Kevin! Making the dream
In cahoots with Vanessa Stockard, behold the earrings of the greatest day: KEVIN
To read more about Vanessa and Kevin, please see here and here and here and here and here and Google. She is one of our best painters of today, with Archibald prize finalism & everything. I approached her with this idea and her genuine enthusiasm & generous endorsement gave this artist so much joy, I loved and love this whole thing. I haven’t made heaps of them, I dont want to get huge, I’m not here for the financials, I’m here to make the good fun things that deserve to get made & she gets that. Thank you!
Portrait of me by AP, circa 1995
He’s a scene stealer
Sometimes one makes something and one just knows that its hot and this is one such time. These are SO GOOD! Even those unfamiliar with Vanessa’s work or the Kevin phenomenon would have to give ground here; a triumphant triumvirate: Mona Lisa/Kevin/pearl (because Rosie Perl) = WINNER at genius!
Those crazy, early days when it just came together & made itself. The design didn’t move on, it was more a matter of engineering to minimise the jingle jangle of the three elements when all together. Including the pearl was non-negotiable so I designed around it
To gain some noise cancelling, I tried a few things, like decoupage fabric on the back of the ML & blobs of PVA on the back of the Kevin plus lovely chain attachments on both Kevin & pearls and felt patches between the ML & Kevin. It all worked-ish but I didnt really want them. I liked the chain but it was fussy work that took time, and the other two things weren’t right anyway, so time for another idea.
Soft velcro dots. NO. NNNO
Felt. Works as far as noise damping but definitely not a good look, or not good enough for me. But making the Kevin dangle rigid was a game changer, I cut off the inbuilt dangle loop & glued on rigid eye pins so no jingle from that quarter
Daisy embroidery trim. Cute but no, it worked it was chunky & heavy, and heavy swinging earrings are a bad wearing experience
Foam heart stickers! Noise mufflers! Win!
The foam hearts behind both pieces provide for some jingle jangle muffling between the cameo and the Kevin, & there is also a twist on the stalk of the Kevin, so he doesnt knock the cameo too much, which also makes him fly away a little so theres glimpses of him as you move without it being too obvious. As unobvious as a Kevin can be…
Foam sticker hearts looks Pop
The way the Kevin hides behind the ML and peeks out behind the pearl kills me, it’s SO FUNNY! Tell me it is not funny and I will laugh AT YOU
WATCH HOW TO MAKE THEM
Make the mold
Pull the cast
Gilding (to be honest, this takes a fair amount of time)
Finishing
Playing
Working it out with Vanessa
Dwell on the tympani situation for weeks
Get distracted
Gild more things
Loose interest entirely because something else is fresher. I like the making part so when the Kevins were figured out & mostly all made, I sat on it all for weeks
Game changer
Then I took some truly beautiful photos and that compelled me to launch this crazy project, I want everyone to see these. They are funny and beautiful, a quality shared with Vanessa’s paintings and I’m so grateful to her for making those and for allowing this crazy project to become. FUN! Art fun is the best fun, people should just calm the fuck down