Unnamed Art Thing (Gold + Tiddies) (Patreon)

“This could be a comics grid.” I thought to myself when I saw this frame at Goodwill for $6.99. So I brought it home and Matt said something like “But what about that whole stack of frames you have in the basement already?” and I said something like “I’ve got an idea for this one!” and he sighed as it went down to the basement to join the rest of the secondhand frames I collect around the city because “I’ve got an idea for this!” for each of them.

Grime on the glass. Cool.

Unlike the rest of the frames in the basement, I actually did come back to this one with an idea- though it wasn't my original idea of making some kind of six-paneled comic following a character through each frame, interacting with it. Instead, I got naked. 

Rather than a story, I got more excited about having a figure just interacting with the frame itself- which still tells a kind of story, as the same figure is trying different positions against each frame, which suggests time is passing. But mostly, I wanted to focus on the organic human shapes that can be made contrasting against a rigid boxed-in boundary. Soft and hard. Curves and straight lines. Flesh and wood.

My first drawings, which made me realize I wanted way more streamlined figures for the finale version.

Which I then smoothed out even more.

I got all the figures on a single sheet of tracing paper for the transferring process.

This pack of black photo album paper came from Goodwill too. A full pack! Unopened! That kinda special paper that, like, has its ph balanced or whatever so it won't degrade your photos over time or whatever. And it's real thick and shit! Just a couple'a dollars! I LOVE GOODWILL.

That little cluster of a black spiderball at the top is all my little figures cut out and piled on top of each other.

Now, I could have been more utilitarian about fitting all these figures onto the paper, leaving me more uncut material to work with later for a future project. But I thought it could be cool to layer this silhouette sheet against another background paper, thus creating two different final art pieces from this single piece of paper. I haven't done it yet, but it's an option.

And there we have it!

Overall, yes, I think this looks cool and I'm pretty happy with it. 

But.

Not entirely. 

I fucked up on the order of the figures. 

Before I glued them down, I played around with some different positions and I settled on this one. It's got a nice flow to it. The top left figure starts high, middle goes low (with that nice connection point between frames of left's hand and middle's foot), top right is high again. On the second tier, bottom left is high and middle low, again, with that nice connection point between frames between the hands and feet of these two, finishing off with right bottom being high again and their hands also connect to middle's hands and feet. Both tiers make a wave starting high going low and ending high again. It's nicely balanced.

Even though I had this reference photo to use as my guide (AND I THOUGHT THAT I DID USE IT???), somehow I... didn't? I guess? I don't know what happened but the end result is definitely not this formation. The end result is high-high-high and then low-medium-high with a huge hunk of unbalanced negative space on the lefthand side between the panels on the top left, bottom left, and bottom middle. Uhg. 

It's fine. 

As ever, I don't know what to name this piece. 

Do you have any ideas? I'm all ears. That's how Naked City 122 got titled, an audience member suggested it on Instagram when I put out a call for suggestions. I mean, they suggested "Naked City" and then I added on the "122" to make a nod at the timeframe in which I'd be working on it. I asked the person if they wanted to be credited for their contribution, but I didn't hear back so I haven't mentioned them and I feel kinda guilty about it when I talk about this project because, like, somebody else participated a crucial key in bringing this piece to life and here I am getting all the credit. 

If you have a title suggestion please also say if/how you'd like to be credited, plz.