Cody Goodin - The artistic and spiritual journey of Cody Goodin

Hi there out in blog land.  I hope all of you who are visiting me are doing well.  It is Autumn here in the Rivercity and one of my favorite times of the year.  It also signals the back to school season at the University near where I work at Plaza Artist Materials.  So, this past week has bee full of chaos, new faces and some non work related disappointments.  But, in the midst of all that I did manage a wee bit of work in the studio. This is a character I am working on for my visual theater series.  He is tentatively called Old Goat.  But, that might change.  I will wait until he is completed to give you the whole idea of who is and how he relates to the story.  His head and hands are sculpted from super sculpey.  His body is an aluminum alloy wire armature and then wrapped with many layers of cotton batting to fill out his form.  I created shoe forms for his feet as they will be covered anyway.  It makes the shoe creatio...

Greetings my blog friends.  I hope this Friday finds you doing well.  I have managed to get the Gesso coating on the chorus characters of my little mythic journey theater project.  Finally, I feel like my old creative self again.  I suppose it eas that process of refilling the well.  The fog has lifted, there's an anticipation in the air around me.  So, needless to say I am taking full advantage of this energy. Here is a group photo of the chorus.  They have their first coat of Gesso painted on them.  The next step is painting the heads and hands and getting that detailed.  Once I can get past that stage, I plan on painting a light layer of pearl white onto the Gesso-ed surface.  This will serve as the under garment. Once the under garment layer is dry, I will be applying the handmade paper to create the final costume.  This is a new process for me and I absolutely love it.  Building up the armatures ...

Good Monday morning to all of my followers and visitors out there in cyberspace.  I hope you are enjoying the beginning of this bright new week.  I managed to get some physical work done on my big project this past weekend.  I think my little down funk is waning.  So, I managed to get the first set of characters  for the first scene in my visual theater project well underway and are about halfway completed.  They are going to be a chorus, aka Greek version.  I applied the brown paper covering over the base armature to create the foundation for the garment. There are seven characters so far.  I think I may keep it at this number as it is a significant number symbolically for me too.  The next steps are painting the head and hands the final skin color and detailing these, base coat of gesso on the garment before applying the final layer of handmade paper to create the gown or robe effect. Here is another fun...

Well, I have not fallen off the end of the earth.  Even though it must seem like it.  This has been a rather odd summer for me.  But, rest assured I have been keeping busy, just not with the actual making of art yet.  I have been plotting and planning a big project that I am finally starting to work on.  But, in the meantime, I have done some baking. As my Clementine Cheesecake is a testament to that.  I made this for a party I am attending today. Secondly is a coiled vessel I made as a result of a class given by Robbie Porter, a member of the RiverCity Figurative Artists Guild here in Cincinnati.  It was a class to learn the technique of coiled baskets in hopes of incorporating the technique into a more figurative shape. This was the result.  I call it an coral vessel.  So, kiddies that's what I have been up to so far.  Thank you for keeping up with my adventure so far.  Have a great week ahead....

Hi out there in blog land.  I know it has been a bit since I last posted.  Please know I am not ignoring you all out there.  But, as I may have hinted at in earlier posts.  My work is undergoing a big change in direction right now.  I am still sculpting, but I am venturing into a different mode of presenting my creations.  I will give you a hint.  What do sculpted characters, lights, settings, backdrops and special effects have in common?  Yes, I am trying something totally different for me.  It is time that I merged a number of creative interests to present my story.  Last winter I taught an online class called Artspell, The Alchemy of M.E.  The ME stood for my experience.  It was a class meant to teach us how to discover our own mythic journey.  How can we tell the story of who we are to the world.  Little did I know this would open a rather big door.  So, my friends I have decided to step through this door ...

Hello my wonderful blog friends out there.  Sorry for the long silence.  I have been really struggling to get work done this summer.  There is always an excuse of one sort or another.  But, in the interim. I have decided to show some pics of my playing around with images of my little characters.  These are some of my early art dolls that I took digital pictures of and then imported them into Photoshop and had fun just playing around with them.  My original intent was to make ATC's (Artist Trading Cards) with the images. When I get some of my current works in progress complete I am planning on using them in some digital picture storytelling experiments.  Yes, I need a new distraction. All three of these figures were made using the stump doll style of body.  The heads and hands are mixed media.  Back in the day I used molds and then would alter them to create more unique features.  It's a lot of fun actually. ...

So, what's on my work table.  Well, layers of projects in various stages of completion or not.  My last post was talking about the Thinking Cap series.  That is still moving forward all be it slowly.  I am taking my time with that one.  It is slowly evolving into a very personal exploration into the power of words and how they shape our lives in subtle ways.  Kind of like labels or powerful spells that hit our psyches.  So, I am taking my time in exploring that idea.  At first I thought I would do pieces playing with the idea of four letter words. But,, quickly found myself looking at my choices of the words I had intended on using.  Starting thinking about why I chose particular words.  That morphed into words that I realized had some impact on my life whether it was positive or negative.  Anyway that is where that series is at this point in my art drama.  But, above is a shot of some heads I am working on for a var...