Kathryn Downing

Friday, February 26, 2010

Magnetic Art Wall

Over the past few years, I’ve been slowly building an art collection on a modest budget. I’ve purchased prints from Tiny Showcase, been to Baby Tattooville, bought prints online directly from artists like Meg Hunt, and even made some purchases at the Des Moines Arts Festival. The only problem is, I didn’t want to spend a fortune framing everything so it has all sat in a stack in my studio where I can’t appreciate it.  I recently decided to create an art wall to display it all and started researching different ways I could hang unframed art on my walls.

I didn’t really want to drill holes in the walls to attach boards, and I didn’t want to use adhesives which would be hard to remove later, so I eventually settled on the idea of a magnetic wall. After some frustration, I’m finally happy with the way it turned out and thought I’d share what I found out in the whole process because there are a lot of people out there who have not been so happy with the Rustoleum Magnetic Primer that I used. I was one of those unhappy people, but made it work for me.

What you’ll need:

• Rustoleum Magnetic Primer
• Leftover wall paint
• Painters Tape
• Paint Tray
• Smooth Foam Rollers
• Sandpaper or Sanding Block (optional)
• Super-awesome Artwork
• Many magnets

Step 1:

Decide how large an area you want to cover. One can is supposed to cover a 16 sq. foot area with 3 coats of paint, but I found that to be inaccurate. One can actually put 7 coats of paint on a 16 sq. foot area, and I ended up using 2 cans and 9 coats of paint to get stronger magnetism.

Step 2:

Have the people at the paint counter mix your primer in the machine. It will save you time and a sore arm.

Step 3:

The primer directions say to tape off the area you want to paint, which I did. You may want to NOT tape of the area because you will be applying many coats of this primer which creates a raised surface on the wall. If you use the tape, it leaves a visible line. If you didn’t, I suspect the line wouldn’t be visible.

Step 4:

Paint the wall with the primer. Fortunately, you can repaint after 30 minutes, but it still takes a long time to get enough layers on it to make a strong enough pull to hold paper on the wall.  Use a smooth foam roller to get as smooth a surface as possible. The smoother the surface, the stronger the pull will be.

Step 5:

You can also sand the surface to make it smoother.

Step 6:

Let the final coat dry for at least 4 hours.

Step 7:

Paint over the primer with a color that matches your walls. The directions say not to put more than 2 coats of paint on it, but the primer is nearly black and it took 3 coats of paint to cover it. I don’t think it interfered too much with the magnetic pull.

Step 8:

Once the paint is dry, you can start hanging up the art. If you use magnets on the front of the art, you’ll want to get the strongest you can. Apparently, the strongest are called Rare Earth Magnets and are kind of pricey. I bought some basic magnets at the home improvement store that did the job, but they need to be big and flat. Thick papers will need multiple magnets to hold them up. I also tried using some refrigerator magnets to hold stuff up.

I was pretty frustrated that the thicker papers weren’t staying up so well until I discovered magnetic tape at the store. If you put your artwork in a plastic sleeve and adhere the magnet to the back, the hold is much better.

You can even hang up thick matte board.

Please view the photos on Flickr for artist information.

Monday, November 23, 2009

Baby Tattooville 2009: What Happened

So back in October I attended this little art event called Baby Tattooville. Never heard of it? It’s a weekend organized by Baby Tattoo Books. 45 lucky people get to spend the weekend in the fabulous Mission Inn with 11+ amazing artists. If you’re into the lowbrow/pop surrealism/whatever-you-want- to-call-it movement, this is definitely cool. I had heard of the event in the past and wanted to go, but this year I decided at the last minute to just shell out the money and go. It’s one of the gutsiest things I’ve done recently. If you know me, you know how uncomfortable I am socializing in large groups of people. So going to California alone without knowing anyone or without really knowing what to expect was both scary and exciting. I’ve bet you’ve never seen me excited, have you? That should tell you something.

First up, was checking in and going to the welcome panel. My flight was late getting in and I was having a hard time figuring out exactly where I needed to go, but James Gurney was drawing in the chapel courtyard and was kind enough to point me in the right direction. The Mission Inn is an amazing place, but there’s a reason they give you a map when you check in. You definitely need it! Each attendee received some free stuff and a Miss Mindy token that would be used in a drawing later. At the welcome panel, the artists were introduced and Bob Self (the man with the plan) shared what would be going on during the next couple of days. We were told one lucky person would get to take home a huge painting by Johnny Rodriguez which kind of blew everyone away. Then he revealed a print that combined 11 different paintings into one and the artists got to signing while everyone socialized.

For dinner, we walked a couple blocks to Tios Tacos. The “yard” behind the restaurant is filled with the owner’s junk sculptures which were really unique and had a sense of humor. The weather was great. The food was okay. The surroundings were inspirational. After eating and socializing, the artists started the 24 hour Art Jam collaborative painting.

After watching everyone paint for a while, we headed to the Riverside Art Museum to take in “Son of Baby Tattooville”, an art exhibition featuring work of the eleven artists. Art Jam paintings from previous Baby Tattovilles were also on display. This was followed by a Dr. Sketchy’s life drawing session. I’ve always wanted to do Dr. Sketchy’s and have actually thought about starting a group here in Des Moines, but I was an idiot and didn’t bring a sketchbook. Doh! It’s not much fun standing around watching a sexy model without anything to draw on (maybe some guys would argue with that) so I hung around for a while and then headed back to the hotel for the Curious Art Store. Too bad, I hear I missed the male model!

The rest of the evening was checking out the items in the store, watching the Art Jam, and just hanging out. The art store contained original paintings, prints, sculptures, toys, books, t-shirts, masks, drawings and more. I ended up buying a set of Tim Biskup prints, an Audrey Kawasaki print and pin and some Tara McPherson prints. I would have loved to buy more, but I’ve still got to pay the bills.

I woke up early Saturday and had a chance to hang out with Travis Louie and Bob Self while most people were sleeping. The day was filled with more Art Jam action and reverse studio visits by Yoskay Yamamoto, Audrey Kawasaki reverse studio visit, Miss Mindy, and Liz McGrath. What’s a reverse studio visit? Basically, each artist brought their tools from the studio to the hotel, showed us their process and answered questions.

Miss Mindy drew a winner, and then it was time for the Johnny Rodriguez painting giveaway. We had all been talking about what we would do if we won the painting. We hoped that whoever won it had room for it and a way to get it home. We each drew an envelope and were told to all open our cards at the same time. Lo and behold, we were all winners. What? People were a little confused until they turned the painting around and we saw that it was actually multiple panels bolted together. We would each get to take home a panel which was cool.  In the evening, attendees had the opportunity to buy paintings by the 11 artists. Each artist had one painting in the store. Attendees were each assigned a number and the lowest number got first pick. I had one of the highest numbers, but there were several paintings still for sale. If only I had the money. The evening really started to ramp up in the final minutes of the Art Jam.

I had heard people talking about finding doll parts in their hotel room along with a hand-written letter from Alice. For whatever reason, I didn’t get one but the letter basically said to meet in the catacombs at 9pm. In order to do that we had to figure out where the hotel catacombs were and who Alice was. The hotel catacombs are off-limits to visitors but they made an exception for us. Once in the catacombs we watched a little video that led into groups of us following clues to figure out what Alice’s secret was. A cameraman from Nightline was following our group around which was a little embarrassing because we felt like we had no idea what we were doing. The funny thing was, we followed the clues correctly but another group had taken our final clue which totally threw us off. After the big reveal, complete with a projected Alice on the Chapel stained glass everyone gravitated to rooms for either partying or in my case food and sleep. You know I’m not the partying type. I just don’t know what I would do in Michael Hussar’s room with naked women except sit around and look awkward

The next morning we gathered for the largest and most diverse brunch buffet I’ve ever seen, complete with sushi and a chocolate fountain. There was more hanging out and sketching while we waited our turn to get our goodie bags. I didn’t take photos of every item, but there are some of the things I took home on Flickr. We made a final run to the buffet for “lunch” and I had to figure out what I was going to do the rest of the day because, unlike most attendees, my flight wouldn’t leave until the next morning. I ended up hanging out with a new friend exploring the hotel and surrounding shops, eating fish tacos for dinner, and then trying to figure out how to pack all my stuff without ruining it. There was a shipping company I could have payed to have pack up my stuff, but I didn’t trust them and I did have room for everything in my bags.

You can read more about Baby Tattooville here.

Saturday, April 25, 2009

Suprise! You’re having surgery again!

So I promised to blog about what happened when I was feeling better. Instead, I’m blogging about it because I’m bored out of my mind and can’t sleep anymore today. I’ll try to give you the story without getting too much into the details.

As many of you know, I had surgery a year ago to remove a large ovarian cyst. During surgery, they found another cyst on the other ovary but decided not to remove it at that time. My surgeon explained that it would most likely go away on its own and they didn’t want to risk complications by working on both at the same time. Over the past year, I’ve had periodic aches and at one point (sparing you the details) thought that the cyst was gone.

Thursday night, I had some pain in that area during Tae Kwon Do class, but it went away and didn’t worry about it. All day Friday I had what I thought were cramps, but I wasn’t worried about it. It was unusual that when I took ibuprofen in the evening it didn’t really work, but I just decided to sleep it off. I woke up at around 12:30am with some of the worst pain I’ve ever felt in my life (FYI: I’ve had a c-section, gall stones, gall bladder removal, and two miscarriages which were all painful).

Troy drove me to the ER where I spent the next 5 hours in extreme pain while the doctors tried to figure out what was wrong with me. I was given morphine multiple times and it didn’t have any effect. Eventually, I was given Dilaudid which was wonderful and made the pain bearable. The cat-scan showed that I had a large cyst on my left ovary and the doctors thought it probably had twisted and cut off the blood supply to the ovary. I wend to surgery this morning and they removed the cyst and ovary.

Friday, October 10, 2008

Time Wasters: October

For those of you that know me well, I tend to have an almost obsessive tendency to burn through things that peak my interest. For example, I’ll get a video game and play it non-stop for a weekend until I beat it. I may not play another game for months, but for that weekend I’m glued to the console and am only pried away by pleas to feed my family or some emergency yard cleanup when the dog finally catches the squirrel he’s been after for days. So I thought I’d start a series of blog posts describing how I’ve spent my time being non-productive (but having fun!).

1: World of Warcraft
I had stopped playing for over a year, but for my son’s birthday he asked if he could start playing WOW and I said yes. We set him up with an account and I reactivated mine. I spent a couple of weeks getting my character up to level 70, but it hasn’t been a lot of fun playing when everyone else knows exactly where everything is and what gear to have. It’s hard to get a group going to do quests when everyone else has finished them months ago. So I’ve taken a break for a while, but may start back up again when Wrath of the Lich King comes out. Everyone will be new to the 71-80 content, so I may have a better chance of not feeling like a complete newb.

2: Rock Band 2
I can kind of justify the time I waste on this one because we play together as a family and it’s fun. We usually play a set or two a couple of nights a week. I put the years of violin lessons to use playing guitar, Troy plays bass, and Tobias rocks the microphone. We have the drum set, but none of us have wanted to put in the practice needed to be any good at it, so it sits in the corner and gathers dust.

3: True Blood and the Sookie Stackhouse Mysteries
True Blood is a new series on HBO about vampires. I was a Buffy fan and tend to enjoy watching vampire movies (Dawn Until Dusk, Underworld, etc.), so when I saw the show on HBO OnDemand I decided to give it a try. After watching the first episode, I started watching all the extra features and learned that the series is based on books by Charlaine Harris. I went to the bookstore and got the first book which didn’t take me long to finish. Over the course of a week, I had read through the entire series (8 books) and can’t wait to read the next one which doesn’t come out until May.

The main character of the book is a waitress in a bar named Sookie who can read peoples minds. She lives in modern day society where vampires live out in the open. This is made possible by the Japanese invention of synthetic blood that supposedly fills their nutritional needs and makes it possible for vampires to “live” without feeding on humans. Sookie meets a local vampire who is trying to “mainstream” and live among humans. She’s attracted to him because she can’t read his mind and they eventually fall in love. How sweet, right? Not really. Vampire Bill is a suspect in a series of local murders, and Sookie’s woman-crazy brother is also added to the list of suspects leading her to start using her ability to try and glean from people’s minds who the real murderer is.

Through the course of the books, Sookie gets involved in a series of events and relationships where she learns there’s a lot more out there in the world of the supernatural than just vampires. The books are funny, romantic (a little graphic at points), violent and have a lot of plot twists and turns. The TV show is turning out to be pretty good as well. There are a lot of scenes in the show that aren’t in the book, but I enjoy seeing the extra things that could have been happening but weren’t described in the books. True Blood seems to be following the main plot points, so it’s nice to have some surprises thrown in for those that think they already know what’s going to happen. If any of you are following the show or reading the books, please let me know. Despite my nagging encouragement, Troy’s not interested in the show or the books and I’m looking for someone to discuss it with.

Friday, June 20, 2008

Under the Knife

So life’s thrown me for another loop. I have surgery on Tuesday to remove an ovarian cyst. Unfortunately, it’s too large to do a minimally invasive surgery, so the procedure will be somewhat similar to a c-section. It may have been close to eleven years ago, but I remember exactly how painful that is so I’m definitely NOT looking forward to it.

Call me a nerd, but part of what bothers me the most is that all my hard work doing sit-ups, leg-lifts and cannonballs for Tae Kwon Do will be lost and I’ll have to build my abdominal muscles back up from scratch. I don’t think push-ups will work either. My surgeon said I can walk, but that’s it for exercise until my checkup 4–6 weeks after surgery. That means I also miss the next TKD test and I’ll have to repeat my current rank for another 10 weeks. Bummer. If I work hard, I should be back up to speed in no time and on my way to making black belt before I turn 33.