mattress bunny is in Chicago, come and see him!

Hey all- it’s been a while. I want to let you know that Mattress bunny is hopping down to Miami to enjoy some sun and some art fairs. It will be featured in Bridge: Wynwood under the Accomplice Projects.  I’ll post more info once I have it, but if you are in Miami from December 2-7th you should come and say hi to the bunny.

Well, our little mattress bunny is currently enjoying a new view of the world after a fresh install within hopping distance from where it was created.  

Currently on display as part of the Milwaukee Art Walk, it is in the front window of what used to be the Grace’s Furniture building at 2618 N. Milwaukee Ave.  The organizer of the event, Lynn Stevens, writes a blog focusing on issues and points of interest around the Logan Square neighborhood.  From October 17th through November 2nd a number of storefronts on Milwaukee Ave. between Kedize and Kimball will be featuring work by artists from the neighborhood and artists whos work deals with Logan Square as a subject.

oh, oh, oh, I want that one! Pleeeaaase!

What a view!

Enjoy Milwaukee Ave. this fall: walk, drive, or ride on by and be sure to say “hi” to mattress bunny!

Milwaukee Art Walk:  10/17/08 — 11/2/08

                                     Along Milwaukee Ave. between Kedzie and Kimball

We will post some more images soon.  Until then, this what our completed bunny looks like:

Pretty handsome, right?

The ears definitely make it a rabbit. . .

but a bunny just isn’t a bunny without a poofy little tail.

I know this is very, very, late. We have been crazed this week with cleaning up the poofs of mattresses around our apartment and making a peep bunnay for the silent auction for artXposium. We also thought maybe we shouldn’t give away what the mattress bunny looked like before people who went to the opening of artXposium saw it.  

Juste a note: Paul KIein mentioned mattress bunny in his Art Letter- thanks Paul!

So, there will be very few words- just a lot of images. This was a 5 hour process, as we were still figuring out where holes were going to be drilled and how things were going to line up. From now on it should go up with no problem and should take just about an hour to install. 

With no further interuptions, I give you… Mattress Bunny

we will be posting more images tomorrow of the opening and such. We are looking for another venue to show mattress bunny- so let us know if you have anything in mind. Otherwise, we will be installing mattress bunny in our back yard so those who want to can see it in all it’s alley glory.

As you may or may not know, this past week has been really crazy.  We’ve been working so much we haven’t really had a chance to post images.   The recent storms have forced us to work inside–both in our living room and in the basement laundry room.  I know you’re excited to see what our working conditions were like, and we are excited to show them to you, well kind of.  So, without further ado, we enter. . . The Dungeon!

So this was basically mattress bunny H.Q. for a few days. Not much of a view.

We had our own work stations.  I operated the sewing machine stitching the two sides of the mattress together while Lucy tacked the piping on by hand. 

Sewing Station

Pinning would take too long so I just held the pieces together and ran with it.

Piping Station

Lucia used clips to hold a section of the trim onto the edge of the mattress.

I feel it should be noted that this dark blue mattress still smells a little like alley.  Next mattress bunny we’ll take all the mattress to the cleaners!

It’s 2am, early Monday morning. We never made it to artXposium to install. We just couldn’t. The piping has been taking me forever- and then we stumbled upon the problem of putting the soft structures over the chipboard forms, upon other blunders. It’s just been one disappointment after another.

We figured it wasn’t worth driving out to West Chicago and trying to finish out there. Andy has work from 8-5 tomorrow and when he’s off we’re going to go to install. There will be a few things to get done while we’re there- but super minor (I hope) compared to what we’ve been doing today.

Anyway, I’ll be posting the few pictures we have taken tomorrow.. Seriously though, I’ve just been sewing- all of the pictures look the same. You can also see what we had to do to avoid the rain these past few days. This last part of the project has really been depressing. Andy is trying to get a few more things done before we go to bed, and he can’t find his spade bits. . .

Until then, think about how great it would be if there was a nine foot tall mattress bunny. A giant, fluffy, stinky bunny.

so it’s after a mini dutch opening. . .

we had a HUGE fallback yesterday- the piping can’t be added with the sewing machine. It needs to be stitched on first by hand and then it can be gone over with the machine. I’m the one adding the piping by hand. We weren’t anticipating this fallback- a fall back of two days. 

We’re installing this tomorrow, and we aren’t done. I’m finished sewing for the night- my eyes can’t focus. Andy is working the body. He has work tomorrow from 8am-12pm and I have gallery hours from 11am-3pm. No matter what we are leaving by 3:30pm for artXposium.

Wish us luck- we need it.

Today- right now- is a mattress bunny day. Yup. The last full mattress bunny day we have left before install. Andy is trying to get the sewing machine working, so I have some time to chat. Well, not that much time- but I am going to post some pictures of the last mattress bunny day- not yesterday, but the day before.

our backyard has been our studio lately

Our set up. We went across the street and washed the remaining mattress at the laundry mat. I know, gross, but I couldn’t go through scrubbing them in the alley again. We also were running out of time and couldn’t spend an entire day washing. On the upside, these last few mattresses are SUPER CLEAN! The crazy stain on the the turquoise mattress disappeared.

connect the dots!

My job was to cut out the mattresses. I was giving the mattress 1/2″ more materials than the chipboard pattern. After drawing dots around the pattern, I connected them and then cut them out.

my size bunny?

the haunches cut out. I kept the chip board on the mattress to weigh it down since it was shifting around.

LOVE HAUNCH! BABY LOVE HAUNCH!

So, Andy was being super cute and without me knowing cut a heart out of one of the haunches. I know, it’s so sappy and cute- AND I LOVE IT!!! It’s the little things that make me happy.

so this is love... la de de da...

I mean, come on… how could you not love this guy?

enough said

But seriously, Andy was making all of the cuts that would space out the two chipboard patterns to mimic the springs in a mattress.

all of the parts cut out and neatly stacked

some leftovers from some of the mattress

That’s all for now. It’s raining, and we’ve set up camp in the basement- in the laundry room. I’m going to see how Andy is doing with the sewing machine.

So here we are, less than a week from install, and quite not there yet. We actually did this work two days ago, but I will post as if it just happened.

We have a few days lined up where we HAVE to work on mattress bunny to get it done in time. One of those days was yesterday, but we didn’t get any work done. It rained all day. I mean, all day. So, now we’re pushed behind schedule.

It was still day, but starting to get a bit dark

I started to transfer the templates I made onto the chip board to use as the backing of the mattress pads. Andy is busy tearing the piping out of the mattresses so we can reattach it when it’s all sewn together.

We enjoy switching traditional gender roles

But we sometimes switch back

Figuring we’re running out of time, and Andy cuts a lot faster than I do, we switched places. As you can tell it’s starting to get dark, and we won’t be able to work for much longer.

But we just keep switching it up

Though Andy was doing the cutting, I was making sure that the cutouts were smooth and okaying them. I was also the one tracing the templates and correcting lines where they seemed to wander off.

It got so dark..

So, we cut everything out, and realized we might not have enough material. The thought of collecting another mattress is horrifying. We still need to measure to make sure we’re good though (keep your fingers crossed).

And so, tomorrow is another mattress bunny day. We should get a ton done, and if not…

I don’t even want to think about it.