john t. unger studio

What Goes Into A Bottle Cap Fish

I took these pics a few weeks ago as I was getting ready to make the four new bottle cap fish for Vale Craft Gallery. This is what it looks like when I'm sorting beer caps for my mosaics.

 

           

 

Actually, this is a lot better than the way it used to be. I recently went out and got these cool translucent tubs at the local dollar store and that makes the whole process much easier. I can now actually see what I have, and I can stack the containers. In the past, I was keeping the caps in coffee cans. Though it may have given me more points for reuse than new plastic stuff, the coffee cans sucked, especially because I could never tell what color or brand was in them.

Anyway, it takes about an entire day to get through sorting about two paper grocery bags full of caps. It's a lot of extra effort, but I think it's worth it. The one thing that most distinguishes my bottle cap pieces from those of other artists is the fact that I use that caps as solid colors or color blends, rather than just nailing them on in a random fashion. I also lap the caps, smashing only half to three quarters of the cap in order to preserve them as a textural element. It's easier to smash the whole thing flat, but then uncolored edges of the cap kind of diminish the color. I've mostly been sticking to fish, mermaids and other things that have scales in order to make the texture really make sense. One of these days I'll do an 8 foot long Chinese dragon in reflective blue and silver… That'll be something to see. I'm just waiting till I find the right source art.

The other thing that makes a big difference when you're doing work with beer caps is what kind of nail you use. On many of the cap mosaics I use standard gold linoleum nails from the hardware store. But I also order bronze, copper and stainless steel nails from a shipwright's catalog… I find that coordinating the color and style of the nail head with the design on the cap adds a great deal of richness to the overall work.

If you're in the Chicago Area and would like to see some of the bottlecap pieces in person, check them out at Vale. While you're there, be sure to see Mark Brown's sculptures also— They're freakin' amazing.

Vale Craft Gallery
230 West Superior Street
Chicago, IL. 60610
312.337.3525

Gallery Hours:
Tuesday - Friday: 10:30am to 5:30 pm
Saturday: 11:00am to 5:00 pm

Human Anatomy Resources for Artists

When I arrived in Chicago, my back was so out of whack that I could barely walk… too much work, too little sleep and way too much heavy lifting this month. Britt sent me off immediately to see Tommy Jenkins, a total freakin' genius massage therapist who managed to make me feel almost human for the first time in a long while. He's opening his own space soon and he mentioned he would be interested in a line art wall sculpture depicting musculature. A day or two later, it occured to me that some of the anatomical illustrations I've seen of human musculature would look absolutely amazing if done in marble mosaic— red marble with white veining is exactly the right color to do a portrait of the muscles of the upper body. I got totally excited about the idea and called Tommy up. He likes it too, so I'm hoping we'll be able to work out a commission. I'm in and out of Chicago enough that we could do part of the project in trade, which would be really great.

So I spent a good part of the day looking for anatomical illustrations today and stumbled on some great resources that would likely be of use to other artists as well.

The National Library of Medicine has an amazing collection of large images online, scanned from historical anatomical atlases. Some of the images are beautiful, some eerie, a few are dowright spooky. Probably the most interesting thing one notices in the course of browsing the whole collection is how differently the human form is treated in different times and places, even within the context of scientific illustration. Some of the differences can be chalked up to artistic style, but there's a pretty wide variation in the degree of objectivity and subjectivity. Most of the drawings are done from corpses, while some are more fanciful (see Giambattista della Porta's album on physiognomy which attempts to explain human personality traits by relating animal's heads to human facial features). On the whole, it's very much worth looking at all the images available on the site to get a broader view of the human form and the history of our own knowlege about our bodies.

NLM also links to a few collections of images hosted elswhere on the web. The Anatomical Plates of Pietro da Cortona, hosted by University of Iowa Libraries is an amazing example of art and design applied to scientific ends. The plates are beautifully laid out and the poses and attitude of the figures are handled masterfully. I can't believe I've never seen these before. Props to the libarary for putting together a very nice looking site to host the images as well, though I would have been a wee bit happier if it held yet larger images and loaded a bit more quickly.

Below are a few samples of images I particulary liked. I would encourage anyone to follow the links above and really explore the broader collections.

 

       

       


       

 

Technorati Tags: anatomy, musculature, medicine, art, culture, mosaic, , illustration, books, antiquarian

Gas Can, Red Stripe & Beck's bottle cap fish

I've mostly only used tin can metal for the fins till now… I like how the corrugated metal makes the fins look, well, like fish fins. But unfortunately, there only seems to be one brand of coffee left that uses closely corrugated tin so I had to branch out a bit. Actually, I guess it wasn't unfortunate at all… I love the way the tin from the antique gas can harmonizes with the Red Stripe and Beck's caps on this fish. I'll definitely do more experimentation with colored tin for the fins in the future.

Am I having fun yet? Yeah, you betcha.

 

 

technorati tags: Art sculpture recycle ecology fish trout bottle cap beer cap mosaic fish mosaic trout design culture

Amstel Light & Bass Ale Bottle Cap Fish

Befor Budweiser came out with the red colored cap they use now, I was saving Amstel Light Caps as the only real source of red other than Coke… It's pretty hard to come by Coca Cola caps where I am, since everything comes in plastic these days. Anyway, I finally used them on this fish and was totally blown away by how gorgeous they turned out. The red and gold with black lettering just gleams when the sun hits it and has a totally different effect than I could have guessed just by looking at the caps jumbled up in a bin.

The key here is aligning the caps precisely. You can get a sense of how good they look in the second photo, but this one really just has to be seen in person to get the full effect. I'm definitely going to do more using these. The different tone of red and gold from the Bass Ale caps plays off the Amstel caps very nicely too. I also really like the bronze sheet on the fins.

 

 

technorati tags: Art sculpture recycle ecology fish trout bottle cap beer cap mosaic fish mosaic trout design culture

Beer Cap Mosaic Fish

It's really hard to get good pictures of these with the low res camera I'm using, but in person, they really rock. This one uses two different styles of Bud Light caps… the current design, and the silver design which they discontinued a while ago. I kind of miss those. They were the best looking silver caps I've found.

 

 

technorati tags: Art sculpture recycle ecology fish trout bottle cap beer cap mosaic fish mosaic trout design culture

New Bottle Cap Fish Mosaics

I'm just going to quickly post a few pics of the new bottle cap fish before I drop them off at Vale Craft Gallery tomorrow… I'll post measurements and info and such when I put them up on ArtBuzz, but for now, "just the fish, ma'am."

 

 

technorati tags: Art sculpture recycle ecology fish trout bottle cap beer cap mosaic fish mosaic trout design culture

Sign All Done

It's all done and installed. Yay! Actually, there is the little matter of going back next month and dying the grout in the background to match the black tile more closely, but other than that it's done and installed. I think there's one last step before I can consider the case closed: I think we need a great big unveiling party, no? Maybe do a fish fry cookout using one of the Great Bowls O Fire.

 

       

       

       

 

technorati tags: Art design fish trout glass mosaic mosaic commission mosaic fish mosaic trout tile sign sculpture ironwork

Alden Bank Sign in Place

Anyone who's been through Alden lately has noticed that the new sign for the bank has been installed… at least mostly. The concrete slab needs to thoroughly cure before I can bolt the sign down, so at present it's heavily braced. In another few weeks, I'll also be going back to dye the grout in the background to make the black more uniform. Sadly, the dye requires the grout to cure for 28-30 days, but once that's done I think the lettering and the fish will really pop. I think I've got the bank talked into landscaping around the sign with an oval of recycled glass gravel from designers Andy Cao and Stephen Jerrom. Either the cobalt mix or the green glass balls would look fantastic under the sign and would throw some more light up onto the mosaic. And of course, there will be some lights installed later this week to illuminate the sign at night.

Here's a bunch of pics showing various details of the sign. Click to enlarge.

 

           

           

 

So far, even with the braces on, the response to the sign has been great. I can't wait to see it freestanding. Major props go to Wheelock & Sons Welding, who did the fabrication and powder coat enamel on the sign structure.

Here's a couple images of the glass pebbles I want to use for the landscaping:

 

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technorati tags: Art fish trout glass mosaic mosaic commission mosaic fish mosaic trout tile sign

Mosaic Sign Installation, Day Three

I had hoped to be done with mortaring the tile in place by the end of last night, but I ended up packing it in with sore knees at 2 am. C'est la vie. Fortunately, I have an extra day, so I'll finish it up by this evening, grout it tomorrow and installation will be on Friday. The sign is going to be less than a block from the Alden Art Fair where I'm exhibiting this weekend. I can't wait to show it off!

 

           

 

technorati tags: Art fish trout glass mosaic mosaic commission mosaic fish mosaic trout tile sign

Mosaic Sign Installation, Day Two

Once the adhesive was dry on the cement board, the next step was to see how closely the mosaic would fit the sign form— Both were created using the same drawing, but given that they were being made separately, in two different locations, by 3 sets of different people, there was a pretty good chance that they might not match up exactly. As it turned out, there was a little more divergence than I wanted but it was very, very close. So I spent the morning cutting and fitting some more tile on the dorsal fin and some of the trout's back. Once I had it fitting exactly, it was time to mortar the sections into place. I drew an outline of the trout onto the cement board to guide placement.

 

 

       

 

The mosaic is taped together using a heavy duty polyethelene tape (part number #358 from Can-Do National Tape). This holds the pieces in place for installation. In order to move the mosaic without damage, it's necessary to cut it into sections. Pic one above, shows the disassembled mosaic. I drew lines to show approximate placement so that I would know how much mortar to apply for each section. Pic two show the trout mortared in place, and number three shows where I left at at the end of the day. Although the background is straight black, it still takes time to cut all the pieces to fit around the trout and later the lettering. In fact, the backgrounds are a little frustrating because they require just as much attention and skill as the image areas, without the satisfaction of seeing the image coming to life.

technorati tags: Art fish trout glass mosaic mosaic commission mosaic fish mosaic trout tile sign