midwest existential: part 4

the theater is nearly ready.  there is mostly the details left in finishing out the plex light boxes, closing off light leaks and getting the projection set up properly and functional.  now it's on to the advertising/merchandising/mechanizing work making prints and memorabilia.

my theater is called the ritz: after the theater in portland, in.  i just thought it is a perfect name for what i'm working on.  i hope my ritz has all the mustiness of the portland ritz.

i can't say i remember exactly what the walls in any movie theater look like.  i guess i pretty well ignore them.  but i wanted my theater to have a slightly off-putting but an over-all warm, incandescent feeling.  like maybe it was a place to see a silent film in the 20s, the latest release in the 50s, porn in the 70s and a haunted house in the 90s.  the walls inside and out are covered in layers of different panels and then painted in multiple layers of wash and spray paint and covered with repeating stencil patterns.  i cut at least 5 (maybe 6 or 7) new stencils that feature winding repeating patterns.  after the number of repetitions i sprayed of each stencil for this project, they are all pretty well destroyed, but the walls look great.

here's a sample of one of the walls feature 3 different patterns playing off of each other.

one of the walls is built out of the metal skin of the former front door to foam city.  to make the place public accessible there was a lot of stuff that had to be changed, and the shitty rusting, rotting front door was one of them.  i came to the studio one day to find it soaking in beer and rain by the dumpster and salvaged the front metal skin.  now it's part of the theater.

former front door of foam city.  now a crusty, rusty magnet board for me.