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CHAPTER 1 - The Beginning

In the beginning there was cardboard. And it was good. This chapter details the secret origins of the Cardboard Man and all the various projects that led up to his conception.

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The Cardboard Monkey

For all of my childhood summers I went to Hidden Valley Camp. At the end of each session of camp you make a "friendship" present for another person at camp. This one year when I was 14 (or so) I made a Cardboard Monkey for a little boy named Robert. His favorite animals were monkeys, so I made him this one out of cardboard. It was my first venture into creating cardboard mammals.

PHOTO CBMonkey.jpeg

Unfortunately, this picture is the only documentation of the Cardboard Monkey. I think the concept was simple though. He basically worked on MUPPET technology. I hand slot in the back for operating the mouth and head and then two dowels that could be used to operate the arms of the monkey. The monkey was MOSTLY cardboard, but I think I used cloth to get the interior of the mouth and I used wooden dowels for the arm-rods.

James Cameron

My friend, Gabe Carleton-Barnes, had a hole in his ceiling during his Sophomore year at Oberlin College. During that year's Winter Term Gabe was gone and a bunch of foul-smelling liquid drained through the hole and onto his pillow. Since the pillow was ruined I attatched some cardboard appendages and a head and made James Cameron. I would say that this was all an EVOLUTIONARY process, but that would imply that James Cameron is more evolved than a monkey...

PHOTO JamesCameron.jpeg

This was definitely NOT a pure cardboard project. If I remember correctly, I ran pieces of coat hangers through the pillow to hold the cardboard into place. In this, the only surviving photo of James Cameron, he is seen wearing my flanel shirt and a hat. In a maddened rage one day I ripped James off the wall dragged him out to the hallway and beat the ever-loving shit out of him with my lightsaber. I didn't stop until all of his cardboard appendages were severly damaged. I still have the head somewhere... Most of my hatred for James Cameron stems from the fact that his crappy movie "Titanic" bumped "Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope" from the #1 slot of highest grossing films of all time. This is one of the ways I delt with that.

Social Night

My Sophomore year I lived with three other guys (Gabe Carleton-Barnes, Michael Cardiff and Samuel Greenberg) in the QUAD. We decided that instead of wandering around trying to find people to hang out with, we would have a party EVERY friday night and that way we would force people to come to us. All the other guys drink alcohol, I do not. When "Social Night" (as it was deemed) would start, I would go into the sleeping room and work on the Cardboard Man. People would check on me through the night and see how I was getting along. I think this whole thing started on a whim-- "I'm going to build a man out of cardboard." --That sort of thing.

PHOTO SNfeet.jpeg

This is where it all started: THE FEET. I took very careful measurements of my feet so that the they are the right size. There is also a lot of internal framework which makes the feet sturdy. In CHAPTER 7 you can see the drawing I did to help me build these.

PHOTO SNlegs.jpeg

The Legs were pretty straight forward. The knee joint is a simple Rod and Tube system (sort of how a toilet paper roll works). It provides the legs with up-down mobility. There are support "beams" every few inches to make sure that the legs are extra sturdy. It doesn't seem like much work, but this is as far as I got during my Sophomore year. I had completed a lot of the drawings (see CHAPTER 7) for further steps, but this was as much as I had built.

THEA 222

Almost a year later I took THEA 222 - "Introduction to Design" We had an assignment to make a three-dimensional sculpture describing one of the characters from William Shakespeare's "Macbeth." I saw my oportunity and went for it. I made a version of Macbeth's severed head out of cardboard and based the looks (and measurements) on my own face at the time. It wasn't DIRECTLY for the CBM, but knew where it was going....

PHOTO 222face.jpeg

Unfortunately I do not have a photo from the BACK of this project. But basically it was just a MASK. There was a flat plane in the back, just behind the ears in which it terminated. Inside the mask was covered with black paper and the eyes were translucent so that they could be seen from the inside as well.

Later on that year Frunch and Gabe had a "Social Night Revival" at their new room. In typical QUAD style, I brought along this mask and converted it to work with the Cardboard Man project. I gutted the inside elements, replaced the eyes with cardboard ones and built out the rest of the head and neck. If memory serves, I did not have enough HOT GLUE that night, so I could not cover the new back of his head with "hair" (ripped up brown paper bags).

CBM 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

In the beginning there was cardboard. And it was good. This chapter details the secret origins of the Cardboard Man and all the various projects that led up to his conception. CLICK ON THUMBNAILS FOR LARGER PICTURES IN A NEW WINDOW!
The Cardboard Monkey For all of my childhood summers I went to Hidden Valley Camp. At the end of each session of camp you make a "friendship" present for another person at camp. This one year when I was 14 (or so) I made a Cardboard Monkey for a little boy named Robert. His favorite animals were monkeys, so I made him this one out of cardboard. It was my first venture into creating cardboard mammals.
	PHOTO CBMonkey.jpeg Unfortunately, this picture is the only documentation of the Cardboard Monkey. I think the concept was simple though. He basically worked on MUPPET technology. I hand slot in the back for operating the mouth and head and then two dowels that could be used to operate the arms of the monkey. The monkey was MOSTLY cardboard, but I think I used cloth to get the interior of the mouth and I used wooden dowels for the arm-rods.
James Cameron My friend, Gabe Carleton-Barnes, had a hole in his ceiling during his Sophomore year at Oberlin College. During that year's Winter Term Gabe was gone and a bunch of foul-smelling liquid drained through the hole and onto his pillow. Since the pillow was ruined I attatched some cardboard appendages and a head and made James Cameron. I would say that this was all an EVOLUTIONARY process, but that would imply that James Cameron is more evolved than a monkey...
	PHOTO JamesCameron.jpeg This was definitely NOT a pure cardboard project. If I remember correctly, I ran pieces of coat hangers through the pillow to hold the cardboard into place. In this, the only surviving photo of James Cameron, he is seen wearing my flanel shirt and a hat. In a maddened rage one day I ripped James off the wall dragged him out to the hallway and beat the ever-loving shit out of him with my lightsaber. I didn't stop until all of his cardboard appendages were severly damaged. I still have the head somewhere... Most of my hatred for James Cameron stems from the fact that his crappy movie "Titanic" bumped "Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope" from the #1 slot of highest grossing films of all time. This is one of the ways I delt with that.
Social Night My Sophomore year I lived with three other guys (Gabe Carleton-Barnes, Michael Cardiff and Samuel Greenberg) in the QUAD. We decided that instead of wandering around trying to find people to hang out with, we would have a party EVERY friday night and that way we would force people to come to us. All the other guys drink alcohol, I do not. When "Social Night" (as it was deemed) would start, I would go into the sleeping room and work on the Cardboard Man. People would check on me through the night and see how I was getting along. I think this whole thing started on a whim-- "I'm going to build a man out of cardboard." --That sort of thing.
	PHOTO SNfeet.jpeg This is where it all started: THE FEET. I took very careful measurements of my feet so that the they are the right size. There is also a lot of internal framework which makes the feet sturdy. In CHAPTER 7 you can see the drawing I did to help me build these.
	PHOTO SNlegs.jpeg The Legs were pretty straight forward. The knee joint is a simple Rod and Tube system (sort of how a toilet paper roll works). It provides the legs with up-down mobility. There are support "beams" every few inches to make sure that the legs are extra sturdy. It doesn't seem like much work, but this is as far as I got during my Sophomore year. I had completed a lot of the drawings (see CHAPTER 7) for further steps, but this was as much as I had built.
THEA 222 Almost a year later I took THEA 222 - "Introduction to Design" We had an assignment to make a three-dimensional sculpture describing one of the characters from William Shakespeare's "Macbeth." I saw my oportunity and went for it. I made a version of Macbeth's severed head out of cardboard and based the looks (and measurements) on my own face at the time. It wasn't DIRECTLY for the CBM, but knew where it was going....
	PHOTO 222face.jpeg Unfortunately I do not have a photo from the BACK of this project. But basically it was just a MASK. There was a flat plane in the back, just behind the ears in which it terminated. Inside the mask was covered with black paper and the eyes were translucent so that they could be seen from the inside as well. Later on that year Frunch and Gabe had a "Social Night Revival" at their new room. In typical QUAD style, I brought along this mask and converted it to work with the Cardboard Man project. I gutted the inside elements, replaced the eyes with cardboard ones and built out the rest of the head and neck. If memory serves, I did not have enough HOT GLUE that night, so I could not cover the new back of his head with "hair" (ripped up brown paper bags).