Poster Child's Blade Diary

Follow Up Friday- Rescue

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 17:32:20 -0700

Friday — July 3rd, 2009

Follow Up Friday- Rescue

This piece has lasted way longer than I thought it would.

Also,

I’ve decided that I don’t like this stencil. Time has changed my opinion of it. I no longer like it- at least in its original state.

So, I was pleased to see its evolution. I quite like where it is at now…

The street, and time, and taggers can rescue a bad work- it would seem.

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Lovers Lock – Mark & Jen

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 16:09:21 -0700

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Thursday — July 2nd, 2009

This is a Lovers Lock. If you’d like to submit your own love story -and maybe have me create a personalized lock that will be added to Toronto’s Lover’s Fence- please read more about submitting here. Of course, you can always go and add your own. Toronto’s Lover’s Fence encloses Grange Park, the park behind the Art Gallery Of Ontario.

Mark’s Love Story:

hey Post
Here is my love story. Sorry about the cheese-factor:
I met my wife on the internet. It wasn’t through some lameass dating service, we both were not looking for love. Instead we were looking to trade mix-cds. I found her thread on a message board. I thought her music choices seemed ineteresting, and replied that I would totally trade cds with her. We began to email each other about the trade, and over the course of some back and forth we came up with a challenge:
who could come up with a sadder mix-cd?
We then sent numerous emails back and forth boasting about how depressed our music makes us. These emails carried on for months.
It just so happened that we had the perfect opportunity to trade cd’s in person. I was in her city with my band, and she interviewed us for her radio show, and came out to our performance. She let the band sleepover at her place. Jen and I stayed up all night, mostly thumb-warring. I looked over her mix cd when she gave it to me: turns out we had both made a ‘happy’ cd to go along with the sad. Though one song she put on her happy cd had almost made the cut for my sad.

I can still remember the first time I listened to her cd. I was taking a bath the day after the allnighter, still too swoony to sleep. I hit play and it washed over me. The music pulled in my chest, sad as fuck, and it never let go.

When I proposed to her five years later I gave her a mix cd case. She opened it up and there was no cd, just a 25 cent ring and the words: Will you marry me? Please?

Hope you like it. Keep up the goodwork

Mark

Tags: lockdowns, lovers locks | 1 Comment

Lovers Lock – Miranda & Billy

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 19:04:06 -0700

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Wednesday — July 1st, 2009

Lovers Lock – Miranda & Billy

Miranda’s Love Story:

I met my husband Billy online almost 4 years ago in October 2005, we met on a site called OK Cupid and I don’t think either one of us was looking for anything serious at all because we both had just gotten out of serious, mind screwing relationships. We set up our first date and immediately hit it off. I was living on Huron Street at the time very near to Grange Park and he was in Oshawa so he would drive to Toronto to stay with me a few nights a week and get up really early to drive back to Oshawa for work. Within a month he had asked me to marry him,it wasn’t the first proposal I had ever gotten but it was the first I had ever taken seriously and considered going through with it. By December my salon on Queen West was closing and I was not exactly sure what I would do for income but he helped me set up a salon in my home and moved all the big stuff. He put in a lot of time getting me all organized to work from home and by the end of December we were living together, he and his son and myself and my sons. The entire time his ex was putting us through hell, it was very difficult to want to continue on with someone whose baggage was causing me a whole lot of stress! Miraculously, despite all the crazy nutjob things we dealt with from his ex we stayed together but she did try so many times to break us up. Before we had a chance to consider a plan for getting married I found out I was pregnant with our hilarious and crazy son, Rowan. One day in early September of 2006 we decided to head over to City Hall and get our marriage license, not really having set a date yet or knowing where the money to have a wedding would come from, just knowing somehow it would happen. We got our license and on a whim I called up to the chapel and they happened to have a cancellation for the next wk at 2 pm on Tuesday September the 12th 2006 and we booked it. I managed to grab rings for us, get my dress fixed ( I was over 6mos pregnant with Rowan by now), get him clothing to wear, send out emails about the day and take care of the kids in one day! The day of the wedding I worked in the morning and that afternoon we got married! We had some family and friends there, we had our children there and we had each other and that was more than enough for us! We have been together ever since, we have had ups and downs, we have had a custody battle with his ex in which we endured months and months of more strife from her but came out victorious, we have had issues within our relationship…we have conquered them all and are still together and happy and most of all we love each other to this day! Every day I wake up and think, ” I would marry this guy all over again”, everyday I am thankful to have such an amazing partner, an amazing father for my children and an amazing guy in my life.

For more than two years our family frequented Grange Park, we spent every day in the summer there, took our kids to the splashpad, the playground and the events held there. Grange Park is very near and dear to us, it is where our love and our family’s love grew, where we began as a family.

Thanks, Miranda of Miranda and Billy fame!

Posterchild:

Thanks for the lovely story!

Could you tell me the first names of all the children in your combined family? I have an idea for your lovers lock- I’d like to make a ring of combined inter-locked locks. Your and your husbands name on the largest center lock (Miranda & Billy) your two sons on a lock, his son on a lock, and your child that you had together on another lock (Rowan)

Is that OK? I can do something else if you’d rather not share their names. Nicknames or pet names would be fine too!

Thanks again,

Take care

Post

Miranda:

I would love that!!! Kalan is 20, Jack is 4 and Aiden is 8 and Rowan is our little monkey

Tags: lockdowns, lovers locks | Comment

Tag Tuesday

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 15:05:16 -0700

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Tuesday — June 30th, 2009

Tag Tuesday

It’s a Tag Tuesday!

I’ve been thinking about Birdhouses lately. Alot.

Along with Whirligigs and Mailboxes they are a part of that holy-trinity of public folk-art; which was a fascinating part of my rural childhood, and continues to fascinate me.

I want to make more. In fact, I think I want to go “All Park”.

(Not including those tiny-town Parkettes)

…hhhmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

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Follow Up Friday- Protection

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 10:46:05 -0700

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Friday — June 26th, 2009

Follow Up Friday- Protection

The lovely silhouettes that TEETH and I made;

They have not been buffed!

Indeed, as this picture illustrates, other sorts of graffiti have been buffed regularly (In this case, perhaps someone added a word or thought bubble above the head of our male lover? I wonder, what was on his mind?) but our silhouettes remain. Whosoever is the guardian of this vacant property has decided to allow and protect the “Ghost House” ghosts. All other colonists have been dealt with in the usual, harsh manner.

It’s always very gratifying when this sort of thing happens.

Making a GOOD work that can also pass the litmus test of a community and a caretaker- that’s tricky. It’s one of the hardest tests a street artist can pass.

Congrats to us, TEETH!

Tags: Silhouettes, TEETH | Comment

21063B*BETA

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 18:02:10 -0700

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Thursday — June 25th, 2009

21063B*BETA

Meet 21063-B, the partner to 21063-A.

The 21063’s function like so;

An observer begins the process by selecting an emotion. They do this by pressing one of 21063-A’s five available buttons: Tranquillity, Ardor, Animosity, Melancholy, and Flippancy. 21063-A understands this to be the observer communicating it’s current emotional state to 21063-A. In turn, 21063-A communicates it’s current “emotional state” to 21063-B. In lab trials, thus far, 21063-A has proven to be a emotional chameleon. It will mimic whatever emotion the observer selects, no matter how wildly or quickly the observer changes his or her emotional state. Nonetheless, we are excited to see how things will progress, and doubtlessly change, during field-testing. It has been our experience in the past that Betabots tend not to get “emotional” until a test has stretched into many long hours.

Once 21063-A has communicated it’s emotional state to 21063-B, 21063-B in turn communicates it’s own emotional state back to the observer, completing the “Emotional Telephone Game”. It achieves this communication by way of its LED display panel, with which it pantomimes a humanoid face in one of the five available emotional states. Like 21063-A, 21063-B has thus far selected whatever emotional state has been communicated to it. If 21063-A says it is flippant, 21063-B says it is flippant as well.

Video of preliminary field testing:

21063B*BETA
Uploaded by posterchild. – Arts and animation videos.

Tags: Betabots, the twenty-thousands | 1 Comment

21063A*BETA

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 11:52:06 -0700

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Wednesday — June 24th, 2009

21063A*BETA

The Twenty-Thousands.

A new series of Betabots dedicated to exploring the possibilities of attempting to communicate to each other, through the facilitation of one or more observers.

Naturally, In the process of facilitating this inter-Betabot communication, communication is also achieved with the observer(s).

Meet 21063-A:

The first half of the first pair of Twenty-Thousand series Betabots to ever be field tested. 21063-A and B are not, however, the earliest viable models available for field testing. Models that predate the pair are in fact waiting for field testing, but 21063-A & B were fast-tracked into the field because their presence in the Lab was becoming a distraction…

As the 20000 series of Betabots attempt to communicate amoung each other through the medium of one or more observers, every 20000 series Betabot operates with at least one partner:

Tomorrow we will look at 21063-B.

Tags: Betabots | Comment

Tag Tuesday

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 07:00:10 -0700

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Tuesday — June 23rd, 2009

Tag Tuesday

Doolil and his boy “Phibbbister” have crossed me out and called me toy!

Also, in related news;

The Pots have called the Kettle black.

“Oho!” said the pot to the kettle;
“You are dirty and ugly and black!
Sure no one would think you were metal,
Except when you’re given a crack.”

“Not so! not so!” kettle said to the pot;
“‘Tis your own dirty image you see;
For I am so clean -without blemish or blot-
That your blackness is mirrored in me”

Tags: tagging | 5 Comments

Follow Up Friday- Still Broke

Sat, 20 Jun 2009 04:32:11 -0700

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Friday — June 19th, 2009

Follow Up Friday- Still Broke

It’s a Follow Up Friday!

Look at the wonderful patina this work has developed!

It’s still there, I’m still (significant) debt free, and I’m still broke.

Yesterday I went into a restaurant and ordered some soup. When it came time to pay, shrugging, I turned my pockets inside out. Only a few flies emerged! Well, the waiter went and got the head cook, a very fat man brandishing a frying pan- and he was followed by three skinny, little assistant cooks! The waiter pointed me out, and I tell you, I jumped out of my chair so fast, my hat flew up off of my head! I pulled my hat back down low, menacingly over my eyebrows, gathered myself, and began to slowly walk towards then, stiff legged and swinging my arms. I sure had them going! At the last second, when I pulled up nose to nose with the fat man, I turned on my heel and ran away! But the waiter blocked my exit, well, I was running around the restaurant so fast and nimbly while the three assistant cooks tried to grab me and the fat man did his best to hit me on the head with his frying pan! I had em’ all so confused, the fat man hit all three of his assistants, and the assistants mistakenly grabbed the fat man more than once! The fat man even managed to hit HIMSELF on the head with his big dumb pan!

Well, I eventually had my tab paid for by a millionaire who happened to be in the restaurant, but I tell you, I won’t be going to THAT restaurant without money again anytime soon!

Tags: lockdowns | 1 Comment

A Maple Faerie, The Lil’ Spirit of the Maple.

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 10:55:46 -0700

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Thursday — June 18th, 2009

A Maple Faerie, The Lil’ Spirit of the Maple.

THIS has been a long time coming.

Back in Novemeber of last year I got an email from the lovely Lauren Best.

She was writing to inquire about maybe getting me to prepare some original art for her (then) upcoming album.

Here’s a bit of our correspondence, to explain how I got to making the Maple Spirit:

POST:
I checked out your myspace. I like your stuff, and in particular your song, semblance of faith. Cold and wintery. I’m thinking stencils of dead leaves? does the rest of your album have similar themes?

How about you send me a copy of some of what your planning for the album, and we take it from there?

Take care,

Post

Lauren:
Cool, I’m glad to hear back from you. Right now I’m in the middle of recording a bunch of new elements (horns, guitar, etc), but I can send you a few tunes which are incomplete and with scratch vocals and whatnot. The album as a whole doesn’t really have similar themes, that’s a particularly chilly song… as a whole the album is a bit more groovy but still very lyrically based. I wrote most (if not all) of the songs when I was 14-17, so to me they sort of conjure that overwhelming strange emotionality of being a teenager, a lot of the songs are almost character monologues, sort of exaggerated but still very genuine and heartfelt. I’m trying to be true to what the songs were when they were written and not “update them”, to keep the sense of character and context. It’s interesting you suggest dead leaves though, because I’ve been picturing that sort of fall vibe… I’ve been sort of fixated on the imagery of maple keys in relation to this project, and the concept of being in flight or in transition (I’m playing with the idea of calling the album In Flight). I’ve attached a few tunes, there are 12 tunes in total on the album. If you are interested in this project, I think it would be beneficial for us to get together and talk about it (and I can keep you updated with more recent cuts and with a complete selection of the songs). However, you may be concerned about your anonymity… would you be cool with getting together at some point to talk about this? I could sign a non-disclosure agreement or whatever if you’d like. Or credit you as a “real person” and completely separate you from your Post self. Something to think about.

Talk soon,
Lauren

POST:
Hey!

Sorry this is so late in coming!

I’m pretty booked until xmas, but we could meet sometime in the new year? I’m not sure we need to… but we can! I’m happy to be credited as post, and am fine with your assurance that you’ll be discreet about my identity.

I really like the idea of maple keys.

Tell you what,

I’m fine with not being paid, if your fine with being patient with me!

I’ll put something together as soon as I can manage, and you can tell me what you think? Use it or not?

Post

SO THEN, I pretty much forgot about it. I was reminded only a few days ago when Lauren sent me a message on Twitter. I got her message and was thinking “Lauren Best, Lauren Best… I know that name… Why do I know that name? Lauren Bes- OH FUCK, THE MAPLE KEY STENCIL I NEVER CUT.”

So I cut it, sprayed it, (it’s made from canvas, so it should hold up to the weather for quite awhile) and installed it (in Trinity-Bellwoods).

I think it’s charming. Even If Lauren HATES it, or decides it’s not right for her work (I’m really not sure if it is) it’s still gonna make some kid squeal when they discover “The Little Fairy in the Maple”, with Maple Key wings.

So there it is Lauren- very late, and probably not what you had in mind! Please feel free to use it if you like, or ignore it if you’d prefer!

(I can send you a highres version, if you’d like.)

(Sorry it took so long, and I hope you don’t hate it!)

Tags: Faeries, Trinity Bellwoods Park | Comment

Rural Birdhouse

Wed, 17 Jun 2009 13:37:45 -0700

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Wednesday — June 17th, 2009

Rural Birdhouse

Speaking of boids,

Here’s a new bird house that I built from the few scraps left over from the ~~Flyer~~Planterboxes.

I wasn’t sure if I was going to share this on the site; unlike all my previous birdhouses, this birdhouse is NOT installed in a urban setting. I brought it to someplace very rural indeed, and tucked it away where no one will ever really encounter it, save for the birds. So, it’s not street art. Does it belong on my site then? Maybe not.

But I like it, and thought you might like to see it too. I think the top piece is reminiscent of a Japanese Torii. If I get a chance this summer, I’ll build some more Birdhouses like this one for the birds, and people, of Toronto.

Tags: animals, bird houses, birds | 2 Comments

Bird Camera

Tue, 16 Jun 2009 12:43:39 -0700

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Tuesday — June 16th, 2009

Bird Camera

Here’s the other half to yesterdays project.

I was really excited when I realized I could pull these projects off,

…but then I remembered that Banksy had already done the “Security Camera As Bird” thing as a part of his Village Pet Store And Charcoal Grill

So apologies to Banksy, but here is my low-low-no-budget version!!:

Bird Camera
Uploaded by posterchild. – Watch original web videos.

Pretty neat, eh?

WHOAH, hey, now that I’m looking at the video of Banksy’s (very brilliant) installation again, it looks like we’re using the VERY SAME novelty cameras as a base! Look at his ‘Lil baby CCTVs:

That’s… pretty cool. I think.

Tags: animals, Banksy, birds, CCTV | Comment

Security Nest

Mon, 15 Jun 2009 20:49:51 -0700

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Monday — June 15th, 2009

Security Nest

You need to check out the video on this one:

Security Nest
Uploaded by posterchild. – Arts and animation videos.

This creepy lil’ surprise installation is tucked into a tree at Trinity Bellwoods.

If you live in Toronto, I encourage you to try and find it!

I made this by remixing some disposable electronic novelties. One bird waits for the signal to flap and threaten, while the other bird keeps watch with its unblinking, motion-detecting eye.

More tomorrow!

Tags: animals, birds, Trinity Bellwoods Park | 2 Comments

Follow Up Friday- Frameups

Fri, 12 Jun 2009 13:22:55 -0700

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Friday — June 12th, 2009

Follow Up Friday- Frameups

Speaking of the Frameups,

Here’s some Follow-Up Flicks that I’ve been meaning to share for awhile!

They show the marvelous success of one of the three Frameups! All of the Frameups were removed fairly quickly, including this one. It was gone before I was able to return to the site to check up on it and take new photos. BUT THROUGH THE MAGIC OF PHOTOSHOP, you can see what it must have looked like while the Frameup was still up!

Since this was installed on a Wednesday, and someone has written, “Have a Beautiful Friday”; we can safely assume the frame and marker lasted at least 2 days.

Also, since the response to “Have a Beautiful Friday”- “OK ” – appears outside the of the frame, we can also assume that BOOKS caught a tag here before our responding person had a chance to respond. This would mean BOOKS left behind the marker after filling up the remaining frame space!

I was really worried that taggers would steal the markers. Free markers hanging from ad boxes don’t appear everyday, and they probably are a pretty tempting sight to a tagger… But BOOKS must have done his thing, and then left the installation intact! Bravo, BOOKS!

I was so happy when I saw the success of this Frameup. I love how after the frame was filled, people just kept on going outside its lines.

People are ready to engage in public space. They just need a little facilitation.

Tags: BOOKS, frameups | Comment

Rat-Gnawed Canvas

Wed, 10 Jun 2009 23:23:29 -0700

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Thursday — June 11th, 2009

Rat-Gnawed Canvas

I found this canvas in the same area of town that I’m returning it to here.

It was being tossed out in a back alley. I’m used to collecting old discarded canvases and frames, but usually they’ve been painted on. This one looked blank and immaculate. It was still shrink-wrapped, in fact. “Why is this being thrown out?” I thought. Then I pulled it out of the trash and saw the gnawed corner. Something with little teeth gnawed through the plastic, canvas, and right into the wood stretcher.

“Ah.” I thought. “Gross.”

But a free canvas is a free canvas, and this is a project I’ve wanted to do for awhile.

I think of this project as kinda the opposite of the frameups.

The canvas is just leaning up against the wood hoarding. Someone took it away within a day. (Home? Trash? Is it hung above a fireplace, or back with the rats?)

I quite like it. If I’m able to scrounge up more canvases, I’ll do more.

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