It is a great story. My friend John Petzinger emailed me to say he saw an ad on craigslist looking for artists. I replied to the ad and heard back, almost immediately, from Sense Nail Spa in the Washington State Convention Center in downtown Seattle. The salon had looked at images of work from Sweetie Boutique and B of A and asked if I would like to show some work in their space and of course I said yes. This happened so fast from the time John sent me the ad to the time I was showing them my work was only about 24 hours. I took in a couple Swarm Containers. When I got there Robert, the manager asked me if I could do an installation on their main wall behind the front desk. He told me there was a neurological conference arriving the next day and that over the next week about 10,000 neurological professionals from around the world would be coming through and hoped I could install it the next day: Friday.
Zanne was in China. I frantically inquired with Izzy’s main play date friends and all of them came back and said “sorry…..” It was too short notice. I called John. “Hey remember that ad you sent me…” It turned out John came to help me on Friday and Izzy went to run errands with his wife. Thank you so much you two. John took great shots of The Swarm going up and was a great help in prepping pieces for me. I ran out of steam just about the time the salon was closing and all parties involved decided I should finish on Saturday. Izzy would spend the afternoon with John and I would finish.
The Swarm wrapped its way through a corner and another and then around to the other side of the wall. It is not decorative, it does not blend in, it does command the space and grab attention both inside The Salon and through the glass windows. If you live in Seattle you should try to see one of the four installs that are currently up. They are all listed in this post.
Art can change your world.
My first Sporozoan Swarm subscription has been delivered. It was purchased as a gift. I personally find buying art as a gift a tough thing to do unless you know that the person on the receiving end knows the artist and likes their work. In this case the receiving individual did not know me, in fact the buyer didn’t even know me, she found me on Etsy. She gave her friend a three month subscription to The Swarm and this was the response when the gift was opened: “The reaction was as follows: confusion, followed by intrigue, followed by delight!”
It is exciting to get a note like this emailed to you from a complete stranger who has given your art work to another complete stranger.
I believe art should be in everyone’s home and to do that it needs to be affordable. This is my reasoning for making The Sporozoan Swarm. The Sporozoan Swarm is a piece of grand scale with a projected population of 50,000. It is one piece that can be broken down into smaller clusters and find a place on thousands of walls around the world. An art lover can, for a very reasonable price have a commanding art object in their home that is part of a larger whole. Thanks to the use of negative space that naturally occurs in hanging a Sporozoan Swarm it only takes 20 or so pieces to adorn a poster size space on a wall and best of all you can break it up into many smaller Sporozoan Swarms around the house and because Swarms are modular it is easy to increase the size of your piece of The Swarm. One can start out with a Tiny or Minuscule Swarm and build on it as you have space and or finances. The Swarm is adaptable and ever changing because The Swarm is made up of many pieces of all different sizes most of which are printed or drawn on both sides The Keeper can rearrange or turn their pieces over to create a new piece of art over and over again. The Swarm can also be hung through corners and around other transitions on The Keepers wall.
Become a Keeper today and find yourself being part of a grand piece of art.
The Sporozoan Swarm is not a lot of little pieces going out into the world to individuals. It is one large piece of art work, with a population slated to be around 50,000 when completed, that is broken up into clusters so that it can be Kept by many different hands. All these Keepers in turn create a fabric, around the world, of strangers connected by The Swarm. Once the entire population of The Swarm has been distributed The Map will pin point all locations of The Swarm and be a testament to arts ability to cross all barriers and bring people together on common ground.
Art can change the world.
The Minuscule Sporozoan Swarm is really small. It is a huge leap for me to make things so small. It used to be that small for me was some where in the two foot range. I couldn’t even think about making something smaller.
These are so exciting because they start out so small and can grow to a huge scale by adding other pieces of The Swarm to them. These are not individual pieces, rather they are bits of a larger entity that keeps growing and has yet to see its end. When you become a Keeper you join a larger whole, all participating in an ongoing and monumental art en devour.
Art can change the world.
The Sporozoan Swarm has grown to a little over 2000 thousand pieces and I currently have 16 Keepers looking after bits of it. My most recent Keeper is receiving The Swarm through a subscription. It starts out with a delivery of about 2/3rds of the whole that the Keeper will receive. Then every month they will receive between 2-4 more pieces to add to their collection.
I currently have subscriptions for 3 and 6 months and of course if someone wanted a different number it could easily be worked out.
I like the subscription idea because it enhances the anticipation and excitement upon receiving The Swarm. The Keeper has multiple occasions to receive and open up their collections and hence multiple occasions to arrange and rearrange their piece of The Swarm.
Become a Keeper.
The Sporozoan Swarm can be a little unruly. That is why I put together The Container. This way when one becomes a Keeper The Swarm can’t get away or sit dormant while searching for a place to exist within its new environment. This piece of The Swarm allows the Keeper to leave most of the Keeping to me. I decide the placement and there is no handling on a Keepers part. Unless, of course, after some time they decide The Swarm needs to be rearranged. Then they can open up the Container and reorganize The Swarm.
The Swarm is growing and is calling out to you.
The Sporozoan Swarm is not simply bunches of pieces going out to individuals. It is one large piece being Kept by assorted individuals. The map above shows locations of The Swarm. I will update this map once a week until the whole Swarm has proliferated. With my ultimate goal being a population of 50,000 for The Swarm I suspect to be updating the map for quite some time. To be a part of The Swarm check my Etsy shop and watch for Swarm give a way’s here.
Lets go readers spread the word of The Swarm. Tell a friend to check out printtroll.
The Swarm is calling you. All you need to do is leave a comment and you get one. I will be picking someone at random but not until I have 5 comments. This weeks give away is for a Minuscule Sporozoan Swarm. Once I have 5 comments I will notify the new Keeper, via email and then get their Swarm in the mail. Check out the map to see The Swarms proliferation so far.
Check back next week I will have a new give away then.
