Now, 2008

This is quick sculpture I made back in 2008. An oldie but a goodie, so to speak. It was made by cutting the word 'now' out of cardboard in cursive, and then cutting the letters apart and attaching them to hands on three separate clocks. The N is attached to a second hand, the O is attached to an hour hand, and the W is attached to a minute hand, and all the other clock hands are removed. The letters were intended to align once every twelve hours, but the mechanism that controlled the second hand was not reliable.

You are (on) an island (at Bowdoin College).

Mike Fleming just made this beautiful rendering. We're proposing to temporarily install this neon sign on an island in a roundabout on Bowdoin's campus. Let's just hope the real thing will look half as good as this... and that Bowdoin's Campus Planning and Design Committee approves it!

Rendering by Mike Fleming

You are (on) an island. (Animated Gif)

In a darkened hall, you're only who you say you are.

(title is a from a song by Little Wings)

Bodies upon the gears.

"There's a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious—makes you so sick at heart—that you can't take part. You can't even passively take part. And you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop. And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all."

(from Mario Savio's speech at UC Berkeley, 1964)

(Police pepper spraying student protestors at UC Davis on November 18, 2011)

You are (on) an island.

Made in collaboration with Mike Fleming, with help from Patrick Bolduc of Beacon Neon.

Meaning accrues in unexpected places. And drains unexpectedly out of others.

(title is a quote from As She Climbed Across the Table, by Jonathan Lethem)

Turning the Place Over

The artist at work.

(photo by Mike Fleming)

'Eternity' on view at the Triennale Design Museum

Eternity (2010) is currently featured in an exhibition at the Triennale Design Museum in Milan, Italy, titled O'Clock. Time design, design time. It is on view from October 11, 2011 - January 8, 2012. Check out designboom for images of the exhibition, and Mike Fleming's flickr page for some great shots of the installation.

You are (on) an island, 2011

neon, scaffolding, PVC piping, generator

This is a site-specific installation for a flooded room in the WWII-era Battery Steele on Peaks Island, ME. It was made for the 15th annual Sacred and Profane arts festival, which occupies the abandoned army bunker for one weekend every October. The statement transforms as the word 'on' blinks rhythmically on and off. For the moments that single word remains unilluminated, a new phrase with a different meaning emerges - "You are an island."

Made in collaboration with Mike Fleming, with help from Patrick Bolduc of Beacon Neon, and Nick Riker, Tom Ryan, and Jeff Stockbridge.

Public lecture at Maine College of Art on 10/27

I am giving an artist lecture at Maine College of Art this Thursday, October 27th, at 2pm. Every time I lecture I learn something new about myself and my work, so I'm really looking forward to it.

I cannot formulate the question that is my wonder.

(title is a quote by Allen Watts)

Signs of time.

Drunken Boat

Eternity was featured in the arts section of the most recent issue of Drunken Boat, an online journal of the arts. Check it out by clicking on the photo below!

Love and Eternity.

People spend way more time looking at art on the internet than they do in person.

For the moment, you may call me a one hit wonder. These are screen shots of my website's google analytics. An average day brings 5-10 visitors, and today brought 837. The spike in traffic is thanks to designboom.com, todayandtomorrow.net, notcot.org, journal-du-design.fr, smileinyourface.com, and others. They have all recently featured a sculpture I made with Mike Fleming in 2010, called Eternity.

What amazes me is that the average time spent on my site is nearly a minute and a half. This might not sound like much, but the average time people spend looking at a work of art in a gallery or museum is 4 seconds. Is the internet really making peoples' attention spans shorter, or is it allowing them to focus on one thing at a time? Which experience is more overwhelming - surfing blogs, or visiting the MoMA?

It's really hard to tell the short run from the long run.

Unreal

(An unrealized project by Felice Varini)

Half of a yay.

(a Y and half of an A on one wall, butting up against a mirror on the other wall)

Check out the anamorphic type installation  by Joseph Egan and Hunter Thompson.

'Eternity' has been featured on designboom!

designboom is the "leading independent publication for design, architecture, art, photography and graphics" since 1999. Check out their feature on Eternity (2010) here.

Hi!

A particular thing will certainly happen.

(pencil and charcoal drawing of something that I might make sometime in the future)

Today, in a nut shell.

3D Typography

Eternity was featured on the 3D Typography website!
Check out the post here.

T_XT_RT

"Red Sky at Night" by Tim Etchells

"Nah/Yep" by Cody Hoyt

"Unlimited Promise" by Christine Wong Yap

(These works and more were featured in the T_XT_RT exhibition at Jenkins Johnson Gallery in NY)

Journey, 2008

9" x 12" x 10" (installation dimensions variable)

video of rapid eye movement, digital picture frame, battery pack, cardboard box

A video of my eyes watching the world go by continuously plays on the digital picture frame inside the cardboard box. The box can be shipped or installed in various ways.

Fun things happen when you meet in the middle.

(photos made in collaboration with Mike Fleming)

Mechanical drawings

Radiating Cylinder Yellow Profile and Kaleidoscope Cylinder, 2008 by James Bills

Barely legible.

("Soapy Smith" by Edward Ruscha)

(when does text stop looking like words and start looking just like dots and lines?)

The way of progress is a disappearing path.

("The way of Progress" by Nathaniel Shapiro
and "Disappearing Paths" by Richard William Wheater)

Obliteration

(from Stefan Bruggemann's "Obliteration Series")

Live and Die

by Bruce Nauman (1984)