Dream Big (computer generated draft)

Pete at work on the mosaic – Photo by Paul L. Newby II, Grand Rapids Press

Configuring a cube – Photo by Paul L. Newby II, Grand Rapids Press

Close to completion – Photo by Paul L. Newby II, Grand Rapids Press

On display at ArtPrize – Photo by Tori Jo, Flickr

Technicals:
The mosaic is made of 4,242 officially licensed Rubik’s Cubes. It measures 19′ x 8’6″ x 2.25″ (5.8m x 2.6m x 5.7cm ). It weighs roughly 1000 pounds (454kg). Each cube has been “reversed solved” or twisted so that one of the faces maps it’s nine stickers into the total image, 38,178 stickers total. The construction process took a little over 40 hours and the final installation to about five and a half hours with 6 volunteers helping. The cubes were rented through the You Can Do The Cube organization. The mosaic was on display during the 2010 ArtPrize competition in Grand Rapids, Michigan USA from September 22nd to October 10th. There were roughly 30,000 people who came to view the mosaic during that time. “Dream Big” placed in the top 50 out of 1,700+ entries. The mosaic was left intact for a month after the competition in an attempt to sell it. The pending sale did not materialize and the mosaic was disassembled in late November and the cubes were shipped back to their originating points.

Costs:
The cubes themselves were rented for roughly $8,000 however the total cost of the project was approximately $9,000. A private donation was made for $4,000 and fundraising through special events and Kickstarter.com helped to raise the remainder.

About the Artist:
Pete Fecteau is a designer by day. He attended Kendall College of Art & Design in Grand Rapids, Michigan and attained his BFA in Digital Media Design in 2007. His design portfolio can be seen at http://buttonpresser.com. He mainly works as an interactive designer and helps build online and mobile experiences. Pete also loves illustration, painting, and sculpture and finds time between work to create more traditional art aside for his Rubik’s Cube mosaics. His wife Caitlin and he were married on August 27th, 2011 in Brighton, Michigan they both relocated to San Francisco in January, 2011 were Pete had been awarded a fellowship with Code for America.

Inspiration for “Dream Big”:
Upon graduating college, Fecteau accepted a position as design integrator at Spout.com, based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Spout.com was later sold and the group became Pomegranite Studios. Pomegranite Studios, owned by Rick Devos (son of Amway co-founder Dick Devos), created ArtPrize, the world’s largest art competition. ArtPrize’s inaugural year in 2009 drew 1,262 artists and Fecteau, having history with the organization and a deep-seeded interest in art decided to volunteer his time helping with registration of voters and artists. Fecteau knew that he would want to compete in the 2010 competition but was failing to find a competitive concept. During the time he was volunteering, Fecteau went home to sleep and had a dream where he was using Rubik’s Cube to create something. Pete had been solving the Rubik’s Cube as a hobby since his time at Spout.com. Upon waking up, Fecteau set to document the idea and brainstorm other areas of the concept to make it well-rounded.

Collaboration:
As with any project of this size and scope, Fecteau required help from a number of different organizations and individuals. One of the first collaborations was with The Student Advancement Foundation. Fecteau was seeking advice on how to integrate his project into the Grand Rapids Public School system and Susan Heartwell, Executive Director of the foundation (and wife of Grand Rapids mayor George Heartwell) offered advice, networking and later, legal help through fiduciary support. Soon to follow was Cooley Law School, a student organization within the school helped Fecteau legitimize his fundraising efforts through helping him attain a 501c3 tax license. This tax license was never fully completed due to the fiduciary support from The Student Advancement Foundation. At this time a close friend of Fecteau’s, Mia Klavon, offered her expertise in art administration and fundraising and she quickly took over the efforts of fundraising and grant writing. One of the most important collaborations happened with You Can Do The Rubik’s Cube (YCDTRC), an organization run by Seven Towns who manages the Rubik’s Cube brand. YCDTRC is a educational program that provides Rubik’s Cube-related educational kits to teachers. YCDTRC informed Pete that due to licensing, purchasing off-brand cubes from Asia (as was his initial plan) would not be legal. They offered to rent Fecteau the cubes he required using the money that had been raised. Fecteau found a venue that had enough space to display the massive mosaic at First Park Congregational Church. The church also allowed Fecteau the use of a small room behind the stage were the mosaic would be installed as a studio where he could work on the construction. Another individual, Sam Klee, a young documentary film maker was connected with Fecteau. Klee was filming a documentary that followed artists through the ArtPrize competition. Fecteau was one of his subjects. As the cubes were delivered, Fecteau enlisted his friends to help with unpacking each cube. Later after the construction was completed many of his friends returned to help with the installation. Klee filmed a time-elapse video of the installation and edited it for use during the competition. It help the public understand details of the mosaic that might not have been apparent at first. During the competition, church parishioners volunteered their time to help control the crowd and answer questions. In addition to the mosaic, four other artists displayed their works in the church’s hall.

Outcome:
Fecteau’s “Dream Big” placed in the top 50 out of 1,700+ pieces entered. There was substantial buzz around the piece during the competition due in part to the television interviews and front-page newspaper articles regarding it. The public had trouble finding the venue and many maximized their time by visiting some of the larger venues that housed more artists. Despite these setbacks, the church estimated that 30,000 people came to visit the work, drawing more traffic than one of the major exhibition venues. The voting process, which was mainly text-message driven, experienced technical glitches and an undetermined percent of votes were lost. After the competition there was limited interest from private parties in the purchase of the mosaic. One such party was in talks with Fecteau for nearly eight months before the deal failed to be finalized. In September of 2011 an image of Fecteau working on the construction of the mosaic became popular on the internet and a resurgence of interest in the piece was reflected in the millions of views and traffic to his artwork website petefecteau.com.

Parallel Work:
Fecteau continues to work with YCDTRC as a consultant. He has helped create a “mosaic builder’s guide book” which teaches school children how to create a mosaic using one of the templates he also created. Fecteau also designed custom mosaics which YCDTRC facilitated school children in building for The Today Show and The Bay Area Science Festival.

I’m stunned. The organizers, artists, venues and viewers have all pulled together for another amazing ArtPrize. I am also stunned by the outcome of my last year’s worth of hard work. Surreal has been a popular word in my mouth lately. I still look at the mosaic and think that it’s all a dream. Taking pictures with ArtPrizers, signing autographs, front page press; all very cool, humbling and certainly surreal. I’m honored and humbled. So many people have helped me get to this point and they should also feel pride in helping something big happen. I wont start my acceptance speach (yet) but I will make sure to post the names of all those who’ve helped me complete my mosaic.

Here’s the video that Sam Klee has put together for me to use at the venue. visit his site at uthunkmedia.com.

“The 11th Hour” Sept 20th, 2010.

Holy Cow. My nerves are wrecked. It’s been an insane time getting all the little details pulled together at the last minute. I’m so scatter brained that I put my shirt on inside-out this morning and have been wearing it like that for a few hours now, at work.

The mosaic is finished. It took a little over 40 hours to complete. Tonight and tomorrow we will be transfering it into the frame that Wendel from First (Park) Congregational Church built over the weekend. I freaked out a little bit when I saw it. It is MASSIVE and beautifully built.

There are only a couple engineering concerns about how the mosaic will hold under it’s own weight but we have a couple trick up our sleeves if we need.

Over the weekend the PR for the project exploded. I was on the front page of the Grand Rapids Press, NPR made a mention, WXYZ in Detroit did an interview and a couple other local papers and radio stations are making mentions. Myself and Mia Klavon (greatest event coordinator ever) went to Ferndale Michigan were I was a featured artists at the Funky Ferndale Art Festival. We had an amazing time meeting everyone and spreading word about the project. We constantly had a crowd in front of the tent. It was a great beta test on how ArtPrize may go. The word-of-mouth was superb. Special shout out to Mark Loeb, event organizer, for having us out and treating us so good. Also Jeff Smith, our booth neighbor and also a talented ceramic artist who helped us get our act together. It was a great experience and Mia and I are completely exhausted.

Starting at 5:30pm this afternoon we will be moing the mosaic into the frame. It’s a manual process that will take some time and a lot of care. I’m planning on finishing tomorrow night. During the process we will be capturing a time-elapse video to share with you. Sam Klee will be heading that project. Man that kid is awesome. He gets the PixelPete seal of approval.

It’ll be ready, albeit by the skin my teeth, for ArtPrize on Wednesday. See you there.

“Feeling the Love” Aug 24th, 2010.

Howdy friends! So I’ve been home sick with some sort of flu for a couple days and have some time to catch up on my writing. I have a three exciting things to share. First off is a great article written by a very talented teen by the name of Sam Klee. Sam is an aspiring documentarian (new word?) that interviewed me down at the venue a couple of weeks ago. Sam is currently working on a documentary about ArtPrize and is interviewing artists participating in this year’s competition. The PixelPete team is very proud to have such an opportunity. We’re looking forward to contributing further to his film and offer him some candid behind-the-scene and in-the-head content. Here’s the link to the article Sam’s posted on his blog (Blog Article). Sam will be in attendance of our second news announcement…

A follow up interview with Fox17′s Tim Doty. You may remember that Tim did an initial interview in March where he discussed the benefits of using the Rubik’s Cube in the classroom and we visited with Matt Porter and his after school class that is already using them. We had a lot of fun and the interview went so well we landed a follow up that will film and be aired tomorrow, August 25th, 2010. We’ll be live at 6:15 and 6:40 and have another airing around 10:15ish. You can view the video clips on their website (http://www.fox17online.com/) after they have been aired. Tim is a lot of fun and makes interviewing a pleasure not a nerve-wracking endeavor like I initially thought.

Thirdly, We’ll be making a trip out to Ferndale, Michigan for their annual Funky Ferndale Art’s Fair. The project has been selected as one of their feature pieces and provide us a great opportunity to let people know about what we’re doing. Check out the write-up here (Funky Ferndale Art’s Fair).

“Cubes, Cubes, and more Cubes” Aug 21st, 2010.

The initail shipment of cube was delivered last week and I got to work immediatly on the mosaic. I’m glad to say that the process is going at at least twice the speed I originally intended. This takes an emmense pressure of me. The mosaic is now 40% complete and is looking amazing. It’s surreal to see it somewhere other than in my head and on a computer screen.

I’ll be getting the second and final shipment of cube in a week or so and fevorishly working to complete the mosaic, hopefull a full week ahead of schedule. At that point I can focus on building a sturdy frame to display the mosaic at the venue.

"Dream Big" forty percent complete

There were more posts but the posts above capture the spirit of my production blog pretty well.