Let's go studio!

I'm back at work after a little hiatus, and I am feeling inspired by the pictures of Anish Kapoor's work in his studio. I love to see the objects on those makeshift pedestals, along with the technical/diagramatic wall drawings in the background. It really shows how a studio can be sort of like a science lab. In this context, works of art look more like a series of experiments than refined, untouchable objects. I think they are a whole lot easier to relate to.

Images of Eternity at SPACE Gallery in Portland. ME

This show officially ended on December 9th, and I'm taking it down tomorrow. It's been really fun to have my work up in a window that faces the street!

Our future is bright.

Words that try to make sense of what I do.

In addition to writing an artist statement for a catalogue that's going to be published for the 2011 Biennial at the Portland Museum of Art, I also had to answer the following questions:

Notes on process: How would you describe your artistic process? Feel free to discuss any aspect of the making of the work from concept to finish, choice of media and materials, etc.

Notes on content: What is your intent with the work, your hopes for the viewer’s encounter, the meaning or purpose for creating this work? What are your inspirations and influences?

And here is what I wrote:

Before you read this, you should know that I've probably already changed my mind. Changing my mind is one of my favorite things to do.

My work always begins with an idea. Where those ideas come from is up for debate. Do they come from within me, like magical beads of mental perspiration? Or are they actually just reflections of things that already exist in the world around me? I’m unsure. But my artistic process involves much more reading, observing, and plain old life-living than actual making. I notice, I wonder, I reflect, I plan, and then eventually I execute.

My ideas are often inspired by specific objects I encounter in my everyday life – clocks, Post-it notes, belly button lint, disposable coffee cups, colorful pennant flags, those wacky-arm-waving-inflatables you see dancing in the wind at used car dealerships… By employing devices and processes that are ordinary and familiar, I hope to encourage a certain level of understanding and participation.

My artwork primarily takes the form of sculpture, installation and interactive media. It often investigates time and change - the subtle, everyday evidence of time’s passing. Is time cyclical or linear, finite or infinite? How do we identify change? How do we quantify it? To me, time represents an accumulation of moments, an accumulation of ‘now’s. What is the length of now? What is its weight? What does it mean to be ‘here’? There is a subtle distinction between absence and presence. Now and then are one and the same. Our days are numbered by our daily rituals.

I make work that requires further investigation. I attempt to materialize the intangible. I hope to show that we can still find wonder in the world around us.

In honor of earmuffs.

(pictures taken at the Chester Greenwood festival in Farmington, Maine, hometown to the inventor of earmuffs)

The art of words.

Jenny Holzer came to town today to give a lecture and do a projection on the facade of the Portland Museum of Art. She started her lecture by saying something like, "Now I'm going to show you some pictures. Later you can tell me what they mean." She wasn't lying, either. For an artist who works mostly with text, she was a woman of very few words.

People do amazing things.

This guy made his own roller coaster. Read more about it here.

"The principle downside to any zombie attack is that the zombies will never stop coming; the principle downside to life is that you will be never be finished with whatever it is you do."

"Zombies are like the Internet and the media and every conversation we don’t want to have. All of it comes at us endlessly (and thoughtlessly), and — if we surrender — we will be overtaken and absorbed. Yet this war is manageable, if not necessarily winnable. As long we keep deleting whatever’s directly in front of us, we survive. We live to eliminate the zombies of tomorrow. We are able to remain human, at least for the time being. Our enemy is relentless and colossal, but also uncreative and stupid."

"...You can do this, my friend. It’s disenchanting, but it’s not difficult. Keep your finger on the trigger. Continue the termination. Don’t stop believing. Don’t stop deleting. Return your voice mails and nod your agreements. This is the zombies’ world, and we just live in it. But we can live better."

(from a brilliant little NYT article about how modern life is like a zombie movie)

Just a few of the ways that we lie to ourselves.

How To Be Alone

There are no maps for these territories.

(image is a map that my friend Ryan Hinkel owns, and the title is taken from a documentary about William Gibson)

Your life is your life. Know it while you have it.

Materializing language.

(by Fred Eedekens)
(found here)

("Arise" by Anselm Reyle)
(found here)

("I Can't Work Like This" by Natascha Sadr Haghighian)

I am interested in how language can be materialized through sculpture, and whether or not it is more interesting for it to remain illegible...

Kitchens are for dancing.

If you knew what you wanted... you would have gotten it.

(Brilliant random quote spoken by a random person tonight.
Happy Thanksgiving.)

When all else fails...

Work by Steve Lambert
(thanks, Mike)

What is it about flags and signs that I love so much?

I need to get to the bottom of this obsession.

(Pictured above: "Street Display" by Igor Eskinja)

A love letter for you.

Part of the A Love Letter For You public art project by Steve Powers and the City of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program.

(Ps. I think I've always hoped to make a person my "home" instead of a place. Lately I question whether that's a good thing to hope for, though... people are so much more fickle than buildings.)

Stellar System

A drawing of the Milky Way made by Frederick William Herschel in 1785.

(found here)

My brain had a busy day.

What does this mean??

I had never seen the famous Double Rainbow video until my friend Giselle sent me these two links. Maybe you have to be an art nerd to appreciate the Donald Judd parody, but then again maybe not. I literally laughed out loud.
(Thanks, Giselle!)

Proposed work for the 2011 Biennial at the Portland Museum of Art

I had initially been asked to exhibit Eternity in next year's Biennial, but since that work is being shown in Space Gallery's front window this month, the jurors asked me to propose something else. Here are sketches and descriptions of three alternatives.

The place where you lose the trail is not necessarily the place where it ends.

(image is a sculpture by Antony Gormley and title is a quote from The Tracker by Tom Brown)

I love this little bugger.

Invest in lines, not dots.

"The first time I meet you, you are a single data point. A dot. I have no reference point from which to judge whether you were higher on the y-axis 3 months ago or lower. Because I have no observation points from the past, I have no sense for where you will be in the future. Thus, it is very hard to make a commitment to fund you."

This is an illustration I stumbled upon when doing a google image search for "dots and lines". It's from an article about building relationships with financial investors. It blows my mind how beautiful things like this can become when they're taken out of context.

(found here)

Just shy of smoke and mirrors.