Denver Art Museum Installation Gig

May 4, 2016

Over the last few weeks I had the pleasure of working alongside Denver artist Hadley Hooper (her website is www.hadleyhooper.com) at the Denver Art Museum to install an actual masterpiece Hadley designed during the first few months of 2016. The installation, titled Tableau, transforms an entire room into a magical land, crossing the lines between a theater set and a pop-up book... and the best part is, you're meant to interact with it! There are benches and swings and holes to peer through and photos to be taken. We brought the entire piece to life using wallpaper paste to meticulously glue over 500 individual sheets of 30 X 20 inch copy paper to the walls and wooden creatures.

Tableau will sit on the second floor of the Hamilton Building (the crazy pointy building) at the DAM for the next year. It's sophisticated, but it's also fun. Go play with it.

Check out the Instagram/Twitter hashtag #TableauDAM to see more. Opens to the public on May 8, 2016.

Chronicler Studio LLC

Illustration & Design by Sophia Brown

Stay tuned to this blog to hear more in depth about the process behind some of the projects on the website, www.chroniclerstudio.com. I also post exciting news about personal projects (A.K.A., the work I like to do when no one is paying me to do it)!

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Illustration for The DBQ Project, based on the Navajo tale “Coyote Places the Stars.” After Black God was finished creating the star patterns, he started to sit down and admire what he had done. But before he could, Coyote, who was always hanging around looking for trouble, approached the group of gods. “See here, what are you doing? You didn’t ask my advice!” Coyote was a trickster, and the other gods didn’t like his pranks, because he often meddled with their carefully organized plans. Black God answered, “You can see for yourself what I have done. Look at all the beautiful patterns I have created. These patterns will provide humans with the rules to live by on earth.” Black God, who always sat with his legs crossed, protected his fawnskin pouch by placing it under his foot. This time, before he could be stopped, Coyote quickly reached for the pouch and snatched it away. “Here, let me help you,” he said with a grin. Then, opening the pouch, Coyote blew the remaining crystals across the sky. He scattered thousands of points of light in a disordered jumble. There they remain today. Only the patterns that Black God placed so carefully now have names. The ones Coyote blew at random into the sky are nameless, except for a single star. After he had emptied the pouch and scattered its contents, Coyote looked inside. “There is one crystal left. It shall be my star!” Then, mimicking Black God’s placement of North Fire, he took that crystal and set it in the south. Today it is called the Coyote Star. It is also called the Monthless Star, because it appears only for a few days in the year, far to the south. Black God scolded Coyote for disturbing his arrangement of the stars and leaving so much chaos and disorder in the sky. Coyote just laughed.

Before/after illustrations for The DBQ Project based on the Karuk legend “Coyote Lays Down the Law.” People once said, “Let the river flow DOWNstream on one side, and UPstream on the other side, let it be that way.” So all right, when they traveled DOWNstream by boat, they drifted down, downstream. But they’d travel back up on the other side of the river, they’d drift upstream too, as it flowed UPstream, that water. And then Coyote said, “Not at all! Let it not be that way, let it all flow DOWNstream. “Let the young husbands have to push their way up there, when they travel UPstream.” And then again people said, “Women carry their packbaskets UPhill, up there they put wood in them, they make basketloads. “Then the women leave for home. “And they just leave them there, those basketloads.” And they said, “They’ll just WALK home, those basketloads.” And then Coyote said, “Don’t do that! Not at all! Let the young wives just CARRY the loads.” So that’s how it is, now they don’t walk any more, those basketloads. (From “They dance in the sky: Native American Star Myths” by Jean Guard Monroe and Ray Williamson)

Illustration for The DBQ Project based on the myth “Coyote Takes Water from the Frog People,” published last month. ... Coyote was out hunting and he found a dead deer. One of the deer's rib bones looked just like a big dentalia shell, and Coyote picked it up and took it with him. He went up to see the frog people. The frog people had all the water. When anyone wanted any water to drink or cook with or to wash, they had to go and get it from the the frog people. Coyote came up. "Hey, frog people, I have a big dentalia shell. I want a big drink of water. I want to drink for a long time. "Give us that shell," said the frog people, "and you can drink all you want." Coyote gave them the shell and began drinking. The water was behind a large dam where Coyote drank. "I'm going to keep my head down for a long time," said Coyote, "because I'm really thirsty. Don't worry about me." "Okay, we won't worry," said the frog people. Coyote began drinking. He drank for a long time. Finally one of the frog people said, "Hey, Coyote, you sure are drinking a lot of water there. What are you doing that for?" Coyote brought his head up out of the water. "I'm thirsty." "Oh." After a while one of the frog people said, "Coyote, you sure a drinking a lot. Maybe you better give us another shell." "Just let me finish this drink," said Coyote, putting his head back under water. The frog people wondered how a person could drink so much water. They didn't like this. They thought Coyote might be doing something. Coyote was digging out under the dam al the time he had his head under the water. When he was finished, he stood up and said, "That was a good drink. That was just what I needed." Then the dam collapsed, and the water went out into the valley and made creeks and rivers and waterfalls. The frog people were very angry. "You have taken all the water, Coyote!" "it's not right that one people have all the water. Now it is where everyone can have it." Coyote did that. Now anyone can go down to the river and get a drink of water or some water to cook with, or just swim around.