exactly what I need right now

I just did a google image search for "exactly what I need right now", and this is what I got:

me in a box

My friend Chris Purcell gave me the best suggestion: to mail it! Yes! Now the question is where to send myself. Hmmm... maybe... home.

better image of Lot's Wife

I am debating whether or not I should fix it. (See the older post about how it self destructed). What do you think? I'm not sure if it is successful and engaging, or if it's something I just had to get out of my system in order to move on to new ideas. I'd like to know (honestly) how other people feel about this thing. Because the broken pieces are taking up space in my studio, so I'd like to either fix it or just trash it and be satisfied with having the documentation.

salt, rigid polyurethane foam, mirror

Sol Lewitt knows what's up

I love this quote from Sol Lewitt's essay in Artforum (1967):

"Successful ideas generally have the appearance of simplicity because they seem inevitable."

rapid eye movements

Recently I have been obsessed with the way a person's eyes flick back and forth when they are looking out the window of a moving car. It's almost impossible to keep your eyes still... they move side to side so fast because of the way we try to focus on the things that are flying by, even just for a split second. I'm wondering how this relates to change, and the fact that I love moving (moving my home from one city to another).

This video is just an experiment. I need to figure out how to alleviate the bumpiness that goes along with riding in a car. I think I need to strap the camera to my head somehow. And then I need to figure out what I would do with it (one idea is to play the loop on a flat screen that's mounted on the inside of a cardboard moving box, and installing the box in a space on a "dolly" cart).

Intro to Sculpture blog

Here is a link to the blog that I started for the Intro to Sculpture class that I teach with Brett Hunter. Each of the students is creating their own blog to use as their on-line "sketchbook" for class assignments, and all of these will eventually link from this page. I am pretty excited about what may come of this, so we'll see if they use them or not. The assignment was inspired by PSU's Social Practice Program (they each have blogs instead of studio spaces).

my community

The interview I recently did with my landlord has inspired me to do a series of interviews with the people in my community that I rely on. For instance,

my landlord

my doctor

my gynecologist

my mechanic

my hair dresser

my trash collector

my dentist 

my roommate

my neighbor

my boss

my teacher

my cobbler

my veterinarian

my grocer

my tailor

my advisor

my therapist (I don't actually have one of these but am considering getting one. I'm also thinking of getting a lawyer and an acupuncturist. But we'll see.)

I'm not sure yet how the project will work out visually, but I'm thinking of having them "sit" for me (so that I could draw their portraits the old fashioned way).  I would, ideally, like to invite myself over to their house so that I could draw them in their homes and not in the environments in which I am accustomed to interacting with them. I think the project would in a way "attach itself to the history of self portraiture" (in the words of my advisor Ron Lambert), because all of these people are labelled as "mine". Each one of them knows a certain amount of information about me that is not necessarily public knowledge, but at the same time we don't know each other very well. I have yet to figure out why I find so much meaning in this. But I am looking forward to taking these figures out of their contexts.

Guatemala!

I just got back from a trip to Guatemala with Peter, and these are some pictures of a hike we did up to the top of an active volcano. You can see more of the trip in our photobucket album.

best of friends

Reunion at the art banquet in Philly.  Oh boy oh boy... so good. It hurts my heart.

another potential image

I touched this image of my Thinking Machine up a bit in photoshop.  Which one do you think would be better, this or the inflatable (look at the previous post)?  They are looking for the best image, not necessarily the best artwork. 

(It's really weird to be asking questions to my blog.  I feel like I'm asking the sky.)

ISC photo entry

I rephotographed my inflatable self portrait, It's Nice to Meet You!, and I'd like to get some opinions on this photograph.  I need to choose my best image for submission to my faculty for Sculpture magazine's annual student competition.  So, if anyone's out there looking at this, please let me know what you think of this image.  Thanks!

ISC award nomination!

I was chosen by the Alfred faculty to be nominated for the ISC award, based on the images I blogged about a little bit ago. The award is for "outstanding student achievement in contemporary sculpture." Each school gets to nominate 3 students. Raechel Wong and Joe Bigley (fellow 1st and 2nd year sculpture grads, respectively) were also nominated. I now have to submit my portfolio to the ISC by April 18th.

Thinking Machines (phase 2)

I am revisiting an old idea: 

mechanical post-it note birds + a table = yes!

(it reminds me of Paul Klee's Twittering Machine)

Some People: Alfred, 2008

This is my part of a collaborative show organized by Harrell Fletcher, Some People: Alfred, NY, which focused on building relationships with people in the local community.  I interviewed my landlord, Philip Prigmore, who is an architect that specializes in projects involving historical restoration. The wall piece is  a drawing made by Philip a few years ago for a report about the importance of porches, which I redrew in Adobe Illustrator and had printed in vinyl.  The notes next to it are facts I learned about Philip during my interview with him, and the digital picture frame shows a slideshow of the Photobooth pictures I took of him while he was talking. My documentation, along with everyone else's work who participated in the show, will eventually be posted on Harrell Fletcher's new website, www.somepeoplepeople.com. Here is the show's press release.

Olfactory Memories, 2008

corked glass bottles, tags, wood

This is the first of many projects involving my collection of smells.  This particular collection of 60 is from Portland, OR. I think this will be another series, but I have a feeling each project will take very different forms.  (See the "smell jars" post from back in January for another version).  

Twittering Machines, 2008

Right now I'm contemplating how these could migrate. The cardboard box version is the most likely and obvious candidate, but I'm also thinking of adding casters to the base of the wood and steel version so people could roll it around the room as they make it fly.

22"w x 60"h x 16"d 

wood, steel, acrylic, hand crank, Post-it notes, hardware

the meaning of "my"

I got into a discussion yesterday with my art history professor Mary McInnes about the importance of the word "my" in contemporary art.  Her question was why this possessive adjective has such a significance in my work, and whether this significance takes the place of craft.  (For example, putting on display "All My Clothes", but not having actually made any of these clothes). Apparently I find more value in this possessive adjective- in the personal quality of objects I already own - than I do in making new objects with my hands.  Why is that?

I am working on a new concept right now that involves interviewing the people involved in my daily life in some way.  They are people that I don't necessarily know very well or interact with hardly at all, but that I rely on somehow.  For instance: my landlord, or my neighbor, my mailman, my doctor, my trash collector, my grocer, my gynecologist, my mechanic, my hairdresser, my roommate... These people who all play a role in my life, on a day-to-day basis or in a every-now-and-then dependency sort of way, like my doctor. But why the word "my"?  What if I didn't attach that word as a prefix?  What if I just labeled these people as "roommate" or "doctor" or "trash collector"?  Obviously it would be different, but different better or different worse or just different?  Is it a cop-out?

(Cop-out: an instance of avoiding a commitment or responsibility)

When Mary McInnes asked me what I thought of Marcel Duschamp, I said that I am grateful to him for what he has done, for me and other contemporary artists who rely on found objects in their work.  His work was groundbreaking, making possible what wouldn't otherwise have been possible in the art world (whole skyscrapers could be built on this ground). But still, so much value is placed on the handmade, to this day.  And the "what the hell is that?" and "I don't get it" attitude that now exists towards most contemporary art might just be all Duschamp's fault. But so much stuff already exists in this world, and one has to question why we would desire to make more...  I feel my role as an artist, personally, is to make people notice and question what's already existing and happening around them every day.  

poster for Some People: Alfred, NY

Harrell asked us to make posters for the show that advertise the local person we interviewed.  We're supposed to xerox them and hang them around town, and hopefully get people to come to the gallery to see work about their friends.  This is one idea.

interview with Philip Prigmore (my landlord)

This interview is the result of a workshop with Harrell Fletcher.  My documentation of Philip will be a part of Harrell's exhibition Some People: Alfred at Alfred's Fosdick Nelson Gallery.  I took over three hundred pictures with the photobooth program on my computer (inspired by the amazing work of my friend Genevieve Huba). These are some of my favorites...     (more to follow).

interview... continued