Access to the Magnificent Room

This is my favorite drawing. It was in the show. I wish they could all be like this one. Below are some more drawings, some were in the show, some didn't make the cut.

Below are a few non-HDR images of the installation. I think they look a little better.

Chandelierroom 1

Here is a piece that I just did. It is based off of the below drawing. There are things I would do differently, or improvements that I would make if I remade the piece; but it works for me. It was a quick work. It took a few hours of time (spaced out across a couple of weeks, of course) and is now painted over. I am trying to do quicker works. Letting things happen and working more freely. Quick and loose. We'll see what comes out of it. I'll keep posting as I go through them. This is going to probably force me to get more simple with the lights, at least for now. I might have to take a break from this type of working in order to build some nicer stands, pedestals, or floor platforms for the lights though.
The brown on the wall should probably fade more as is gets closer to the floor.

It's Alive

Well. I guess it's been a while since the last post. I'm alive and back at it. Here are the images of my solo show at Number 35...four months late. The title of the show was "Access to the magnificent room." The image above is of the piece I did in the window of the gallery. I've been trying to get the images to look the way that I want them to, but have been having trouble. These images aren't ideal, but they are the best of the HDR images that I've been able to make. I'll post images of the drawings soon, apparently, they are too big and I don't feel like resizing them right now. The title of the installation is "The effect of its breadth (Flamingo Casino, Las Vegas; Upper Belvedere, St. Gall Cathedral; Golden Nugget Sign)".

As I get more and better images, I'll throw them up here. These images aren't totally representative of the experience of the installation as the light in the gallery changed throughout the course of the day. These were taken at night just before de-installation. I was pretty happy with the show all and all. There are some new things going on with this installation. By the end of prepping for the show I was getting a bit tired of the piece and didn't really begin to like it until it was time to take it down. So it usually goes. I felt like the piece was a little overworked, at least in my head it was. Most of you probably know, but I was mentioned by Holland Cotter in the New York Times. As brief as it was, it was pretty exciting. Here is the link to the online version of the article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/14/arts/design/14les.html?_r=2&ref=design&oref=slogin

If you click on the "multimedia/interactive" picture on the left (a picture of dudes dancing), it will take you to an interactive map of the city. Select the Lower East Side and there is an image of my piece and a nice little description. It says I use cardboard and masking tape, but I use neither of those.

Apparently Roberta Smith saw the show just before it came down and said that she liked it. Alas, she didn't write anything. But, I'm happy it was seen.

What have I been doing lately? We'll it seems I've taken a bit of a break from making like mad. I read the Border Trilogy by Cormic McCarthy. McCarthy has become my new literary obsession. I cleaned up my studio. I've been playing with a new foam cutter. The art has been slow. Hit a bit of a slump, but am coming out of it strong. I wanted to work differently on the installation, and am on the verge of working that out. I've read a book on the Baroque and finally finished "The Fold." I'm currently doing tons of the ballpoint pen drawings of spaces. Those drawings are developing nicely and I am hoping to use them to build up a wealth of stuff to work from to make wall pieces. Working on ideas now mostly. More to come...

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.