orangeis

 

 

 

These images are from the last balloon installation I did; my parent’s home, West Palm Beach Florida, December, 2011. Dimensions – slightly larger than the size of a standard Florida sliding glass door. I’m doing less of this sort of thing nowadays, but at least now I feel when I do attempt this sort of thing, it’s a bit more deliberate, more thought out. If I see and have access to an interesting domestic space that I can work with (not against), and I have the time and access, I’ll give it a go. I’ve wanted to give my parents a balloon curtain for some time now. As far as what I’m thinking about for the next iteration, the apt I share with my wife is/has been begging me for a suspended balloon canopy of some sort. The sort of thing one might see deployed by biologists in the rain forests of Brazil or Costa Rica. I’ve made a couple of failed attempts, but haven’t quite pulled it off yet; at least not to my satisfaction. I’ll give it another try in the next coming weeks. Who knows.

I think I’m done with the stairwell, at least for now. Not that I think I got everything I wanted out of it. I would have loved to have been able to leave the tape in place and continued to build and respond to the previous layers. But let’s just say that the place I work at just finished installing a whole slow of new ‘security’ features that might prevent me from doing this sort of thing without consequences. That being said, I did learn quite a bit from working this site and responding to its many features. These taped pieces felt more like large drawings than sculpture, installation or photography for that matter, at least to me. Very reminiscent of the type of drawings I used to make before entering art school. The difference being that now I feel as if I am much more in control over the outcome, more conscious of my resource material and allot more secure in the potential content of the work. Whereas before, it was all about intuitively responding to formal elements, while not being very aware nor caring about the read. Full circle? I suppose. Which of course begs the question – now what?

I spent the better part of last Saturday working in the ‘stairwell’. I was able to try my hand at a few variations in regards to dividing up the space, while trying to keep certain things like height, scale and light source in mind as I laid down the tape. I began to notice how important interval became to my decision making process. So much so that I began to obsess over the minute distances between the tape lines and in turn the distance between the intersections of the larger taped forms. Initially, I would simply eyeball the intervals, then as the space became more populated and better defined I started going back and remeasuring the intervals with my hand as a guide and adjusting the tape lines accordingly. Eventually though, wanting something more accurate than just the span of my hand, I ended up utilizing a tape measure to ensure some sort of algorithmic accuracy. I plan on going back this weekend for version 2.0 with the intention of consciously pushing the notion of interval further. Let’s see what comes of it.

I’ve been struggling with this particular stairwell at work for the past 2 years; photographing, videotaping and thinking about what to do with it, but to no avail. This week though, after having read my second book on the light and space movement of the late 60′s – early 80′s, I may have gotten one step closer to figuring it out. I decided to try my hand at some three dimensional drawings in the stairwell utilizing 1/2″ black painters tape as my mark. The tape, another item I’ve been struggling to find a use for, seems to lend itself well, as far as the thickness and contrast in relation to the space is concerned. I will bring my SLR to work tomorrow, and hopefully, try as many different configurations I can possibly come up with. So far, I’m quite pleased with even just a few lines going from banister to railing. Let’s see what happens.

4″x6″ marker on transparency film. Part of a collaboration with the members of AmalgaMat.

Finally finished reading it. Only took me like 2 months to slog through the 450+ pages (I read a couple of other books in between, but mainly focused on this particular book). So what did I get in return for devoting hours upon hours or reading and rereading? Quite a bit, actually. It’s the most pertinent philosophical treatise I’ve ever read in regards to how the subject matter relates directly to art and art making. My 3rd paper will most likely be entirely composed of quotations from the book and how Ponty’s take on phenomenology relates to my work, and just about anyone’s work for that matter. If anyone was ever planning on tackling the book, but did not have the time to devote to its entirety, I do have some chapters to suggest. First and foremost, the chapter on ‘Attention and Judgment’, all of ‘Part One: The Body; Experience and objective thought. The problem of the body.’ And, most importantly, the chapter titled ‘The Cogito’, which just about blew me away. Happy reading.

Been thinking allot about Josh Mannis’s work recently since being introduced to him via David Raskin.

I thought I might take a step back and explain my current interest in fused glass, and its potential for further exploration. Last semester I spent a whole day taking pictures of my wife’s relatives curio cabinet, which was full of swarovski crystal figurines. Even though I spent close to 3 hours photographing the figurines under different lighting conditions and focal lengths, I could have spent weeks. Every angle presented a completely different set of light refractions, spatial dimensions and narrative possibilities. When I showed the images to my mentor, not only did he like them, but we both wondered what a mirrored curio populated with irreverent glass pieces would look like under similar conditions. The question was then, how to go about finding or making this fictitious collection of nonobjective glass pieces.

These are a couple of the initial photos I took that prompted further exploration.

Great lecture I attended recently at the Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago. I highly reccomend giving it a watch or two.

So a friend of mine recently got a glass kiln, and I like making “things”, especially when working with materials I know nothing about. So, of course I would ask if he wouldn’t mind collaborating on a project, which would have something to do with fused glass, but is yet to be determined. Here are the initial results. I asked him for a 1 inch cube, a 2 inch cube and a small pyramid.

The 1 inch cube held up pretty well. The glass is a little thick for the scale, but the thickness is what prevented it from slumping down like the 2 inch cube did. The pyramid didn’t close up like we thought it would. So we’re trying to figure out how to score the glass at a 45 degree angle so that it might fuse better. But having an opening in the pyramid (and cubes) might allow for a mirrored interior. We’ll see. For now I’ll sleep on it.