The things I do for my chaboo artists…..  In this case, Meg Scheminske is doing a chaboo with plant life all over it and I reached for the good ol power tools to make these mushrooms fit better against the chaboo.

beltsanding a mushroom from Ken Tomita on Vimeo.
Has anyone beltsanded a mushroom before?  It works quite well actually.  Just make sure the mushroom is thoroughly dried out and get a death grip on it.  Kinda dangerous cause its totally freehand…

This particular chaboo collaboration has been fun because we have worked together on it conceptually and in a practical sense by visiting the nursery.  I took over on the woodworking, routing out holes for the terrariums where I pleased.  They are spherical actually so 1/3 of it hangs underneath- pretty cool.  I then attached the mushrooms as I felt right.  Next, Meg took over and she reacted to what I had done through painting.

Pretty killer if you ask me….  but now, im nervous about keeping the plants alive.  I have the magic touch with dogs and building stuff but not with plants.  They always die on me.  Someone help~

I met up with Chaboo artist Megan Scheminske today at Pistils Nursery on Mississippi to work on her chaboo.  Many of you may recognize her from her participation in PULSE, a local charity art thingy.  Here she is with her painting.  Her hair is no longer blonde so you may no longer recognize her.

She was trained to paint with oils but is struggling with the idea of switching to a less toxic medium.  Curiously, she has no sense of smell and she is afraid that she cant truly sense the toxicity of what is around her.  Hmm… the struggles of eco vs performance.  For some reason the best stuff has to be bad for you- chocolate, rib eye steak, oil paints…. In my upside down universe ice cream, beer, and pork belly would all be good for you and cheap.

Her idea originally was to do something out of local materials.  I ran into her a few weeks ago and somehow our conversation then inspired her to steer towards live plants.

I am going to recess that glass mini-ecosystem thing into the chaboo body and attach those mushroom to the sides as shelves for airplants.  Airplants are these strange plants that dont require any soil-  you can just put em anywhere like stuffed animals.  Megan will then paint the chaboo to accompany the living elements.  Fun fun fun!

In no particular order here are the artists participating so far:

Alisha Wessler - illustration

Lauren Wessler - wood, paper mache

Jennifer Mercede - painting

Chris Haberman - painting

Sohaila Adela - illustration

Kelly Neidig - painting

Nell Warren - painting

Robin Kaplan - illustration

Dave Laubenthal -wood, metal

David Bertman -wood, metal

Kari Merkl - metal

Joel Wakeman - wood

Juno Lachman - glass

Eric Day - wood, metal, fiberglass

Todd Griffith - painting

Joe Mansfield - laser

George Ramos - wood

Mike Halvorson - wood

Paul Sykes - wood

Lindsay Holmes - recycled skateboards

Jess Hirsch - watercolor

APAK - illustration, painting

Erin Albin (appetite) - screenprinting/fabric

Brendan Budge - industrial design

Lisa Kuhnhausen - interior design/fashion

Jason Hernandez - wood

Sarah Bennet - wood, epoxy resin

Karl Ramentol - industrial design

Ken Tomita - wood, bamboo

Amy Ruppel- designer

Maren Jensen- illustration

Sara Huston - furniture design

Orange design.build - salvaged materials

Marshall Ryan - architecture

Ryan Thomson - architecture

Megan Scheminske - painting

Don Jensen - wood

David Butts - kinetic sculpture

Marc Riera - architecture

Ryah Radomski - furniture

John Paananen - interior architecture

Emily Steen - graphic design, environment design

Oluwaseyi (Shay) Sosanya - mechanical engineering

Tom Huang - furniture design

Ben Wood - furniture

Emily Knudsen - interior design

Corbin Keech - architecture

Jim Haas - furniture