Dani needed something smoother

Dani reached out for their favor, asking for assistance with preparing some particle board as a canvas. We discussed it for a little bit, and met up at my soon to be former studio on U of O campus. I brought my orbital and some sanding disks, so truly the favor took maybe 5 minutes tops. We spent more time discussing how and when to meet up than doing the actual do. That’s not unusual, I’ve found, and I’m glad that I enjoy that logistics communication process overall.

Picture of Dani and the freshly sanded, unpainted canvases.

Dani said that they intend to paint Joan of Arc, and I’m stoked to see how it turns out.

Cut a thing shorter

Stacy Jo called in her favor to cut down a hollow core door for a desk. The door was about 7ft tall, typical door height, and she wanted it cut down and then a block glued into the resulting void so it was strong and whatnot. This is easy peasy stuff, and I had some spare time that afternoon, so I got right on it. Ended up slightly more complicated, as she requested that I not use any fasteners, nails, etc, so I decided to let the glue up sit over night, to assure that it was secure and whatnot. Came back and sanded down the excess glue and the edges to match the other side, and presto, an end of the door that can be hidden against a wall and never seen by mortals again.

The end results, with little clamp marks on the bottom.

I’m starting to see a small trend with the types of things that this project makes people think of. Labor can be conceived of pretty generally, I think. So far though, the labor I have done is in the production of something. Got me wondering if there’s any non-productive forms of labor that I will do for people. Babysit their pets/children? Something about labor and it’s relationship to tools, perhaps, is an unintended influence on the types of things I’m being asked to do.

Favor for Liberty(again?)

Liberty is a fellow BFA, who asked for my help preparing digital files for the laser. She made out of cardboard a maquette and then painstakingly measured and noted each piece and it’s connections. Her brother, I believe then modeled this and produced some SVG’s and some DXFs. All fine and good, except for a couple things, which are typical in my experience when people start to engage with CAM and lasers and such. I was asked to come in and babysit the Laser, load the files and materials and make sure everything was good to go. Thing is, you have to come with files that contain all the things, called nesting, so that you don’t waste materials and time. Often, this is done automatically by whatever program you are using to model everything. So what I actually ended up doing was getting all her files together, and creating all the cut files for the sculpture, so that Liberty could cut them the next day. This took around 4 hours or so, including when we initially met to go over what the plan was, up till I delivered the cut files. So, like all plans, it did not actually survive contact with the enemy, but I think we still made it work. I’ll update this post with a few images of the finished product, if Liberty says it’s alright.

First days of the 2022 run

Only a few days into the first week of the 2022 run, and it’s been pretty amusing. The first email I got was someone telling me to eat a fruit, as a favor to them. Which was both sweet, and completely missing what this project is about. Or maybe doing exactly what this project is about. That instinct for reciprocity, to want to do a good turn for another when they do a good turn for you. It’s a powerful motivator.

Ending of 2021 run, beginning of the 2022 run

ONEFAVOR Project: 2021

The 2021 run of the ONEFAVOR project was an exploration of mutual aid, currency, and community building. Ceramic tokens were created, each worth a favor from me, Zack Smith. The favor was left general and nondescript on purpose. The point was to try and engage with people directly, to help them with things that they otherwise wouldn’t or couldn’t have gotten to by themselves.

The original run was of 100 tokens total. 76 of those tokens were distributed to people in the Eugene, OR area. They were artists, students, gallerists, curators, and teachers. They were chosen for their proximity to me, Zack, and their presumed interest in the arts. Of those 76 people, 27 of them called in their favor token.

The favors had exactly 3 rules, and for the 2021 series, 1 limitation.

• Nothing Illegal

• Only Labor

• Nothing over eight hours of work

  The limitation I set was that these favors had to be redeemed within the year of 2021. After January 1st, 2022, they become paperweights.

  Below, you’ll find some documentation of what the favors were that were called in. It’s not exhaustive, and not everyone wanted me to document our interaction publicly. I tried to reflect on how the exchange made me feel, and how I thought it went, and anything else that might have come up while doing the task.

This run was ended as of Jan 1st, 2022. All posts going forward will be of the 2022 run’s results.

Tyrras presentation

As my favor for Tyrras, he asked me to do a presentation on the Onefavor project to his class. The class is one concerned with socially engaged art and performance art, which I’m told this project qualifies. I’m still struggling with my public speaking, mostly because it terrifies me and stresses me out. Not a unique complaint, but it’s mine all the same. I spent a just about 8 hours, including the actual presentation, doing this favor. This was during the pandemic, so it was all done via zoom. You can review the presentation, if you’re interested, HERE.

It was encouraging, the feedback I got from Ty’s students. They were all pretty much on board with the idea, and had some great questions. Sort of an ouroboros of a favor, but that’s kind of the point of this. To complicate how people think about exchanging things with eachother. Or maybe simplify it? At the very least, make it all a bit more chill and stress free.

Garrick Gallery help

Helped an artist, Garrick, do some installation for a show at a local gallery. It was pretty awkward, for the most part. Garrick didn’t really seem to need my help, and insisted on purchasing me a burrito as thanks for what little I did. I got the impression that he mostly appreciated my willingness to help him out, and wasn’t in a place where he could easily incorporate another persons labor into his process. That was eye opening, to have someone not know how to have someone help them with something. An important understanding, and one I’m not sure how to work on.

Nicole Pergola Plans

I reached out to an artist in LA named Nicole, who asked me to model/draw up some plans for a pergola to cover her outside studio. They know someone who can build it, but he only speaks Mandarin, and Nicole does not. So the idea is to give Nicole something to point at and grunt meaningfully, I suppose.

I had a pretty good time making all this up. Nicole sent me some photos and a rough map of where everything is located on her deck currently.

I also made up some funktastic blueprints, in case that was useful in some way.

Ari Clay Extruder Instruction

Yet another ceramics classmate, Ari, called in their favor for studio instruction. They had never used the studio’s clay extruder, and I was happy to show how it worked. They’re making some chains, and thought that extruding some tubes and slicing them up would expedite that process.

A simple favor, in this instance, but it’s more in line with what I’m shooting for. Getting people over the hump, injecting that activation energy into a project so it’s self-sustaining. Teaching skills is one of the great ways of doing that, I think. That whole teach a man to fish deal.

Ella Wheel Throwing Instruction

Another classmate, Ella, called in her favor recently as well. She was looking for more specific help with the crafting of a teapot, how to throw the individual parts, attachment, relationships and ratios between the parts, and then a couple days later(cheater!) she asked for help on how to trim the thing as well.

I anticipate much of my classmates favors will fall in the ceramics field, since that is where we interact the most. Time will tell, I suppose.

Lee's antique Jeep restoration and (possible) electric conversion.

A friend of mine, Lee, called in his favor this week, to help him figure out how to restore this old rusting Jeep of his. The main thing to get started on, the shell is mostly rust at this point. So Lee asked me to do my thing and make some tooling to form replacements for the rusting parts. Here’s how I approached it:

Step 1: take a bunch of photos for reference and photogrammetric reconstruction.

Step 2: Reconstruct

This is a render of the cleaned mesh. Still pretty rough.

This is as far as I’ve gotten at the moment, there are a few questions about just what and how big he needs this tooling. I anticipate the next step will be to model the forms, and then cut them out on the CNC table. I’ll update this as time goes on.

Katy Wheel throwing instruction

As the first officially recorded favor this year, a classmate of mine called in their favor. Katy was returning to the wheel after trying it many years ago, and asked me to give her a lesson on how to approach it. We spent about an hour going over the basics, centering, opening, pulling, setting the rim. The ol’ rhythm of mud spinning. She picked it back up pretty quick, and we only re-enacted Ghost a little bit.

Favor #1 completed: 4/20

One Favor 2021 Introduction

This is the place where I will be recording the favors done, with the permission of the recipients. The hope is to have photo and/or video documentation of the favor being completed, where feasible. I’m sure this is not the final documentation method, but it’s a good place to collect things as they occur.