer up something made of my own hand at all levels along the spectrum of rewards. Something material and tactile. Physical. Something of this sphere.
Hand manipulated or handmade postcards are among the rewards. The first will be off-the-rack tourist postcards of Geneva that I then paint on, carve our or generally deface in an aesthetic way.
Also, I'll be creating a special numbered edition of my Missive postcards - The Swiss Missives. These will be postcards created by collaging photographs from 20 years ago and photos I took this year, along with whatever paper paraphernalia I encounter out there; ticket stubs, found paper, brochures etc.
By the way, if anyone is interested in periodically receiving a regular Missive from me, just email your address to me, and I'll add you to the recipient list.
I began making my Elliptical Drawings solely for the purpose of an article of exchange, specifically for this aim of presenting hand made examples of how I work as rewards for this Kickstarter project. On most occasions when I go to the gym, I take a small drawing pad and a random handful of colored pencils. While trodding along on the elliptical machine, I draw. Or scribble. I don't always make Elliptical Drawings at the gym, but Elliptical Drawings are only made at the gym.
Not all the drawings are equally effective, but there are a lot of them and there are some real gems among the bunch. I really love many of these drawings. They're a very true reflection of my approach to my work. And if not entirely automatic, these are very porous drawings, absorbing fragments of what I'm hearing in the gym, seeing on the tv screen in front of me, along with thoughts or ideas I bring with me into the gym from the studio - all of this while I'm in a slightly altered state, sweaty and bobbing along. It's amazing how quickly the time goes by when I'm working out/on these things. Of course, I could possibly vanquish those pesky last 10 lbs if I just focus on the work out on hand, but.... . Some elements born in these drawings have begun percolating up into some of the studio works, too, which is a reward for me.
Why do I make things? For the experience of chaperoning thoughts through to some physical form AND to share things. The Elliptical Drawings fit both purposes. Although I didn't originally list it in the various reward levels, I'm including the choice of an Elliptical Drawing on all levels above the $30 level. Also, selection of drawings will be given in the order in which the pledges were made.
There are a couple of production pieces that are part of the rewards; a "documentary" magazine and a DVD. Similar in form to my Annual publications, the magazine will serve as compendium of this entire endeavor, with images of artwork - from then and now, text of my reflections and photos of my time in Geneva.
Similarly, the DVD will contain the audio and video tracings of my time in Geneva, including interviews with artists and other fascinating folks I encounter. Portions of this audio will be included in a future episode of the Dead Hare Radio Hour. I envision the DVD as being somewhere between documentary and expressive collage in motion....we'll see how that shapes up.
Both the magazine and DVD will serve to delineate and map the terrain of this project. Examples of the artwork I create while in Geneva - as the working session in that city is the central mechanism of all of this - will also be offered up as rewards for support. What will this portion of the reward system look like? I'm not sure. Partially representative, part abstract and impressionistic - undoubtedly expressionistic - but that's one of the great open ended "life's a box of chocolates" variables that lie at the heart of what I do.
Parallel Livres. This reward consists of full sized reproductions of the two 11"x14" sketchbooks - one kept during my trip to Geneva in 1992 and one I'm keeping now which corresponds to the time frame of the first. These will be hardcover digitized versions of the two sketchbooks and together they form one work that more accurately denotes the disparities and similarities of my basic creative impulses. It's here within these two books, I think, that I personally will be able to gauge whatever "progress" I've made as an artist over 20 years. I've always enjoyed seeing the origins of other artists' processes, in the forms of sketches and journals, and I think this pair of books will be of interest even to folks who are not me....
The Happy Ending. At this level, you can have me...ME visit your home, community center, neighborhood park - wherever - and be treated to a captivating and hopefully witty account of this adventure and it's beginning 20 yrs ago...I promise to keep it a concise, sweet and non-nod inducing barrage of vacation slides. Think of it as SORT OF having a Spalding Gray or Ira Glass speaking to you live....Notice the emphasis on SORT OF. This is a great reward to chip in on with your friends.....I'll likely come bearing souvenirs for everyone. We'll just make a night of it.
I, Chris & Thee: Why slap your corporate name on a cold, bland athletic park, when you can co-opt a year's worth of one fellow's blood sweat and tears? That's sort of what I'm offering up in this reward - only less harsh.... At this level, you get the naming rights to a year's worth of studio production. Everything, big, small, incidental....whatever I make, you can put your name on or name it as you like. Follow your creative impulses and indulge your own sense of the poetic - on my work. It's sort of a collaboration. It's sort of a mash up of two minds....even if one of those minds lives in a corporate body.
If you have a company and want to have fun - open it up to your employees. Everyone gets to name a piece or pieces. Name these things by popular vote - however you want to do it. Even as I write this, I'm seeing novel ways the Namer can push this forward. And you don't need to be a company either....just a bloke with some coin jingling in your pocket and an urge to name your world.....and I tend to churn through a lot of work in a year, so there will be lots of intellectual territory you can claim in the name of your king....And henceforth, all such named works will remain so named.....
So those are my rewards in exchange for support of the Geneve Journal project. I should mention that all the rewards will be made exclusively for project supporters, and (with the exception of whatever artworks I create in Geneva) the numbers of postcards made, magazines, DVD's and sketchbook repros will be limited to the number of supporters who sign up for the corresponding levels.
Thanks so much...and by chance, if you hadn't found any links to my Geneve Journal Kickstarter project before ..there's one right there.
At the lower end of reward offerings most Kickstarter campaigns of the art variety offer up emailed images or digital prints. This quite nice, but for me, it's important to offer up something made of my own hand at all levels along the spectrum of rewards. Something material and tactile. Physical. Something of this sphere.
Hand manipulated or handmade postcards are among the rewards. The first will be off-the-rack tourist postcards of Geneva that I then paint on, carve our or generally deface in an aesthetic way.
Also, I'll be creating a special numbered edition of my Missive postcards - The Swiss Missives. These will be postcards created by collaging photographs from 20 years ago and photos I took this year, along with whatever paper paraphernalia I encounter out there; ticket stubs, found paper, brochures etc.
 |
| Missive #182 |
 |
| Missive #190 |
 |
| Elliptical Drawing 55 |
 |
| Elliptical Drawing 53 |
Not all the drawings are equally effective, but there are a lot of them and there are some real gems among the bunch. I really love many of these drawings. They're a very true reflection of my approach to my work. And if not entirely automatic, these are very porous drawings, absorbing fragments of what I'm hearing in the gym, seeing on the tv screen in front of me, along with thoughts or ideas I bring with me into the gym from the studio - all of this while I'm in a slightly altered state, sweaty and bobbing along. It's amazing how quickly the time goes by when I'm working out/on these things. Of course, I could possibly vanquish those pesky last 10 lbs if I just focus on the work out on hand, but.... . Some elements born in these drawings have begun percolating up into some of the studio works, too, which is a reward for me.
 |
| Elliptical Drawing |
Why do I make things? For the experience of chaperoning thoughts through to some physical form AND to share things. The Elliptical Drawings fit both purposes. Although I didn't originally list it in the various reward levels, I'm including the choice of an Elliptical Drawing on all levels above the $30 level. Also, selection of drawings will be given in the order in which the pledges were made.
There are a couple of production pieces that are part of the rewards; a "documentary" magazine and a DVD. Similar in form to my Annual publications, the magazine will serve as compendium of this entire endeavor, with images of artwork - from then and now, text of my reflections and photos of my time in Geneva.
Similarly, the DVD will contain the audio and video tracings of my time in Geneva, including interviews with artists and other fascinating folks I encounter. Portions of this audio will be included in a future episode of the Dead Hare Radio Hour. I envision the DVD as being somewhere between documentary and expressive collage in motion....we'll see how that shapes up.
Both the magazine and DVD will serve to delineate and map the terrain of this project. Examples of the artwork I create while in Geneva - as the working session in that city is the central mechanism of all of this - will also be offered up as rewards for support. What will this portion of the reward system look like? I'm not sure. Partially representative, part abstract and impressionistic - undoubtedly expressionistic - but that's one of the great open ended "life's a box of chocolates" variables that lie at the heart of what I do.
 |
| Parallel Livres |
Parallel Livres. This reward consists of full sized reproductions of the two 11"x14" sketchbooks - one kept during my trip to Geneva in 1992 and one I'm keeping now which corresponds to the time frame of the first. These will be hardcover digitized versions of the two sketchbooks and together they form one work that more accurately denotes the disparities and similarities of my basic creative impulses. It's here within these two books, I think, that I personally will be able to gauge whatever "progress" I've made as an artist over 20 years. I've always enjoyed seeing the origins of other artists' processes, in the forms of sketches and journals, and I think this pair of books will be of interest even to folks who are not me....
The Happy Ending. At this level, you can have me...ME visit your home, community center, neighborhood park - wherever - and be treated to a captivating and hopefully witty account of this adventure and it's beginning 20 yrs ago...I promise to keep it a concise, sweet and non-nod inducing barrage of vacation slides. Think of it as SORT OF having a Spalding Gray or Ira Glass speaking to you live....Notice the emphasis on SORT OF. This is a great reward to chip in on with your friends.....I'll likely come bearing souvenirs for everyone. We'll just make a night of it.
I, Chris & Thee: Why slap your corporate name on a cold, bland athletic park, when you can co-opt a year's worth of one fellow's blood sweat and tears? That's sort of what I'm offering up in this reward - only less harsh.... At this level, you get the naming rights to a year's worth of studio production. Everything, big, small, incidental....whatever I make, you can put your name on or name it as you like. Follow your creative impulses and indulge your own sense of the poetic - on my work. It's sort of a collaboration. It's sort of a mash up of two minds....even if one of those minds lives in a corporate body.
If you have a company and want to have fun - open it up to your employees. Everyone gets to name a piece or pieces. Name these things by popular vote - however you want to do it. Even as I write this, I'm seeing novel ways the Namer can push this forward. And you don't need to be a company either....just a bloke with some coin jingling in your pocket and an urge to name your world.....and I tend to churn through a lot of work in a year, so there will be lots of intellectual territory you can claim in the name of your king....And henceforth, all such named works will remain so named.....
So those are my rewards in exchange for support of the Geneve Journal project. I should mention that all the rewards will be made exclusively for project supporters, and (with the exception of whatever artworks I create in Geneva) the numbers of postcards made, magazines, DVD's and sketchbook repros will be limited to the number of supporters who sign up for the corresponding levels.
Thanks so much...and by chance, if you hadn't found any links to my Geneve Journal Kickstarter project before ..there's one right there.
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