Creating Custom Rocknroll Capes for The DRAMASTICS

Krissy Teegerstrom November 6, 2017

Last month marked the third installment of my creative collaboration with multimedia artist Nathan Carter.

This time Nathan brought his multimedia exhibition of The DRAMASTICS: A Punk Rock Victory Twister in Texas to the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas. If you've been following along, you'll remember we first collaborated on a T-shirt and tote bag for his exhibition at the MOCA in Denver, then we made more tees & totes for the Casey Kaplan Gallery in NYC.

For the tees & totes, Nathan sent me scans and cutouts of his individual motifs and figures, and I laid them out into designs and oversaw the production and printing. It was a true design collaboration, a lot of fun, and they resulted in successful sales for the museum shops!

For the exhibition at the Nasher, we printed up more tees & totes like before, but Nathan had a more ambitious idea for The DRAMASTICS' live performance. Since the band would be playing live at the opening, he had a vision for making custom rocknroll capes for each member. And he wanted them in pink satin.

I started brainstorming what kind of pink satin cape silhouette could look cool and still function while people were singing and playing instruments. I wanted the capes to be lined, so that they looked punk but polished. I have a giant full length wool cape from the 1960s that has a front panel and two long slits for arms to come through. I sketched a shortened version of that and Nathan approved it. I traced off a pattern based on the wool cape and quickly stitched up a sample out of cheap satin that I could take on a trip to New York with me. I also created a little sampler to show how the applique and paint would look.

Cape plans. We ended up nixing the collar.

Since Nathan's studio is in Brooklyn, we set aside a few hours to hash out the final cape design together in person. Again, he had a collection of shapes, words & motifs that we could choose from, so I guided him through what was possible via paint and applique with satin, and together we chose what should go where. We worked quickly and decisively, and he had the resized and recut stencils ready for me before I left town. Easy & fun!

Once I got back to my studio, I needed to make 3 smaller capes and 3 larger capes. I revised the original cape pattern into a larger version based on measurements I took from Nathan's shoulders. I don't have any formal patternmaking education, so I was really winging it. Then I had to figure out how much yardage of pink and black satin I needed. You have to place pattern pieces in order to get the best yield, which basically means you're wasting the least amount of fabric. I gave it a good guess and when it was all done I only had a little left over.

After buying the fabrics, my next step was to determine which shapes got painted, and which got cut out and sewn down. Here are all the pieces I had to cut out:

24 cape pieces out of pink satin
24 cape pieces out of black satin
36 silver glitter lightning bolts
24 hearts
6 guitars
6 giant lips
12 glitter eyeballs

Each cape was a little different (with custom names & guitar shapes on each "sleeve") so keeping track of all the pattern pieces was a huge challenge. I embellished each individual pattern piece first, whether it was appliqueing the motifs with my sewing machine, or painting letters or designs using the stencils Nathan gave me. I used an assembly line technique, and had to time everything correctly so that the paint could dry before I started constructing the capes. It was about 5 straight days of being immersed in capes. But it all came together! For the cape closure, I decided buttons or snaps wouldn't hold up to a punk rock performance, so I used giant silver safety pins. Appropriate for the overall look and function.

I wasn't going to miss the opportunity to see our capes in action, so we took a road trip from Austin to Dallas for the opening event. This was the most fun I've had on a design collaboration yet. I'm still high from the experience and I can't wait for an excuse to make some more capes.

Here's a great video montage of the capes and the opening event by Native Process Films:

More Shows in Texas this Fall!

Krissy Teegerstrom August 24, 2017

I'm so excited about Featherweight's fall schedule of events:

9/9 Makers Market @ Mueller - Austin TX

9/24 Group art show @ Nature's Treasures - Austin TX

10/1 CraftHER @ Fair Market - Austin TX

11/11-11/19 East Austin Studio Tour, group show @ Solid Gold - Austin TX

11/18 Flea Style - Houston TX

12/3 Craft Market, details TBD - Lockhart TX

12/16 Origin Designer Market @ Mueller - Austin TX

Manifesting Murals | PART 5: You Might Get Lucky

Krissy Teegerstrom July 18, 2017

This week marks the one year anniversary of painting my first murals. Two murals in 10 days, in fact. Prior to painting these murals in Austin, I had zero mural experience & no reason to believe I could pull it off. Following is the 6-part story of how I did it. [Read from the beginning.]

We were going to attempt the mural on the back wall of the Continental Club starting at 7am on Thursday, July 14th. It was due to hit 100 degrees that day so Dana and I wanted some time before the sun cooked us completely, and we had to be finished by around 1pm.

I had paint, I had partners, I had a stencil that I hoped would suffice, but I was still scared as hell about those ladders. On Wednesday night I had plans to meet friends for drinks, but I was stewing and worrying about the ladders. Remembering my commitment not to doubt, I needed to clear my head. I said a prayer out loud, saying how scared I was and that I didn't think I could do it. I asked for help. I said I couldn't do it by myself. I didn't want to give up on the opportunity, but I also didn't want to be an inexperienced idiot and fall off a ladder and break my arm or split my head open (or Dana’s). I felt better after I spoke my fears and prayed for help.

That night I met my friends met at the private bar of the Hotel Saint Cecilia. About eight of us sat outside in the darkness, sipped our cold margaritas and chatted. It was super hot out, so at one point my mind wandered. I was still worried about those ladders. For a moment I sat quietly and my eyes drifted to the window of the indoor bar where the lights were bright. A figure moved through my line of vision, and I recognized him. It was Evan Voyles of the Neon Jungle, a friend of a friend I'd met a few times, the guy who designs and hangs all the big neon signs in Austin. Hangs neon signs, I thought. Up high. This guy might know something about ladders!

I was nervous to bother him, but I needed help so I got up without telling my friends where I was headed and made a beeline inside to bug Evan. I'd barely said two sentences about my dilemma before he grabbed a paper napkin and took a pencil out of his pocket. "The trick is to triangulate," he explained, drawing a straight ladder on a wall and a diagram of how to tie a rope to secure it. He said he'd developed this method after falling off far too many ladders.

He was literally the perfect person to ask about ladder safety methods, and he'd shown up right where I wasn't looking for him. And he was really gracious about it. "Here's my number in case you need help," he said. "But we're starting at 7am," I replied. I really didn't want to bother him. "I'm up early, busy day tomorrow.“ he said. Then my friends found me and told me they were leaving. I tucked my paper napkin ladder diagram into my purse and wondered at the perfect luck that I had to run in to him, and felt proud of myself for asking for help and keeping the faith.

The next morning I met Dana outside the club at 7am. Fabian pulled up in his truck with two straight ladders, and I showed them my cocktail napkin schematic. We had to move a wooden bench and dug out some dirt to place the first ladder. It felt pretty sturdy, and we tried the rope triangulation, but the angle where we had to set it was steep. We tested the second ladder and realized it was shaky, old and really too short. I was not confident at all with our setup. The last thing I wanted to do was bother Evan, but we were stuck. I called him. "I can be there in about 20 minutes," he said. While we were waiting, Fabian used the good ladder to boldly climb up to the roof and help us hang the stencil.

A few minutes later Evan skidded up in his truck. In a seemingly effortless motion, he lifted a giant ladder off his truck, placed it on the ground, threw some rope around it in his triangulated pattern, re-tied the rope on on our first ladder, gave both ladders a quick test and then popped back in to his truck. "Call me later when you want to drop it off," he said, and drove away. It all happened in a blur. He was like the angel of ladder safety!

We now had two very sturdy ladders so Dana and I were set to go. I was a bit nervous at first to be so high off the ground, but once I started painting I was able to focus on the task at hand. The black brick was textured and also had some deep furrows in it, so it sucked up a fair amount of paint. I had to go slowly to follow the stencil without destroying it, laying in enough paint to cover the thirsty brick without causing any drips. Dana and I each worked on a ladder; I set the outlines and she filled them in.

One funny thing about that morning is that absolutely no one bothered us or asked us what we were up to. Granted, it is in an alley, but several cars and a construction crew passed us by without a blink. In theory, we could have executed the entire mural in broad daylight without anyone's permission. There's a wonderful tradition and history for guerilla art, but it's not my style. I’d be too scared of getting caught and I want my art to be an invited part of someone's property.

A little bit after noon, about five hours in, it looked like we were finishing up. I painted over several spots and could have kept painting for another hour, but we were getting overheated, sunburned and hungry and the bar employees were set to start arriving at 1pm. I quickly painted my signature and we cleaned up our materials. We took a bunch of photos, high fived, and then returned Evan's ladder to him at his studio. I bought lunch, and then we all departed. I got back to the house where I was staying, showered, then lay on the bed under the ceiling fan. My muscles ached and I was bone tired from the heat. But, again, I was totally high.

I had painted two murals in three days. It happened. It's real. They're still there.

Stay tuned for the final post.

Manifesting Murals | PART 4: You Might Get More Than You Bargained For

Krissy Teegerstrom July 17, 2017

I woke up on Tuesday July 12th, the morning after I painted my very first mural on Fabian's garage, and I was so proud of myself. I had slept hard, my muscles sore from climbing up and down ladders for 5 hours. It was that rewarding fatigue that you get from physical labor, plus I was a bit high that my experiment had worked. And so quickly! But I wasn't out of the woods yet -- I had the back wall of the Continental Club to paint.

One thing I didn't mention in this heretofore chronological story is that my boyfriend had told me he was going to reach out to some of his friends to try to find me a wall. I thought it was a nice gesture but didn't think twice about it until he told me that he spoke with Steve Wertheimer, owner of the esteemed Continental Club, the best venue on South Congress Avenue. A place where I had been going since college and where my boyfriend had played many times. Steve said I could paint on the back wall of his club.

What? Did I just get offered to paint on the back side of the Continental Club? I couldn't believe it. If this was an option, why wasn't the wall already filled with murals?

I drove by the wall and took a few photos, trying to determine the best placement and proportions. The logistics for this mural were quite different from the one on Fabian's garage, so I had a whole new set of things to figure out. The wall is black so I couldn't project the design on it, I’d have to make a stencil. The ground below the wall was uneven and the wall was partly obstructed by a tree. Design-wise, the best placement for my arrows would be halfway up the wall near the roof. I'd need to figure out how to safely place some straight ladders on uneven ground and get both me and Dana over 10 feet up in the air.

Allow me to explain to you that I'm not a physical risk taker. I'm not an athlete, I've never broken a bone, I like my feet on the ground. I'm not afraid of heights per se, but I have ZERO DESIRE to climb high up a rickety ladder. We'd climbed around on ladders for the first mural, but they were steady A-frames on level ground. I was super worried about it.

Despite the fact that I’d just successfully painted my first mural, I was even more nervous than before. My mind was filled with doubts, I had no idea how I would pull it off, but how could I say NO?

A voice in my head said, maybe this is all a mistake. To double check that Steve actually meant to offer the wall up to me, I mocked up the design and emailed it to him. I thought, maybe he'll see it and just cancel the whole idea! On Monday, July 11th, the morning before I was going to paint my very first mural on Fabian's garage, I emailed Steve the mockup asking if he approved. He emailed right back, "Looks good." Oh shit, I thought, I'm leaving town in five days and I have to figure out how to paint this wall.

On Wednesday afternoon, I went to use my painter friend's art studio so I could make the stencil. I had a roll of craft paper that I'd bought previously, and I searched around and found some masking tape and eventually one pair of dull scissors. I taped a few lengths of paper together to cover about a 5 feet by 7 feet area, then I taped that to the wall and projected the arrows onto it so I could trace them. The art studio had air conditioning but it took a while to work, so it was hot in there. I had once chance to get the proportions of the arrows right, and to make a sturdy enough stencil. After I traced the arrows I pulled the giant paper off the wall and onto the floor. I used masking tape to reinforce it along the traced lines, then used the dull scissors to carefully cut it out.

This took much longer than I thought it would take, I was overheating, and I still was so worried about the ladders. The scissors were tearing the paper so I had to be very careful. I didn't have the right tools, and in a sweaty moment of defeat my emotions took over me. Here I was making a stencil of masking tape and paper, and I didn't even know if it would work or if I'd be able to climb high enough to use it. I started crying. I lay down flat on the floor in the middle of the studio. What the hell was I thinking? I just surrendered and sweated and cried softly, thinking I can't do this. I give up.

I let myself cry for a few minutes, then I just lay there quietly and breathed. A thought popped in to my head; I really need a straight edge and a razor to finish cutting this out. Then an odd thing happened. I sat up and turned my head to the corner of the room behind me, and my eyes landed on a metal yardstick. The perfect straight edge that I needed. I walked to grab it, and without thinking my head turned again, this time across the room to the bottom shelf of a coffee table that had a few little baskets of remote controls and random things. I walked to the shelf and my hand picked up one of the baskets. Nestled in between two remote controls was a razor.

I had been working in this studio the previous three weeks and had never seen either of these tools.

I thought, hot damn, said a prayer of thanks out loud, and then made quick work of slicing out the rest of that stencil.

Read Part 5: You Might Get Lucky.