San Marcos Studio Tour 2026

2026 marked my third official entry in the San Marcos Studio Tour hosted by MotherShip Studios. I technically participated in 2023, but I was piggy-backing on Julia’s tour stop. Check out my gallery and interactive tour stop here for 2024. While I was also officially involved 2025, I was only able to put so much effort into my gallery piece and tour stop because my wedding later in the month was dominating my creative and production attention.

However, in 2026 I was able to commit more fully, which manifested in a fun gallery piece and interactive portrait experience in my garage.

GALLERY

My goal of 2025 was just to participate. For the gallery portion I submitted a photo of my then pregnant fiancée. I was disappointed by the reaction to the photo. The photo itself was fine, but a photograph in a gallery filled with all mediums felt like a weaker draw. For 2026 my goal was to demand attention and the piece entitled “Here I sit…” achieved its goal.

“Here I sit…” is a 10 minute video loop from the perspective of someone sitting on the toilet in a public restroom. The viewer watches feet pass under the stall that sometimes stop to make a brief scene before moving on. The video is beautifully framed with additional bathroom fixtures adhered. Most notably, dry erase markers are provided without instruction.

Without explicit permission, the gallery-goers drew graffiti on the piece. People were brave enough to contribute to the bathroom stall’s canvas, but no one took a chance to erase anything. I wiped the slate clean though using the supplied toilet paper.

CAST

This project would not have been possible without the performances by Julia Fae and Gabe Cortez.

CONCEPT & BUILD

This piece needed a lot of helping hands. I put together an extensive deck to sell my talented friends on helping me out for free. The concept was not easy to visualize when pitching with words alone, so I had to develop clear mockups to get everyone on the same page.

The guts of the piece are comprised of a Raspberry Pi 3, a cheap computer monitor, cheaper speakers, and the flattest cables and power components I could find. The frame was masterfully crafted by Mike Boland in a single afternoon.

STUDIO TOUR

My decently sized garage has been used as a studio in the past and was the location of my tour stop. I had about sixty visitors visit over the course of the two weekends I participated. I continued to sell Don’t Drink This Coffee prints along with the Attic Ted album I did the photos of entitled “Starfish As Man.”

Participation was the goal for my tour stop. I created a setup that allowed visitors to design their own lighting for a portrait, which was kind of a glorified photobooth. The mechanics of the DIY lighting was comprised of an old overhead projector I purchased on eBay and colorful transparency sheets cut into playful shapes. Visitors were invited to layout the shapes on the overhead projector, which I hoped triggered some childhood memory of using such a device in school. I had to remove the light from the projector and inserted a strobe into machine to get the power of light I was hoping to achieve. A second strobe was used to accent the subjects with a little hot hair light.

Folks of all ages enjoyed playing with the setup.