caa a ok

mel chin "i am going to tell you secret if you tell anyone i have to kill myself"
mel chin " it's all about the dollar dollar bills ya'll"
a couple shots of artist mel chin, who is one of the funniest and smartest artists ever.

i thought this was cool, it was the luggage parking lot at the conference on saturday morning

at the dallas museum i got some face time with a really cool tom friedmen piece

all you need is love, the one and only yoko ono 75 and still full of life and energy



Well caa was a blast as usual. I caught lots of interesting panels and reconnected awith tons of people. I got to spend time with one of my favorite porfessors of all time Loren schwerd and i got to see several of my classmates from grad school including the amazing julia bradshaw. I shared a room with james morgan and john bruneau of ars virtua and had many a fattening meal with thomas asmuth. I don't usually name drop but I got to see my friend eric hillbilly cunnigham as well who drove up from austin just to hang out and share his latest brochure. I ran into several people i had interviewed with and i saw multiple whom i've met at various residencies through the years. I attended several interesting panels on a range of topics including: sculptors drawings, food in art, integrating new technologies into art practices, and social art practices to name a few. When the panelist for my friend, and caa hotel roomate, james morgan's panel slowly dropped off due to one illeness or a weather event, myself and two others were recruited to make a substitute panel.
this is a view of the audience for our panel

This year seemed particulary well stocked with star power artists, including the one and only yoko ono. below is some video of the audience using the little lights she gave to everyone to blink out the phrase i love you in her invented morris code known as onocode.

well now i have a couple leads to follow up on. I made myself a list of ten things i need to finish this week, including multiple job, exhibtion, and grant apps. If i am lucky i will get to work in the studio before i have to go back to work for mark at the halsey next week.

update from the studio, update to the website, and off to the caa conference

i couldn't help myself these guys seemed so lonely i made them a purple object to balance out the composition, more colors to emerge shortly

i cut the bottom off of this piece so i could expand it and make it a proper crushed water bottle

this bottle with all the drawing on it will be serving as the model for the steel piece from here on out

i finished off the siding piece and put a nice set of iron castors on it, now not only is it a formally beautiful piece, it is also practical and easy to arrange in an exhibition space(or to use as a prop for future stop action movies)

here are a couple shots of the office that has now been retro-fitted into mrs. brilliant's artifact sorting and cataloging room, i might add that it is entirely furnished with rescued and found furniture

mrs. brilliant's inspiration wall

i still plan to use this one will as a giant collage/bulletin board for printed matter.

here is a nice view of me distracting mrs brilliant from her work

an interesting relationship is starting to develop between these objects, although i am not sure they will all end up in the same place together in the end

here is mrs brilliant in her office cataloging artifacts and listening to public radio through the coffee cup sleeve speaker

here i am checking to see if the java sleeve audio device is functioning properly

this is a salvaged computer speaker and a box from a wedding gift converted into extra stereo speakers

tomorrow i am taking off for a couple of days to the college art association conference in dallas. yesterday i finished fixing up the office space in the studio so mrs. brilliant(my wife brooke) can sort and package the artifacts she has been washing in the studio. As part of the modification of the space i have been using parts salcaged off of discarded fire alarm systems to make extra sets of speakers for the stereo. this way both brooke and i can indulge in our npr addiction and get our fix of market place, on point, tell me more and all the other great content that furae, kai, and laksmi dish out. I used coffee cup sleeves to I also started working back on the large welded steel spike piece that occupied most of time at the vermont studio center. I plan to make it follow the shape of this one particular poland spring water bottle that has really captured my attention. oh and i kind of overhauled my website a bit, but i plan to keep it better up to date. well after a month of being married, has it only been a month, i can honestly say that we are still getting used to the idea. I don't have a lot of time to mull it over though, because i am anxiously awaiting the rejection/acceptance calls/letters from the jobs i have been interviewing for. Next week i also plan to drop off an updated proposal for a show i am chasing, so i guess i have nothing to worry about, except for the fact that the apartment we just moved into last month and spent two weeks pimping out to perfection, is being sold along with the rest of the building.

a tidal wave of coffee cups and plastic, a piece of small architecture, and some filing cabinets

this fliling cabinet is one that we repainted for out apartment and i hope to finish up with it later this week.

these are a couple panoramas i created for the power point i gave last week at austin peay state university. I am still planning to get the powerpoint compressed down to a movie, but so far the movies have been too big to upload.

we got a couple of old filing cabinets, and sanded them and are spraying them out with some fresher colors

this object will be clad completely in reclaimed siding i found on the side of the road. I think when i finish closing the structure in i will light it from inside with some ultra bright compact flourescent bulbs

this is a tidal wave of plastic and coffee cups, i am really curious to see where this leads me.

Today i have another interview, this one is for assistant curator at the halsey institute of contemporary art at the college of charleston. I am a little bit nervous about this interview but I know whatever is supposed to happen will happen. i always have this fear that when i show up for things that have been scheduled in advance I will show up and have missed them or it will be the wrong day/time. To help alleviate my anxiety i went into the studio yesterday to work on a couple projects i have been juggling. I have a couple more packets and proposals to finish this week in addition to making some nice packets to take with me next week when i fly out to dallas. In an ideal world i would find a chance to revamp and upload my new website this week, but the longer i wait the more stuff i will have and the better it will be.

campus visit at austin peay(pronounced pee) state

some samples of the absolutely kickass mid-century modern furniture that is in use in the art building at austin peay state university.

this is the view from the lectern about 15 minutes before my little slide talk

sausage patties_______________egg patties

a sample of the less than continental breakfast at the hotel, which i did not eat,because the austin peay people took me out to a cool german bakery.

It is hard to process everything that is happening but i have definitely enjoyed myself. There is so much un-tapped potential here with both their gallery and their visiting artist program. In a strange break with the typical atmosphere of an art department, everyone here seems to get along with no one else stepping on anyone elses toes. I am particularly nervous about waking up from this fantasy since the environment actually seems supportive of creative pursuits. Unlike most art departments there is no sense of anxiety permeating every corner of the department. I am really comforted by the fact that all 12 art faculty seemed settled and several have confessed that they planned on leaving after their first couple of years and couldn't find a better offer and just stayed. i keep asking them what the catch is, because so far everything seems on the level, unless it is like a stepford wives sort of thing only they are the stepford professors. I would have total freedom to design a gallery schedule, develop fundraising, work with and expand a permanent collection, i would get to teach and they pay enough so that first year professors can afford to own a house. After I gave my lecture people seemed really responsive and asked very interesting questions. I finally refined my talk down to about 85 slides with three of them being videos, I will try to compress the powerpoint down to a quicktime movie and put it here, although it is not the same without my witty delivery and hysterical one liners. During the formal interview when i was sitting around the conference table with the faculty i was amazed at how congenial everyone was. I can't imagine a more painless interview process i hope the rest are this easy.