Art project: monster eaters

I meant to write a quick thing about this weeks ago, but completely forgot. So, I hope you can indulge me another competitive eating-related post. Huh? Plus, I promised I'd tell you about the secret art project we were working on, and this is pretty much it:

I bought a bunch of glass marbles and magnets at Michael's when I was in Denver for Christmas last year. I'd seen the project in some magazines and on some websites and thought it looked like an easy little project for when I got to feeling crafty. And then they sat there. For seven months. Around this same time, as the qualifiers for Nathan's were underway, I was thinking that it would be fun if Krista and I were able to give the eaters a little gift of some sort. I'd had this image of little monster versions of the eaters' personalities, but pictured them on little 1-inch pins (like the kind you had all over your backpack in high school). I got J in on this and we searched for a long time on the Internet for a button machine. But those things are expensive! I even held out some hope of finding one on Ebay, but they were all about the same price. Who knew so many people loved their button machines? I kinda thought it would be like a bread-maker or a food dehydrator: one of those gadgets you think you really want until you actually get it and it gathers dust for five years in the basement.

Feeling discouraged, I was about to give up on the whole thing. But then! Dun dun DUN...the magnets reentered my vision one day in the kitchen and an idea was born. Several obstacles presented themselves right away. Though I had a clear image of what I wanted these monster eaters to look like in my head, I possessed no actual skill needed to bring them into being. And since the idea of a magnet is a pretty shitty gift, I once again enlisted the help of J. He sketched out a few things, but it was slow-going. He didn't have the inspiration burning a hole in his head. I needed a way to connect my brain to his hands. Since no idea on how to do that was forthcoming, I did the next best thing and got Abby in on it. I tried explaining what I was thinking to her over IM and--before I was even done explaining--her response was: "OH MAH GAAAAAAAAAAAH. i love that. love it! are you thinking 3-d? or 2-d? i'm in!" And this from a girl who's never even gone to a competition! How's that for the love of the game?

So Abby got to work and sent over a bunch of designs, which J then reworked a little to fit into an aesthetic he established with a few early successes (Chip and Tim). The designing was tough because we decided to only do eaters who would be competing in the Nathan's finals, so we had a handful of definites and a list of people who would probably make it (they all did). Plus, the IFOCE threw us off by having a qualifier the night before the competition, which threw a wrench in the plan of including everyone. On top of that, we ran out of magnets.

You wouldn't think finding 1/2-inch round magnets in New York would be hard, but: oh. lord. I tried absolutely everywhere, and no one had them. Krista called the magnet place and tried to find distributors in the area to no avail. I was *this close* to hopping on a train and going to Long Island to get to the nearest Michael's. But on a whim, I tried one last store...and they had them! Slightly bigger and a little flatter, but they would work. I bought everything they had, which was barely enough.

July 1st and 2nd were craft days. Krista and her sister came over and we all got to work. Cutting out little 1/2-inch circles is very. tedious.

But I think the end result was worth it. We packed them up in little boxes and handed them out to the eaters on July 3rd and 4th.

They seemed to like them. In fact, Cookie Jarvis was upset that we hadn't included him. We explained that we'd just made ones for the eaters in the Nathan's competition, but he didn't like it. So later, we made one for him, too. And one for Erik, who qualified on July 3rd--too late for the initial art project.

Some monster eaters came out really well, and others we might do over. For instance, we'd only met Hall Hunt once, and he looked like this. But, now I can see he is usually more clean cut than that, so our identifying feature of a goatee wasn't so hot. Plus he was like, "Oh, I'm the one with the big square head..." Same goes for our "identifying feature" of glasses for Brian Subich and a jalapeno for Jed Donahue. Obviously, now that I've met him, Jed's monster should have had a little backpack.

Some hints if you'd like to also make some magnets:

You can order 1/2-inch magnets here for cheap.

When you buy the glass marbles (you can get them at florist supply stores), be sure they are completely clear, and not iridescent, because those won't work.

Though a fluke, we discovered that if you print your own images, it's best to do it with plain color ink. If you use photo ink, the images will reflect too much light and they'll be difficult to see under the glass.