city gallery day 7 and 8

it has been difficult to really photograph this on the fly as the light in the space changes constantly with the sun and the reflected light from the water outside. I should be setting the lights in the next couple of days.


it has been interesting for me to see this piece develop. in many ways it has become a lot like a torqued basket fed through some sort of photoshop filter. I like to think when i am working that it is a bit like a labor intensive version of the cloning tool inside the photoshop interface
one of the great things about this space is the opportunity to work both high and low.

this ended up being the best way to work on the under side of the piece.

I am feeling better about the prospect of resolving this piece shortly. with each installation like this i reach a point where i have to trust the direction that the work is driving itself in and just follow that. I managed to bring the downstairs to a resolution and now i am teasing out the upper portions but not for too much longer since the show opens on friday and i still need to clean up the space and light it and then rest a little bit myself. I have been finding with this piece that the lessons i learned on the previous installations have been put into play and i hope in the future to use what i learned here. It is really interesting to see the learning curve on these since it has been such a drawn out process. With work that is portable and studio based i can come and go from it and see the changes develop much faster. When doing these site-specific, site-responsive pieces i really only get to learn from them when i do them. So where in a year I might make several objects and works on paper in the last three years I have only seen a handful of these installations realized, but am hopeful that i will get to see more in the future...

city gallery day 6

so yeah this was today's task, tomorrow I will finish off this section and will for sure get back to the upper portions.

city gallery day 5

i have been enjoying how the stereo speakers are just sort of lost in the field of stir sticks.

this is the view from above

I began resolving the form today, and hopefully tomorrow I can finish building in the rest of the lower part before starting on the upper sections. That is all for now, Looking forward to getting back to it tomorrow.

city gallery day 4

here we are at the end of day 4 looking forward to day 5, one week left until the opening



the boxes in the bottom right are the empties for the sticks I have used on site. I really like these new sticks not only for their improved quality over previous sticks, but also for the great packaging that lends itself nicely to spiral stacking.

city gallery day 3

so I continue to make progress on this half, tonight I am going to start the other side of the room and hope they meet in the middle some time before next week. I am beginning to find my way with this one, no major derailments today.

city gallery day 2

so I accomplished two signifcant sections today. First was connecting the lower form to the upper railing and second was hoisting the first span into place.



that is all for now.

city gallery day 1

This is how it starts....

actually it started with me parking the truck inside the studio overnight so the humidity wouldn't mess up the woven panels i made ahead of time

once I got on site I was quite happy to see that the layers of plastic and the plywood sandwich saved the woven stir stick panels from an untimely demise.

I have taken a divide and conquer approach this time. I am working both high and low and hope to make them meet in the middle.

this is the lower section starting to take shape. I was able to use the panels woven in the studio to block in the form.

some progress on woven steel structure+ a construction delay

I started working on the woven steel structure for the new top secret space. I was planning to create some elements of the form in the studio using the column in my space as a guide, but then I was going to set up shop in their space and build out the rest of the form. Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately they hit a delay on their end so the actual install is temporarily pushed back another week or so. This is great for me since I have some prep work to do for the city gallery piece and I actually have some applications and proposal deadlines I need to knock out. As well I will be moving out of this studio on June 1st. I have toyed with the idea before of having an open studio/closing studio event back in December when I thought I was losing my space forcibly, but now I will probably have some sort of event/opening/closing reception yard sale. I would like to mark the end of this studio, since the last two years have been a significant period of growth for me artistically and much of it was fueled by time spent both in this studio and in residencies and working on other sites, but always grounded by knowing i would return to this space.

This is how i got started. I began by just seeing if the same tensile weaving i use for the 7" coffee stirrers would work for 5-10 foot strips of 1/8"x3/4" strips of ribbon stock steel. the answer is yes of course.

next i began forming them into a more basket like structure allowing it to form around the column. Ultimately the piece will be more of an organic woven form engaging directly with the space i will install it in.

At this point I intend to keep weaving the structure through the column and into the actual installation space. This would have been the day that I set up my tools on site and began that process but like I said earlier I am on hold with it until next week. I don't mind being patient with this one as I think the pay off will be worth it to see the tensile weaving of the stir sticks translated to a heavier stronger material, I already translated the process to some acrylic strips which has been very satisfying and might be the beginning of some more plastic work. Either way this method of working directly with my materials continues to help me focus and prepare for the city gallery install, if you want to see more about the city gallery show go here
http://www.contemporarycharleston.com
Once the show opens in May there will be a catalog and dvd available for purchase from the gallery.

flourescent bulb+npr+bad reception=strange occurances in the studio

i noticed the static on npr was in time to the flickering light, might be time to change the bulb...

Big Water Bottle Basket now installed at North Charleston River front park

big water bottle basket is on display until March 2010 at the North Charleston river front park as part of their juried national outdoor sculpture show

Today we installed the big water bottle basket at the North Charleston River Front Park.

this is a flash gallery of images from today,if you are reading this blog somewhere other than on blogger and cannot see the image gallery you may need to go to my flickr page to see the images

After I finished I began gathering material for the woven steel installation taking place in a top secret location, which i will reveal once i have permission. below are a couple of images of the space and some projections of what the woven steel piece might look like. I am going to use the same process and approach for installation that i do with the stir sticks but using thin pliable steel stock instead of my beloved birch wood coffee stirrers. As with all these installations I will try to create the piece entirely in situ as a direct response to the space and the materials I have chosen. I will try to keep up blogging the progress of this, but as soon as I finish this one I will immediately begin the city gallery installation so needless to say I will be pretty tied between now and May 15th...

this is actually the interior of the space and it features the facade of a house and the wonderful steel column running through the center. I am really interested in using the column and the corner of the room in a way similar to the Orangeburg piece, as both a support and a guiding element of the installation.