I did a show last weekend, surprise surprise.

I’m still recovering, which is why it took me so long to get this post going.

Sorry.

So the task for this show, Vaclav Havel’s Memorandum, was to create an item which an executive might put on their desk as a sign of power, which would later be brandished at aliens in an attempt to scare them off. We were working with Illuminati themes, racial themes, and big money big corporation themes.

The catch? I had one evening free to work on it, and a shoddy memory of my available materials.

My inspiration was this.

It caught me by surprise that executives want this kind of thing on their desks to signal power, and I was even more surprised at the price tag (375.00!!!) but this one is solar powered and moves. To be fair, mine is made out of toothpicks and wooden skewers, and certainly doesn’t move on solar power, so maybe the price tag is… justified? (The answer is no. No it is not. That is a lot of money to spend on a fancy paper weight)

Anyway, this is what I came up with.

I painted it straight white because a) I didn’t have any metallic paint, and b) things like this always look better when you give them a wash of one color. White was the theme we were going with for our executive main character.

Here are a few process photos.

I started by finding a light Ikea-wood type box which I filled with cardboard to provide a solid (and lightweight) base. If the base failed, the brandishing of the prop during the show would probably result in a broken oil derrick.

I used both tape and not-elmers glue (I’m in Prague, we don’t have the same brands) to secure the toothpicks and the skewers, as well as the button on top. This was because hot glue didn’t stick wood to wood very well. The more you know.

I did use hot glue to stick the structure to the base, and on the rest of it which wasn’t made out of toothpicks. Then I painted it white. And left the clean up from the craft tornado until morning.

Chaos! I love this part of the creative process. Cleaning up after? Not so much.

I was really happy to have an excuse to craft something again, especially a prop. I’ve been doing too much perfectionist art lately. A one night craft for a show was exactly what I needed.