From the Archive: We were writing a story together, and then a character... left?
From the Archive: We were writing a story together, and then a character... left?
From 2020, when I was making art in a bank vault... and Sloth and Manatee were born
A bank vault is a room full of stories, so I've treated it that way in the various art installations I've made or curated to put in there. Now is no exception.
Everything started pretty normally, a story on the walls a page at a time, readers voting on what would happen next. We even had a nice setup with keys from the vault, used to vote on outcomes by dropping them into a jar marked "1" or "2" for the choices.
The story started with Birthday Kitty, from one of my most popular drawings, receiving a knock at his door. And it went from there. People voted, pages went up. And then... well, here, you can read how it started out:
And then, you'll notice, we did both choices! Things are getting crazy! This ensued:
And then, things started getting dicey:
OK now, HERE's where things went, well, off the page. Because Kitty just, well, he fell into someplace new.
Locks? Why yes, it's a bank vault! It's full of them. But Kitty got this random key, right? ...Right?
Um, maybe not. Remember? It's in Sloth's soup. Oops.
So NOW what? There appears to be a tiny kitty in ducky pajamas and slippers wearing a party hat running around inside a bank vault. And his friends have no idea where he's gotten to.
You can follow this silliness on Instagram at my account, search the hashtag #unknownkeyadventure - and I'll be putting it all in an online home soon, too. But the most fun will be coming to JPGatTheBank in Lafayette CA. to see what this fellow gets up to in person. The vault itself becomes the story, its boxes resembling frames in a comic. Or a big jungle gym. Or something.
And I'm sure Kitty will be on some sort of quest for birthday cake, since that's his favorite and it's got to be SOMEbody's birthday in here. Right?
It's just getting started, with help from the voting public! Hooray!
May your story bring good surprises, may you read a good comic, won't you be my neighbor?
- Betsy