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More Lanterns
Let a human being throw the energies of his soul into the making of something, and the instinct of workmanship will take care of his honesty.
-- Walter Lippmann
Tuesday, December 9, 1997
Another evening spent at the Powerhouse, helping Luke with the luminaries. (The aliteration of "Luke" and "luminary" is coincidental, but I like it.)
The powerhouse is an old powerplant, originally coalburning, I think, that used to belong to an elementary school in the Fremont neighborhood. I don't know how the Fremont Arts Council got ahold of it, but they put it to good use. It's crammed full of cloth, bamboo, wire, glue guns, frou-frou, tchotkes, dragon heads, woven ribbons from maypoles, and many other random objects.
I had constructed one bamboo frame last night, so I had a better idea about how to build my second one tonight. Both of them look like quartz crystals, with faceted shapes. The guidelines for all our luminaries: long, narrow, low. They'll be used on the dining tables at the Solstice feast, so people need to talk over them and they can't take up the whole table. Because they will rest on tables, we needn't build an inside framework to hold the candles.
After we had enough frames built, We started glueing on the tissue paper. I had my choice of diluted Elmer's glue or diluted acrylic gloss medium. I chose the medium since I hadn't used that before. Glue gets on your hands and peels off; the medium wears off, but does come off with some scrubbing. The general method is:
- Using a sumie or foam brush, get a section of the bamboo frame wet with glue or medium.
- Drape a sheet of tissue paper over the wet section of frame. Don't worry about getting it super-taut, but adjust so there aren't huge wrinkles.
- Trim off the extra tissue; it will tear where it is damp from the glue.
- Continue over the entire structure.
- Go back and paint the entire surface with the glue or medium.
That's the first coat! If there are holes, they can be patched in the second coat. That's when you decorate, with cut paper, transparent paints, or whatever.
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Something I've done lately: put up a personal ad on yahoo. Those who are curious could probably find it. I'll be meeting some of the folks who have contacted me soon. Until they say it's OK, I'll refer to them by initial only, but I will tell someone who knows me personally where I'm going and who I'm meeting with. Safer that way!
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