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Tuesday, May 26, 2015

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Very infrequent posts means that my work goes mostly into the project itself. This is how I convince myself, and hopefully you, that a sparse blog is a good thing, in my case anyway.
It's been very busy for Isness the last few months and will get even busier in the next few, as I brace myself for finally presenting Volume one online. This is one year later than I recently thought, and four years later than I initially planned when I started the project.

Below is the cover, which minus a few tweakings is pretty much done and ready.

 Isness has 8 volumes. They are designed as issues of a magazine, including advertisements, activities and visual articles about cooking and fashion.

Although I've been preparing Isness for print and have been spending a lot of time figuring out paper weight and "signatures" and "paginations" (yes, I didn't know these print terms either when I started) I never intended to self publish and would rather wait and seek out a publishing partner as I continue to work. Meanwhile people can read Volume One online, get acquainted with the characters and the format and I will have a place to direct potential publishers to, instead of printing very expensive mock-ups that may end up in the dust bin.

For this type of work, which is supposed to provide that tactile, retro experience of a magazine, online publishing is a temporary compromise. The "real deal" will have pages of different textures, gatefolds and things you can cut out like paper puzzles.




The original campbell's soup ad followed by my post-apocalyptic version, made with miniatures and quinoa seeds instead of beans.


Another aspect I've been wrapping up is the landscape diorama. After years of having the large 4'x8' diorama take up the larger portion of my studio, i have begun to dismantle it. Every possible photo of this abandoned military outpost has been taken or will be taken in the next few months. Destroying it is both sad and cathartic. As the layers are exposed, I recall the long process of turning a mound of crumpled newspapers and plaster into an imaginary home base for my characters.


2011

2015

The little island-diorama, however, will not be destroyed any time soon and in fact it just got an extension and a tarmac as I realized that this is how these pacific military islands were used. My research of the era is not very thorough but I do try to avoid glaring, unnecessary inaccuracies. So tarmac it is.

 The new tarmac (and snow cap!)

Testing the new addition with the surrounding ocean added.

In a couple of weeks I will be joined by two talented interns from RISD who will assist me this summer in the effort to round up all loose ends for Volume One. After a couple of semesters scrambling to pay interns a minimum wage I realized that I just couldn't pull it off anymore. As good as my intentions are, I'm an artist who's been hemorrhaging money on this project daily for many years and cannot afford to pay. For this reason I am terribly thrilled to still have fantastic people come on board and I make it a priority to address their creative interests and do a lot of teaching as we work!

So stand by to read Volume One very soon. I'll make a big splash about it on Isness FB page when it happens!

All sorts of other updates will be on Isness Kickstarter Timeline too!

Love,

Happy Summer!

Stevie