Sneak Peak

I decided to move a tv and dvd player into my studio. I usually listen to music that I feel is conducive to the tone and aesthetic of my work. I wanted to see how it would be working with images that I feel have the same relationship to my work. I started with a my morning jacket concert, which was still about the music more, but it was easier to channel the energy of their performance. I'm excited to see how this does or does not affect my work or process. Yes, it is a bit dark in my studio. I like to work in the light of my installations and one other bulb only.

Mixed in here are some studio shots and glimpses of some things I'm kicking around.

Just one of my stockpiles of house paint.

Daily Planner 2000

Muji recently stepped up their game in the daily planner category. This is the "more intuitive" daily planner. I really really like this. The only problem is that I have a hard time using planners as I tend to wing it.

Progress

Here are some studio shots of what I'm doing now. I have begun the second leg of preparing for my show in October. In June I laid out a plan for peaking myself for October 13ish. Things have been going along perfectly. I found that Josh Waitzkin, in "The Art of Learning" has a similar method of bringing himself up to a high level of presence, performance, creativity, and productivity to that which I have been using in my studio. I was apply principles of peaking and performance that I learned in wrestling. Waitzkin uses methods learned in world-level chess competition and applies them to martial arts. He also successfully teaches others to apply those principles to any discipline. (Apparently he is good friends with Tom Otterness as well.) Reading his book has helped me to solidify my methods and made me feel less crazy for talking about a correlation between art and wrestling practice. * Josh Waitzkin is the chess champion from the movie "Searching for Bobby Fisher." He's the "kid" (man) the movie was based on, not the actor.

Right now I'm working of drawings and doing small things here and there for the installation. This is one last push to get a few more drawings finished so I have a better selection to choose from for the show. This will probably be a 2-3 week push.

A Night at the Drive-In (sit-in, actually)

Saturday night, Nicole and I decided to have movie night on the roof. This summer we set up a little lounge area on the roof top of the first floor which is outside our windows. Astro-Turf, palms, and wood chairs and table. (see Nicole's blog) This has been a great addition to our daily happiness and fantasy of living in a loft. Just this evening we ate our dinner out there with a perfect breeze and the sound our personal live jazz band practicing upstairs.

The moon was full, popcorn was oily/salty, and the newly purchased "Darjeeling Limited" was playing.

I've been thinking lately about the act of dramatizing one's experience. I think it has a lot to do with the things I'm doing and looking into with my work. I think that it is significant that I go to lengths to set things up romantically for myself. Creating mood, tone. Interjecting romance, meaning, magic. Looking for it. I'll get into this more later.

Journal Entry 1

I recently went to the Cathedral Church of St.John the Devine. Here is my journal entry from the experience. Excuse the lack of proper terminology, I was writing quickly to get down the experience of the space. I am also experiencing this from the viewpoint of someone without a background of religious experience, having also never been to church. It is mostly about the space to me.:

the area where you, the "common people", sit is darker. It is encased in an area that is made of older, rougher stone. It has archways on the sides, but they are not windows, they are blocked up with a flat painted surface. The area where the magic happens, up where the clergy sit is smooth finished stone. It has all of the magnificence. it is where you strive to be. it is lit by the stained glass windows, by God's light, the commoner's area is lit by artificial light or candle light. there is a definite threshold, a proscenium between the two worlds. the analogy of spiritual striving.

scripted space. the hero's journey. enlightenment.

dramatizing experience.

the immensity of the ceiling is hard to grasp, dizzying. like the thought of eternity. like the thought of universal truth, universal plan.

red ropes.

dark wood.

just out of reach. I want to strive for these unreachable spots.

I am down here, stuck. but, I want to be up in the immensity of the vaults. to see better up there. to see up there.

this structure is man-made, i know it is man-made. it is just as much about our power as that of the devine.

the silence is soothing. the silence is important. there is so much space that anything said in here gets echoed and swallowed up. power and futility.

everything in here is a journey.

"three acts in one second"

pointing up.

you can't see every thing at once = can't grasp the complexity of it all.

you are always approaching.

the dome is God. Its presence unavoidable. you can see glimpses of it from all around the area that wraps around behind the high alter.

Triumphant Return

Usually, when I go this long without posting, it's because I've not had time to work. However, this time it is because I have been working feverishly. I just ran a gauntlet of productivity, concentration, and creative presence that I haven't had since grad school. Below are some of the results. Yes, I finally finished those two installations. In addition, I worked up about 12 ideas for new installations, which I will be exploring as I perfect the piece that will be going up for my show in October. I also finished reading Societas Raffello Sanzio's book, Cormic McCarthy's "Blood Meridian," and am also almost done with "The Art of Learning" by Josh Waitskin. I'll post images of some of my ideas soon. For now, take a look at these:




The title of the above piece is "The most vast and impressive room in the Great Palace, Moscow" I have stereoscopic images of this one.

The title of the above piece is "Four Seasons Hotel, Gresham Palace." Stereoscope in production.

Some nice things happen when I begin to paint over the pieces.

Here is a little teaser of what I'm working on now. I probably wont post images of the installation that I'm working on for the show until it goes up on Oct. 18.

Spirtual Experience

My favorite band is My Morning Jacket. Their music has actually been very important to the way that my work has developed. I started really getting into their music at the same time that my work was changing in graduate school and their tone, sound, and energy played a role in the way I was making the work and the aesthetic that I was getting into. They have a sublime, transcendental sound. I've always imagined their sound as light cutting through a velvety darkness. I listen to MMJ a lot when I'm making my art. They act as a generative juice. I feel that I make my best work when I listen to their music.

I had only seen them live once before Friday night. That was the best show I have ever seen; it led me to make an installation based on the sublimity of the experience. (started, but never finished) This Friday they played a sold-out Radio City Music Hall. Nicole and I had given up on getting tickets months ago. Well, three hours before the show we found ourselves with a pair of third mezzanine front row tickets that we paid face value for. (tickets were being scalped for $150-$400 a piece as they have become a renowned live act) That morning I had no idea I was going to be witnessing that show. When we got to RCMH, it seemed unreal for some reason. The show was nothing short of a religious experience. We stood at the edge of the upper-most mezzanine, with the expanse of the music hall before us. I can imagine riding the crest of a rouge-wave as being a similar experience (without the terror). It felt as if they were heroes, confronting the unknown with their instruments; Jim James speaking to something mystical with his voice. The whole performance was ritual and and expedition. They tethered themselves out into the abyss and took the entire hall with them.

I captured some images. Maybe you can see some connections to my work. Not to mention the experience of being in the space of Radio City Music Hall. Click to enlarge the image, most of them look better close up. The band encourages taping and file sharing. Here's a link to a taping of the performance: http://www.archive.org/details/mmj2008-06-20.dpa4023.flac16

I tried to post a video of the show, but it wouldn't upload. I think I should be able to get it onto my facebook page though. http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=694855264

Teaser

I know I haven't posted in a while. I actually haven't been able to get hardly any work done as I've had to work 10-12 hr work days for Crozier over the last month. It's really hampered my work. Luckily, I've got a lot of energy and enthusiasm for my work these days and I've got a number of ideas. Here's a sneak peak of the installation I'm about to finish. These are just (poor quality)fragments.

As Promised

As promised, here are some shots from my drawing books of the studies that I've been spending my time on. I've taken a break from my other drawings to focus on the installations. These are meant to get me looking at the spaces more closely, help me to distill the parts out of the images of the spaces better. Hopefully, theses drawings will influence the installations, maybe some of them might become installations. Most of them are from Baroque Palaces and some are from Gothic Cathedrals. I will probably get into some Vegas imagery as well. Using the ball-point pen helps me to keep the drawings fast and to focus on the look of the space rather than the finish of the drawings. I do find myself loving the marks... and loving making the marks, however. These are really meant only to be studies but I could see them leaping onto nicer paper, or perhaps onto the wall at some point. I think the better ones, of course, are the more ambiguous drawings. I'm struggling with adding too much information, and not getting at that "essence" or "glimpse" that I'm looking for.

Below is the diorama that I built last week. I'm pretty friggin' excited about this one. I'm going to use this to work through installation ideas more quickly. I'm also probably going to turn some of these mini-installations into stereoscopic images. It will work as another fold of space. I built the diorama to scale with the working walls of mt studio.