Alligators in the Air!

transitions are hard

Shortly before college graduation I completed an installation for a one month show at Lift Coffee Shop & Cafe in Richmond, Virginia.

The cafe is one of those long and narrow downtown spots with a wall that goes on forever. With the available space I decided to write and illustrate a sort of installed children’s book. The cartoon panels were mounted individually on wood board, and arranged into mobile sculptures that served as pages. The mobiles where then hung in the gallery all along the wall amongst the existing decorative clouds.

I’ll link to the full comic below but here are some of my favorite panels.

I don’t have any photos of the original installation but if the layout below were printed at actual size it would be about 45 feet across. The best way to view it, as close to its intended format as possible, is on Miro where you can pan and zoom.

Click here to view the entire full resolution comic on Miro. You don’t have to install or sign up for anything.

A short soundtrack for the piece was written several months later by David Spengler. For the full experience try listening in one tab while reading the story in another.

---

---

I would remiss to not admit that this work was aided by many others. Friends who offered encouragement and feedback. Friends who pulled that double all-nighter to help bend and hot glue wire frames that sliced all of our hands to shreds. Lift for giving me the space to hang this insane project. Everyone who attended the opening amidst my zombified presence. And most of all my ever patient and supportive wife who keeps putting up with this madness.

---

👻 👻 👻 👻 👻 👻 👻

---

What follows is a lot of rambling as I try to recall the absolute emotional wreck I became after finishing this piece. You don’t have to read it. There isn’t much to be learned. Transitions can be difficult. I put too much pressure on myself. I had a distorted view of reality. You can just as well leave on a happy note. But I suppose it’s all spirit and was part of the journey.

Do as you like.

This is the sort of stuff I would normally just cross out but I’ve decided to leave as is. It’s not entirely coherent but I wasn’t at the time either so perhaps it fits.

The story which followed a boy on a hot air balloon around the world was written to fit the space. The final piece was in black and white and contained no words.

the wall such that a patron could follow the flow of the story as they walked from one end of the cafe to the other. Essentially going on the same journey as the characters.

This was another one of those projects that doesn’t really work in the traditional formats. It could probably be adapted to a book but at the time I had strong opinions that I held tightly. Had I been a bit more flexible I might have found a bit more of the opportunities I was looking for. I now consider this work a joyful success but at the time I saw it quite a bit differently. It’s complicated I guess.

I was lucky enough get a write up in a local magazine and received an offer for a second showing at another venue. I even managed to somehow get someone else excited enough about it to write background music for it. Why did I see this as such a disaster at the time?

Thinking about this piece now I find it interesting how negative my reaction to how this work

The story follows a boy who joins two alligators in a hot air balloon on a journey around the world making friends along the way.

At the time it had some wonderful airy decor and floating clouds along the wall.

the largest panels are 11x17 so the layout at actual size would be about 46 feet wide…

I had planned at some point to create an short video pan and zoom with this playing in the background but I don’t think I ever finished that bit.

This is another one of those comics that doesn’t really work in print form or on a typical web page. Miro is about as good as you can get outside of VR for digital presentation.

Looking back, I’m really proud of this piece. At the time, it nearly killed me.

I was about to transition from being a student to “productive member of society”. As a young father

I have a lot of feelings about this comic. I pushed myself too hard to meet deadlines and ended up burnt out and depressed. I don’t want to get too into it as these days I view this work as a joyful success.

I was about to transition from a student living off of loans to a young man trying to support his family. I wasn’t getting enough steady work as an illustrator and I had mouths to feed. It was time to put down the brush and get a real job. This was my swan song.

I was overly ambitious. I generated unrealistic expectations for myself. I built this up to be way more than it was. No one thought this would be my last comic except for me. I had about a month to get the whole thing done while also working, raising a 4 year old, and wrapping up a rigorous 4 year fine arts degree. I ended up pulling a double all nighter before the show to finish inking and creating all the panel arrangements before actually hanging everything the day of the opening.

These days I’m really proud of what I was able to pull together. At the time I viewed it an unmitigated disaster. I didn’t sell a single panel. I was completely burnt out. I still had to graduate, get a job, and support my family. Depression set in. I didn’t make comics for several years.

I’m not really sure what the lesson is. I’m not sure why I thought this was my last chance to be an artist. I don’t have any idea why I thought a show at a coffee shop would make or break my career. Don’t make things bigger than they are?

have a wonderful week. apologize for the melancholic ramble

---

---