take me to the bridge

On sunday at 3pm, I was driving back from a trip to Charlotte with Brooke. I was sort of looking forward to a pretty down week before heading off to little rock for thanksgiving, when i got a phone call. Well actually i missed a phone call because i was driving, but when i checked the message, it was a woman identified only as "catherine from myartspace" Long story short she called to inform me that I had won their first prize for the bridge art fair competition. That was great, but then the wheels started turning. Apparently I needed to present something that is Representative of the site specific installations that I submitted and I had to have it ready asap. So I came up with The Goldsworthy of the Coffee Shop: The portable Edition. It is a bit more duchampian than i usually like to be with my work, but it solves the problem of how to present the work for the Bridge art fair with such short notice. Winning the competition is a complete shock, since at the time I entered I just looked at the call for submissions and saw that the jury consisted of the senior curator for the Whitney Museum, The senior curator for the SF MOMA, the senior curator for the San Jose Museum of art and the founder of the Bridge art fair and figured it would be cool if those people saw the work i was doing. It is a huge boost of confidence that they unanimously voted me the top winner. I hope this honor helps make it easier to expand the scope of the installations I have been undertaking, and helps make proposal submissions a little bit easier(speaking of which i still have a few that are due pronto that i need to get out in the mail).
With only an hour to conceptualize the piece, i made a quick sketch of one possible solution

realizing time was going to be the biggest factor, i determined the best solution was to turn an old crate i had from a previous show into a portable installation
so I stayed up all night Monday and Tuesday converting the crate into a portable installation, complete with it's own gallery lighting, then wove the stir sticks into the space like i would in the gallery installations




The Goldsworthy of the Coffee Shop: Portable Edition
3000 stir sticks woven in place and held by tension, custom lighting, and crate
2008
I realize the pictures dont due it justice, but trust me it is a perfect traveling mini version of what i have been doing.
Also as part of winning they did an interview with me that can be found here

big ass water bottle moving day

With brooke's help yesterday i moved the big ass water bottle and water bottle display case to the navy yard for Kulture klash this weekend.
the shirt i'm wearing is a little something i made to celebrate the completion of big ass water bottle, i figured a piece this long in the works deserves it's own t-shirt
it was kind of sunny and bright especially reflected off of the bright white enamel.

it was really interesting how the light comes through the piece from one side making it seem transparent, but when viewed from the other side with direct light becomes a solid object again.

a little water bottle love in the family.

it was funny, i had this t-shirt on last night when i was at an event and i found myself at some point actually drinkning out of a water bottle. Later on a dude looked over at me and looked at the t-rshirt and looked back at me drinking the water bottle and kind of laughed(i think he got it). Maybe i should make t-shirts of all the objects i am likely to hold in my hand throughout the day and just wear them around town with a straight face and see if anyone notices.

So big ass water bottle has had quite a journey. In the summer of 2007 I paid a visit to the college of charleston sculpture studio where erik johnson had two crates of steel spikes that someone had given him, He didn't want them so of course seeing thousands of something metal i said,
I'll take that if you dont need it.
The boxes of spikes sat around the studio for a couple of months before i ran them through an acid bath and began using them for a new series of rust prints. At some point I started welding them together to make a basket style sculpture. Then I got busy with residencies and installations, but in Decemeber of 2007 I took the piece and the spikes with me for my residency at the Vermont Studio Center. While at the vsc I kept working systematically on the piece until it began to take shape. I actually kept the same water bottle i was drinking out of in vermont and brought it back to the studio and used it as a guide for  the piece. So recently i began cleaning up the finished the piece. Initially i began grinding down the surface to create a shiny metal bottle, but something about the experience of the whiteness of the snow in vermont still resonates with this piece. The mood of this piece always makes me think of my time in vermont.So it only seemed logical, visually and conceptually to paint it white. Throughout this year as i continued to work on "big-ass water bottle" i constantly thought back to my time in vermont. I was pleasantly surprised when i finally stepped back and looked at this piece and saw what i was going for, a synthesis of process and pop. I am very satisfied that the piece is created through the repition of a simple gesture of labor, but the image is one of yet another portable consumer fetish object. I keep thinking that I could sum up the current influences on my studio practice by placing my drink order at a restaurant
coffee and a water please
I also made a series of 100 cast painted water bottles to go in a display case. although I cant remember I think i actually found the display case after i started casting the water bottles, but it was only a matter of time before the two met.
here is the display case in the studio, when i go back on friday to finish the kulture klash install i will snap some pictures of this one in it's current location, hopefully i can get the lights working on site...

election day

some shots from my wait in line to vote. I felt that the line moved much faster than the line at a an airport to get through homeland security. I was surprised how much the wait didn't bother me or the people around me and was even more pleasantly surprised that no one was talking about politics in the line to vote, that would have been a real downer

free coffee, free donuts, free cupcake, and finally less of an embarrassment about being an American in a global world. I have felt a small bit of the excitement and possibility of being an American artist that was taken away during September 11th restored on November 4th. If September 11th sent me inward and sparked off years of doubt and confusion about what if any significance art has beyond the studio environment, November 4th will make me wonder what a little community organizing could accomplish in my corner of the art world. I was moved to tears by both McCain's and Obama's speeches last night. It actually left me wondering if it is true that all the people need is a cause to believe in. also in the back of my mind i wondered Do Corrupt men seek power or does power corrupt men?

a cup alone

When I see a stray coffee cup placed like this I think about the ritual that went along with this cup. I often refer to to-go coffee cups as portable consumer fetish objects, because of the interface the way they are built to be caressed and cradled between two hands. Unlike other pieces of litter, when I find a to-go coffee cup it is usually placed in an upright position, abandoned mid-ritual consumption. When I happen upon a cup like this in my day I feel less alone. I think the design of a cup like this is far superior to the standard for-here cup that requires the awkward insertion of fingers into a looped handle. although there is that strange hybrid to-go coffee cup, the paper ones with the paper loop handle, what was that about.