a full day in the studio (finally)

so this is the progress on the plastic piece for sumter, I should post a detail, but it is made of several 2x3 inch squares that have to be heated and placed one at a time onto the piece. but the effect created is pretty cool and when it reaches it's predicted absurd scale i think it will be really nice.


so yesterday i managed to get a full day in the studio, which allowed me to finish up a few more rust prints and make some progress on the green plastic piece for sumter, then i started messing with some stuff i had laying around. One of the professors at the college of charleston had two boxes of spikes that he didn't want. The full story is that a local sail maker had saved all the end pieces off of the giant pop-rivets they use and gave them to the college and no one in the college sculpture department knew what to do with them.

so these are some of the spikes after being soaked in acid, I have about 10 times this amount left to clean

This kind of thing is always happening to me, somebody has a bunch of something and they don't know what to do with it, so they give it to an artist, and eventually that artist gives it to me. So I have been soaking these spikes in acid to get the plating off of them and make them clean steal. I will probably use them to make a large object. I began playing with different layouts for the spikes and we will see what happens.

some ideas for layouts, a bit british if you ask me but what are you going to do.
rather than rush myself through any of these projects I am keeping all my respective deadlines in mind. In the past i had the tendency to burn myself out on working but with this studio I am going to try and strike a balance between making work in a timely manner for deadlines and developing new ideas with no time restrictions. I suppose these are the long term goals of any working artist.

yawn

these two rust prints on the end will be in the paper cuts show in september in california, now i just need to mount them , and pack them and box them and ship them

this is the begining of my idea for the sumter show, we will see how string this stuff is when i build it out to a larger scale



I have been really tired lately and i feel myself starting to drag. I am starting to get into a bit of a routine in the new studio and I have been able to catch up on a few things, but I still have several things left to do to fix up the studio. I got to see the simpsons movie on friday, which delivered every laugh I had hoped it would. tomorrow I hope to make some more progress on the green plastic piece. I have hopes of building a big enough woven green plastic thing that it will encompass two floors of the venue in sumter but we will see how far I can get before it collapses under it's own weight. these are some photoshop composites of what i want the installation to look like in sumter. That hole in the ceiling goes through to the second floor, and there is a chandelier in the middle so the piece would be lit from within. i just hope i have enough material, to make it cover.

nothing like a trip to the scrapyard

there is nothing like the scrapyard first thing in the morning

so this is the table , I am almost done with it


in the foreground that green stuff is some more of that thermoplastic i am doing some experiments with it to see if i can use it for the sumter project in october.

I love going to scrapyards and salvage yards. I just can't get enough of the big machinery and the sheer beauty of the organized mountains of discarded consumer metals. needless to say I had a mission today to get some square stock steel and plate to make a table with. I ended up getting more square stock then i needed and the woman at the yard threw in the plate for free. I spent most of the day working on the table. yesterday I got the packet from the sumter residency on the locations for the installations and I am really excited about this rotunda with an opening from the first floor to the second. It will allow me to actually create something that appears to be penetrating from one floor to another. as soon as I make some composite images of the installation I will post them here. Tomorrow is the big day the simpsons movie opens, if the coffee I am drinking right now works I might even stay up for the midnight show, but most likely not. I have to get into the studio early tomorrow so I can be finished by noon, because I have to wait for the comcast guy to come fix the internet. Waiting for the comcast guy will actually give me time to work on some more applications that are due soon.

debate, and stuff

so here is the finished air conditioner, although it is tempting to extend it and see how much further the air will blow through there
so i went ahead and brought the air from the window unit in the office into my space

first off before anyone asks, yes i did see the democratic candidates debate on monday night. I saw it live from the audience here in charleston. It was definitely a celebrity culture event, complete with youtube/google corporate sponsorship. I personally have grown tired of publishing my videos on youtube, and instead publish them on vimeo, but youtube is still the internets best source for obscure eighties television moments. during the debate the candidates were asked to submit their own "youtube style" video. if youtube was to have a style or a look it would have one the following elements, 1) some sort of stop-action 2)some sort of ironic/sarcastic song over dubbed 3) a certain clunkiness and self consciousness about the video 4) and lastly it is homemade and not necessarily up to television production standards. Most of the candidates did something youtubey and cute, but one of th most revealing videos was barack obama. Obama revealed just how out of touch he is with the internet, and web 2.0, his video was simply a standard campaign ad uploaded to youtube. apparently he and his staff could not be bothered to come down to everyone else's level and make a home movie. anyways I have the climate under control in the studio and tomorrow i am going to be building a table. Brooke will be back in another week and a half and then we will resume wedding plans. I should add that I am updating my blog from barnes and noble because the internet at home has decided to go out, and when I was in the studio today i forgot to update.

oh my god i've invented air conditioning

there is the hole in the wall where the ac unit will soon be placedAfter i got the ac plugged in, that spot on top of the ladder became the most pleasant place to be.

so this is the beginning of the duct work system that will help distribute the air throughout the space. it kind of looks like a piece of a tim hawkinson installation.

so I am really putting my new ac unit through the test. In order to make it circulate through the whole room I am making a pretty simple duct work system. I was thinking today that what i have been doing in the studio is a lot like the projects in that readymade magazine. Today I managed to get a little more work started. tomorrow I am hopeful that I will install the final bits of duct work necessary to make the space tolerable. I am not asking for the studio to be cold, i just want to drop the overall room temperature by 5-10 degrees.

so very tired

a view of the finished metal wallhere is the first of the insulation i am applying to the ceiling


so i pulled back the wood paneling in the office and i found this perfectly good plywood, I will either paint it or cheetrock over itthis was yesterday,and yes that is nothing but sweat dripping down my shirt
this is the view from the garage door end
and this is the view back towards where the photo above was taken
so the barn door is hung, and the pin wall is in the distance there

yesterday I put in a full day, and today I only managed to get in a half day before I succumbed to the weather. I have been wondering why I am sore and tired and then it occurred to me that I am doing a major renovation of a major space, all by myself, in 100% humidity, 90 degree weather. it ain't like one of those home improvement shows where you can put the time lapse on and see the final results in 30 minutes. I did manage to finish most of the major projects, the metal wall is done, the pin cushion wall is done, the barn door is hung, and I started to insulate and finish the ceiling. Tommorrow I will get the final verdict on when and if the landlord will mount my new air conditioner in the back wall, or if i will have to build a rolling wall to fit in where the garage door goes. either way I will probably build the rolling wall just because I think it will help to be able to push a wall in place when the garage door is up. I am really anxious to get back to work on some more new work, but converting the space has been a real pleasure. I don't want to tie myself to any schedule but barring no more major set backs I should be able to work in there, by monday. That is not bad to go from dumpy warehouse to pimp ass art studio. the only project that i will pick back up with later will be turning the little office into a nice clean white wall space.

it's a 4x8 world, and I am a 4x8 boy

this is another one of the projects in studio. i am building a barn door for the entry way to the storage space i share with the bakery in front. The siding on the floor will be the skin for the door, it is all found redwood siding, that I cut down for the door.this is a view of the metal wall I have one more panel to hang on that wall then it is done.
if you look closely you can see how the sweat has drenched my shirt.

this is the finished clean wall, eventually i will paint it, but probably not until before I have my first opening there

the nice thing about american construction materials is that most sheet goods and supports come in increments and measurements of 4x8. This makes it a bit easier to construct walls since the 2x4's, are 2x4x8, and the sheet goods are 4x8. This doesn't mean that it was any cooler in temperature, but slowly the studio is starting to take shape. There is so much potential in this space that i still can't believe I have only had it for a week. i still haven't gotten a chair or a stool, so i spend all my time standing, but soon i will sit down and enjoy my creation. I am still sorting out the final insulation/ air conditioning solution. the landlord is supposed to put another window unit in the back wall, but I think I may quite waiting for him and just figure something else out. i am pretty sure that by the end of this week, barring no major incidents, i should be back up to production and starting on some new artwork.

and on the fifth day(in the new studio)

this is the soon to be metal area of the studioi finished off yet another section of my clean wall
this place is actually starting to look like a studio

let there be light, yesterday i hung a new shop light and replaced all the bulbs with ultra bright low energy bulbs

this is my temporary ac solution, a window unit on cinder blocks, with a fan in front of it.


so I knew going into this that making this warehouse into a studio would take work, but after a week of working alone in this heat and humidity it is starting to take it's tole on me. i am weak from constantly sweating, but I am hopeful that as I finish off the walls, get some more insulation hung, and fill more of the gaps, the tempature will become more managable. I have to confess though that working on the space itself and converting it into a hospitable environment is a reall pleasure for me. I enjoy seeing my dream studio come together, one agonizing sweat soaked screw at a time. tonight to escape the heat i am headed to the movies, only three more weeks until brooke get's back from her field school, I hope i can have the studio finished by the time she gets back

another day in paradise

this is the mid afternoon thunderstorm i was chasing homethis my new miter table i built with wood that was already in the space
this is a nifty little shelf I made using some more scrap that was laying around the space when i got it
notice that the fan is with me everywhere i go, and it ain't doing that much good
wall one is now secure, now onto to wall 2,3 and 4

yesterday it literally felt like a hundred degrees in the studio. I have been trying to work as much as possible to get the studio built and start figuring out how to cool it down. I finished making the miter saw table so i can use it to start cutting stuff for building the walls and I managed to get one wall partially up before I couldn't take the heat any more. i have some really great ideas for how to change the space in the studio and it makes me think I should have been an interior architect, but i shouldn't get too excited since I am not done yet. My new more realistic time table for getting the studio working is more like next week. I had anticipated being ready by friday, but i have encountered construction delays, since I am the, architect, the foreman, the contractor and the laborer for this job, and it is just frigging too hot and too humid to work fast.

second day in the sauna/studio

so this is my new trick I turn on the window unit in the office and place a fan on my wrok table hoping it will draw some of the cool air out into the workspace
this is actually very comfortable and refeshing the huge fan on the floor makes quite a breeze
so notice in the next photo when I am working at the saw i just turn the fan so it is facing me like my own personal wind tunnel


today was hot, hotter than yesterday, but i have almost beat the heat. Today I turned the window unit on in the office, put a fan in front of that, and then dragged the giant turbine fan around with me as i worked. I am just starting to figure out how i am going to use the space. i hope tomorrow will be a little less oppressive weather wise because i want to make some headway on setting up the studio and making it functional. I have kind of figured out where the stationary tools will go and i plan on making everything eles on wheels. Today i started working on the rust print table making it more stable and permanent than the way I was using it before. By friday I hope to start cranking on some new stuff. It is always fun setting up a new studio, although this is the first time i have had a studio this big, but it is also the first time I haven't been working in two or three different places. this should be interesting being able to do everything I do under one roof. Although in all likely hood if i do some printmaking stuff i will go to redux, but there is an extra storage room in this building that would make a great room for a press, or a screenprint washout area, or maybe a mold making area. oh well one thing at a time first i have to get my studio functional before i start playing.