how to

How To Straighten a Bent Wire

Seriously, there’s a way to do it. I’m going to show you how.

This is not a hidden metaphor. I am not trying to be profound.

I’m just going to show you how to straighten a goddamn muthafuckkin bent wire. So that in the off-chance someone you need to impress goes: ‘I need this wire straightened out, how?’, you can take charge. You can say: ‘Like this.’ And proceed to impress the pants off said person.

If you’re wondering, I needed to do this for my artwork Portable Sensors. It’s a set of interactive buzzwires based on statistics about banned books in Malaysia.

The work is currently touring in Indonesia, as part of the exhibition Kembara Jiwa (The Travelling Soul). Nur Hanim Khairuddin (the curator and all-round art superwoman) sent me some pictures of people playing with the work:

People touching my art. This makes me so happy.

Let’s get to it!

STEP 1: You’ll need a power drill, pliers/wire cutters, and of course, some bent wire.

STEP 2: Find somewhere secure and wrap one end of the wire around it. It needs to be firmly attached to something, preferably part of a building structure. A doorknob or towel rung on a shut door would work. I’m using this little hook at my front entrance. You can see the remainders of many past bent wires.

STEP 3: Open up the chuck of the drill and put the other end of the bent wire in there. Tighten firmly. Firm enough so that when you pull on it, the wire stays in.

STEP 4: Now stand-up, stand back, grip your drill firmly. Maintain a gentle pulling tension on the drill towards yourself as you turn the drill on. The wire will twist around itself. Continue holding the tension and pressing the drill button until it straightens out completely. Don’t over-straighten! The wire’s structural strength will be compromised and it may snap. You’ll find that the wire will also get a bit warm as it turns.

Cut the wire off and YOU’RE DONE.

So straight.

You can bend this totally straight wire into lovely shapes. Just like I did. Well my shapes are graphs about Malaysian censorship. You, you can do whatever gets you happy. Now, go make something.

You’re welcome!

Love,
Sharon

P.S. Here are some rejected Portable Sensors prototypes. It’s bonsai wire. Turns out the coating of black paint makes it unable to conduct electricity. That’s Zedeck’s finger doing photo-bombing. He said the wires reminded him of an album cover. Any idea which?

This is a series of weekly blog tutorials about how to do various things, from the practical to the esoteric. Go here to see past How Tos.

How To Make a #bungaBERSIH Flower Headdress

Let’s do this!

Ready?

It should take about an hour. You can wear this all weekend and soak in its glory.

STEP 1: Gather the ingredients

You’ll need:

– Safety pins
– Scissors & glue gun
– Cheap wire headband
– Thin ribbon in as many colours as you like
– Flowers*

*I’m using those from my #bungaBERSIH dress, which already have safety pins glued on. You can use any kind of fake flower (handmade or store bought) and hot glue a safety pin to the back.

STEP 2: Cut a ribbon 3 times the length of the headband

STEP 3: Tie ribbon to one end of the headband and start wrapping around it, going in between the teeth. Leave a nice length at your first knot.

STEP 4: This is what it’ll look like when you’re done. Now you’ve got a nice base to pin the flowers on.

STEP 5: Line up the flowers so you’ll know in which order you want them to be along the headband. Fire up your glue gun and glue a safety pin to the back of each flower (be sure to glue the non-moveable part of the pin).

STEP 6: Pin the flowers to the ribbon base. You can also sew the flowers on, but it takes longer. Also, with safety pins you can change the flowers when you feel like it! Not to mention take them off your head and pin them onto other people.

Flowers all pinned down:

STEP 7: Tie some short lengths of ribbon randomly between the flowers. This will make it look pretty.

STEP 8: Tie longer lengths of ribbon close to the first tooth of each side, so they can flutter around in the wind.

YOU’RE DONE!

Enjoy!

Read more about #bungaBERSIH in the last blogpost and on my website.

Tell me if you make this! I wanna see.

For the makeup geeks: Neon yellow eyeshadow from Sleek Acid palette under the eyes and all the way up and down the temples. Line the bottom waterline with white liner (Revlon Matte Luxurious Kohl in Pure White #004). Sheer purple lipstick (Rimmel Moisture Renew in Electric Plum).

How To Start Something

All the things I did to put off writing the first post for this blog:

1. Carefully painted on 3 (three!) layers of bright purple lipstick. Blot, apply, blot, apply, blot, apply again. Perfect. NOW! I can start.

2. Made coffee. Then tea.

3. Peeled a fruit. Ate it.

4. Blogged on the other blog.

5. Dishes! Such a clean sink. READY TO START!

6. No. Check email. Maybe something important. Yes! Update from some random gallery… in BIRMINGHAM, ENGLAND.

7. Lalalalalallaala strum my ukulele

8. It’s so hard, so hard. Why’s it so hard? 45 minutes of Existential Thinking.

9. Google. For three hours. One of the search queries may or may not have been ‘how to start’, also ‘make vegetable stock’, also ‘cool eye makeup’, also ‘DIY dress’, also ‘hawk tattoo’.

10. Quick email check. Press that refresh button like it’s going out of style. Yes! Press release from random gallery. So many people doing things. Living lives. Starting projects. Why must I be such a loser? All that time, lost lost lost. Never to be recovered.

11. Go out to the garden. Look at the weeds. Stare into space. Okayyyy… deep breath! NOW!

12. Google.

And so it goes. Repeated in one form or another for DAYS.

In my seven years of making and showing art, I’ve learned alot of things. I can now walk into a room full of strangers and talk about my work. I can say NO to people. I can ask for help. I can do guerrilla performances on the street.

But there’s one thing that has never gotten easier. Ever. Not even a little bit. And that is…

Starting something.

Anything. Whether it’s writing a project proposal, or moving out of the city, or buying a bicycle.

This little monster costs me more sweat, tears, worry and anxiety than anything else in my life combined. I used to think I would get better at it, a few years from now (whenever the ‘now’ was). But no. The same deep, un-nameable fear, and the same irrational shame at being unable to overcome it.

It’s a strange shadow to live with. Comparatively, making art is easy. It’s like breathing, or playing – it flows, a source of light, a kind of inexhaustible dance.

I think when people say ‘I could never do that’, they’re not actually talking about the ‘that’ as in the doing, the making, the singing, the writing. They’re talking about the shadow. Doubt, fear, guilt, shame. It’s made of all that, and more. I’ve found that it’s pretty inexhaustible too.

I don’t know how to start something at all.

I’m sorry for the misleading title.

You just do it. You have to. There’s no other way, no easy detour or neat path. You hold hands with the shadow, and – cursing all the while – you dance into the light.

Eventually.

Fucking hell, I think I just wrote the first blog post! Maybe I should thank my shadow.

What shadow do you live with, dear reader?

Clips from a little video poem called “Patterns”. I made it in my backyard, for my friends, the awesome folk behind Spread Videoart Project 2 in Japan.