Nomadic Rabbit Hole Pendants

When my good friend and longtime burner Damon (which spells Nomad backwards) started regular throwing parties in NYC, he asked me to make commemorative pendants to sell to guests.  That was in November of 2016, and now the Nomadic Rabbit Hole parties are some of the best of NYC's underground scene.  We create new designs for each party, and there have been 7 pendant designs so far.  The process begins with Damon sending me inspiration photos, either from work he's commissioned from other artists or popular art that becomes the base for our ideas.  Then, I use Adobe Illustrator to create a drawing and laser cut the pendants in wood.  I'm honored to be a part of Damon's events by creating wearable art for party guests!

Toad Pendants

In 2011, I was living in NYC and helping out on an art car project called TOAD, one of my favorite art cars. TOAD was built by my good friends, husband and wife team Boris and Lori, to resemble a giant hypnotoad.  It's a DJ booth with professional sound and lighting systems, including spiraling LED eyes to achieve the hypnotic effect. I was the team's graphic designer and came up with the TOAD logo one afternoon while brainstorming with them.  The logo looked equally good in the toad face as well as in a psychedelic mushroom, so we decided to use two colors of neon acrylic and both icons to create pendants.  Since I was using my university's laser cutter at the time, the quality of our first round of pendants was not good.  Many of them were stuck in the sheet of acrylic and had to be cut out with an x-acto knife.  So, when I had the opportunity to use TechShop's Universal laser cutter, I offered to make a new run of these and send them to the happy TOAD crew back in NYC.  To this day, these are some of my favorite pendants because of their bright colors and fun design.

Pendants for Burning Man's Placement Team

Burning Man is fueled by hundreds of volunteers, and some of the most notable are those on the Placement team.  This team lays out the theme camps in the city, creating vibrant neighborhoods with participatory activities like yoga studios, restaurants, bike repair stations, jungle gyms, and more.  My neighborhood placer hired me to create pendants that she could gift to her team, and I was thrilled to have the opportunity.  She provided the Placement logo, which was blue and white.  This was my first time using white paint on acrylic and the initial tries did not go well.  The paint peeled and did not look clean when I pulled the paper off the acrylic.  So next I tried acrylic gesso, which is basically a primer for acrylic paint.  The gesso worked wonderfully and left crisp, clear lines.  I am so happy to have contributed by designing a gift for the BRC Placement Team, who work every year to place my theme camp, and thousands of others!