Being Productive Again: Day 2

Today was another great, amazingly fun and productive day in 406 Pelissier! We did a lot of material tests, figured out some more details on our book, met some new people, and generally enjoyed having a dedicated workspace.

It’s going to be very hard to give up this space.

The day started by spreading out many plastic bags.

Steven brought along a banner he had started earlier and a small collection of plastic bags with a variety of weights and finishes.

We organized our work table to enable using the iron and large sheets of paper.

Steven’s first demo of the day was on a thin Shopper’s plastic bag, the iron was probably too hot.

I was curious about how well the bags stay together even if you cut the edges. As the plastic fuses itself together, cutting the bag doesn’t change the strength or integrity of the material.

Cristina got some biodegradable bags from Jenny (who would later show up with coffee!).

Cristina took in the demo Steven gave.

Iron temperature settings are important and change depending on the type of bag used.

The green biodegradable bags took more heat and more time.

It’s easy to spot parts of the bag that aren’t fused.

Cristina and Steven working on bags. These material tests will ultimately lead to another version of the planters as part of a larger installation we’re planning.

After some more ironing the green plastic bags fused pretty well, and had a different finish than most grocery bags, most like a vinyl than a tyvek.

Cristina tests the flexibility of the green bags.

Beside Leesa’s fun balloon installation, we tried to find the Internet.

Cristina drinking some coffee that Jenny (in the plaid shirt) brought us.

I found some Internet and started reviewing the notes we took the other day on the book.

Steven working with the larger heavy paper we were using to iron on top of to fuse the bags.

This is an example of what can be done with the many bits of bags when they’re cut.

Even though it’s not quite as solid as using full bags, the strength is the same.

We also pulled out an old car seat, which makes an excellent work couch.

Cristina’s friend, Natasha stopped by to get a grand tour.

Cristina explained the projects we’ve been working on over the last six months or so.

This is one of the best parts of being in this location, that people can stop by at random. We also had an offer to work on a fence for the Fireworks night, which we had to decline, and met another gentleman who promised to come back Thursday with a book on Jean-Michel Basquiat.

Cristina takes some time to read up on printing options.

Dollar store bags look nice when fused.

Here are some material tests; I momentarily wondered if ink would work on this plastic, but it doesn’t, so stamps are out.

We moved on to garbage bags too.

With Steven’s banner he brought in, we started trying to figure out how to get a message onto the banner.

We started with BCL.

The garbage bags weren’t folded as many times, so they didn’t need as much time under the iron.

I anxiously awaited the unveiling of the first letters.

They stuck pretty well.

But ultimately, doing positive letters probably don’t stand out enough.

You can see that different plastics fuse well together though.

We hung the banner.

The banner will eventually be bigger.

Jenny signed out guestbook! I forgot to read it though.

We thought we should try negative letters next, which would help it stand out more.

Steven cut out HI, because it can be flipped over and still legible.

He also cut out an exclamation mark.

The graph paper we were using between the iron and plastic for the letters ended up sticking to the exclamation mark, but most of it came off with water.

Steven scrubbing the paper off.

The final banner, well at least the first part of it. We’ll work at least one more day in the space this week, hopefully pushing forward with some work on the new planters, the banner, and I’m sure, many other things. It was amazing to realize that six hours had gone by, that’s a sign of a good day.