Good afternoon. How are you? After a few weeks of June Gloom the sun has finally found the 344 porch again, so I thought I'd take a little break from fiddling with the latest Monster to show you some cool surprises that have come in the mail recently.
First off, I received a package from King of Prussia, Pennsylvania.
"Oh," I thought. "Have my people finally tracked me down?" But no. As it turns out, a teacher at Perkiomen Valley High School, Mr. Thomas Komp, gave his Graphic Design I class an assignment to make Monsters, and they went hog-wild. What did they send me? Well, after they were done making Monsters they had them bound into a book. 47 drawings, collages, and computer-manipulated images -- one from each student -- are shown side by side with letters from each of the students... to me. So that took me a minute to absorb. Top all that off with a cool DVD that documents their labors set to music, and that's a good day of mail.
If you're on Facebook you can see the video here.
What a mind-blowing effort! Thank you very, very much to the students of Perkiomen Valley High Graphic Design I for the beautiful and amazing gift, and to Mr. Komp both for guiding the effort and for teaching a graphic design class in high school in the first place. I know of one other, Scott Schaller's Cabrillo High School Design Lab, and I'm so jealous! I wish we'd had that back at good old Gymnasium Ernestinum back when I was there.
Side note: It's Per-ki-omen. In my head I kept pronouncing it Peri-komen. Which is silly. Everybody knows that science has yet to find a way to recreate Perry Como as a chemical element.
All the Pennsylvania glory found me a week or two ago. It's taken me some time to A. recover from the shock, and B. take pictures of the book and DVD. Now today, a big box arrived from Sara Gallup right here in Los Angeles. Sara saw the Monsters in the L.A. Weekly, got the book for her birthday from her significant other, and started making Monsters in her 3D class at Los Angeles City College. Here's what she told me: "I made matte and gloss acrylic medium transfers using photocopies of the monster images within your book. I took these transfers and hand-sewed them to various fabrics (some with feathers for added effect), stuffing them with cotton. They began to resemble small stuffed animals, maybe toys. I then constructed a home for these creatures using an old palette. Finally came the sale sign, also done using acrylic transfer." How totally crafty! How totally excellent!
Of course, I was delighted when Sara offered to send me one of the stuffed Monsters, and shocked today, when the whole gang arrived at my door, complete with its mini corral. (I'm glad that she kept a few of her favorites, though.)
Check it out:
Now the excellent plush Monsters by Jennifer Bennett Gubicza
finally have some friends to keep them company.
But wait, there's more! She also sent me a high relief collage made from Gendy Alimurung's articles on the Monsters and on Amy Winfrey's Making Fiends in the L.A. Weekly. Highly, highly excellent, don't you think? No wonder she got an A on both assignments. Thank you so much, Sara! I'll give them all a good home.
To sum up: I get the best mail, because the Monsters have the best friends.
It's no wonder that 344 LOVES YOU
First off, I received a package from King of Prussia, Pennsylvania.
"Oh," I thought. "Have my people finally tracked me down?" But no. As it turns out, a teacher at Perkiomen Valley High School, Mr. Thomas Komp, gave his Graphic Design I class an assignment to make Monsters, and they went hog-wild. What did they send me? Well, after they were done making Monsters they had them bound into a book. 47 drawings, collages, and computer-manipulated images -- one from each student -- are shown side by side with letters from each of the students... to me. So that took me a minute to absorb. Top all that off with a cool DVD that documents their labors set to music, and that's a good day of mail.
If you're on Facebook you can see the video here.
What a mind-blowing effort! Thank you very, very much to the students of Perkiomen Valley High Graphic Design I for the beautiful and amazing gift, and to Mr. Komp both for guiding the effort and for teaching a graphic design class in high school in the first place. I know of one other, Scott Schaller's Cabrillo High School Design Lab, and I'm so jealous! I wish we'd had that back at good old Gymnasium Ernestinum back when I was there.
Side note: It's Per-ki-omen. In my head I kept pronouncing it Peri-komen. Which is silly. Everybody knows that science has yet to find a way to recreate Perry Como as a chemical element.
All the Pennsylvania glory found me a week or two ago. It's taken me some time to A. recover from the shock, and B. take pictures of the book and DVD. Now today, a big box arrived from Sara Gallup right here in Los Angeles. Sara saw the Monsters in the L.A. Weekly, got the book for her birthday from her significant other, and started making Monsters in her 3D class at Los Angeles City College. Here's what she told me: "I made matte and gloss acrylic medium transfers using photocopies of the monster images within your book. I took these transfers and hand-sewed them to various fabrics (some with feathers for added effect), stuffing them with cotton. They began to resemble small stuffed animals, maybe toys. I then constructed a home for these creatures using an old palette. Finally came the sale sign, also done using acrylic transfer." How totally crafty! How totally excellent!
Of course, I was delighted when Sara offered to send me one of the stuffed Monsters, and shocked today, when the whole gang arrived at my door, complete with its mini corral. (I'm glad that she kept a few of her favorites, though.)
Check it out:
Now the excellent plush Monsters by Jennifer Bennett Gubicza
finally have some friends to keep them company.
But wait, there's more! She also sent me a high relief collage made from Gendy Alimurung's articles on the Monsters and on Amy Winfrey's Making Fiends in the L.A. Weekly. Highly, highly excellent, don't you think? No wonder she got an A on both assignments. Thank you so much, Sara! I'll give them all a good home.
To sum up: I get the best mail, because the Monsters have the best friends.
It's no wonder that 344 LOVES YOU
