Under the Sea

COLORFUL CHAOS: If you look around our house at any given time, you'll see projects. Many, many projects. The bulk are of the smaller-scale, artsy craftsy vein. The others are of the 'our bathroom is torn apart and we're tiling a shower' vein.

One of the things we've got going on now is a project to transform a hallway in a school into the Salish Sea. No big deal. ;)

For it, we have a 15-foot banner that will have a captivating passage about how we're all Salmon People. There will also be a 30-foot stream full of young hand crafted salmon making their way to out into the world. We also have a kelp forest going (amazing what you can do with plastic tablecloths and a can of spray paint), and then there is the octopus.

More specifically, the Pacific Ocotopus.

We've had fun taking a Strofoam (human) head, and augmenting it with spray foam insulation over a series of days to shape it into a squid head (complete with ping pong ball eyes, of course). Foam pipe insulation and some suction cups will the the octopus' arms/tentacles. 

Right now, they look like light sabers during the painting process, atop our dining room table as seen in the lead photo above.

I hope we can pull it all off. :) It has been fun (mostly, ha ha) working with a bunch of young artists on the various elements of this installation. The unveiling will be at the end of the month.

TO THE MOON: Today, like every day in my life, frankly, we celebrate David Bowie. 

But today is somber, as it is the day our Starman left Earth. Two years ago today, in fact.

A good friend posted an amazing science-meets-art lesson to my Facebook page today. I love it. It juxtaposes how long it would take to walk to the moon and uses a Bowie on Earth as a timeline. Lovely. You should watch.