I know my gallery is kaput, and I haven’t updated this blog in a few years, but I am still working.

If anyone is reading this, please check out my newest project: Articulate Matter.

It is a sculptural web comic that is updated every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday (with perhaps one or two exceptions…). It started out with a story line, but quickly evolved into stream-of-consciousness vignettes that are frankly much more interesting to me. :) Many of the characters are available on my etsy site.

There will, hopefully, be more to see here soon. In the meantime, I hope everyone is well.

Justjk’s Twisted Secular Advent Calendar, Day 8., originally uploaded by justjk.

I’ve decided to challenge myself this December. Beginning on the 1st, I’ve been making one small sculpture per day and I plan to continue doing this until the 24th. Since I have a slightly skewed outlook on the world, my advent calendar reflects this.

The set is available to view here.

Happy Holidays!

I am now living in San Francisco and working on a variety of projects ranging from illustrations to new puppet shows. There will be more news when it happens.

Until then, the gallery will continue to grow. Perhaps the additional sun will speed the process along.

underconstruction, originally uploaded by justjk.

The website will be back up and running soon.

Until then you can go to my flickr album to see a few examples of my work.

Pros:
- The white color makes it easy to clean off clay.
- It heats up quickly and then you have a nice couple minutes where it’s flexible and sticky enough to be formed. After that period of time is over, it cools down pretty quickly so you can pop the mask off and move onto the next one without much of a delay.
- It sticks to itself very well.
- It seems to have alot of the properties that I loved about Fabricform (ie. light-weight, flexible, takes forms relatively easily, can be cut with scissors/x-acto knives, can be sewn into, painted on… etc.).

Cons:
- You can’t use boiling water to heat it up. Or you can, but it won’t stick to itself if it’s wet. Dry heat only, so it takes longer to heat up the general piece you’re trying to form. After you get the basic shape of the mask, you can do spot work very quickly.
- It sticks to other things, like hands and tools. Getting something very hot stuck to your fingers is always fun, so I use tools more often than I did with Fabricform. When I’m using a tool to burnish or coax it into shape I make sure the tool is wet and that solves the stickiness problem.
- Since it doesn’t stick to wet things, I have a harder time getting the basic shape to form around the clay. It’s easier if I can get the Altraform to stick to itself while encircling the clay and then working on the details. (Here’s another pro… since it doesn’t stick to wet things, there’s less clay to clean off later.)

All in all, it works fine for smaller projects like face masks, but for larger projects it requires more patience. I’ll need to play around with new ways to heat it up other than just using my heat gun, because that gets awfully tedious and a bit frustrating when working with a 2′ x 3′ sheet that somehow needs to be draped over a complex shape.

For those of you who know about me already… Hey look! I’m self-promoting!

I’ll be opening up my studio to anyone who is interested in taking a peek on April 30th and May 1st. There’s more information on the whole program here.

I’ll be adding more photos in an attempt to entice people to come visit, so if you like what you see, there will be more.

Thanks for taking a gander.

It did not go well because it was very sparsely attended. Few people displaying work actually recouped the amount spent to reserve the booths, let alone the cost of materials or time.

I didn’t sell anything that I made. I did however make back the reservation amount by selling some pieces of marble that I was using as display pieces to another crafter. She thought they were a great idea for displaying jewelry and insisted on buying them for $5 each.

There are three ways of looking at this…

1) Self-deprecating: “People would rather buy rocks than my work!”

2) Self-aggrandizing: “I’m so talented, I can sell rocks to people for $5 a pop!”

3) Bemused: “Heh, I sold rocks today.”

I think the third option is the best.

Better luck next time.

Oh well, time to play “move with the times” again. The (very nice) lady who helped me over the phone recommended Altraform as the material most similar to Fabricform. We’ll see how it works out.

This plus a full time job.

My head is figuratively spinning from all this, but I’m hoping that come September things will quiet down and I’ll be able to focus on a new puppet show. I’ll collaborate with Meron again on a show called Shoes. Guess what that’s about. :)