so fun to say

Shuttlecock.
Shuttlecock.
Say it out loud people, shuttlecock.
That is a super fun word to say.
Shuttlecock.
Shuttlecock.

And why do i have badminton on the brain?

And not just any badminton birdie, my friends.
This beauty at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, MI is 18 ft tall and FANTASTIC.







Installed in the mid-90's by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen, it is one of three shuttlecocks strewn about the grounds making it look like giants were playing a game of badminton with the museum as the net.

BF Suzanne and I visited KC last November and this was the Number One thing on my to-do list.

It did not disappoint. 

You can totally go stand inside of it for pictures.

Totally.

though you might not want to put your foot up on the priceless art, as a nice security guard reminded me 

Giant shuttlecock.

Like a set piece from my dreams.

Thanks, Kansas City!

Cryptid-Creations

*****picture added 8/12/15*****

         Over at Epbot, Jen posts cool art she comes across and last month one of the artists was Piper Thibodeau, a young Canadian who posts a speed painting every day on her blog, Cryptid-Creations.
She is only a week away from having posted 1000 days in a row, which inspires me to get back here. I have looked through all 992 paintings and i might be a little in love:

where can i get a hamsterlope????

lightning is cloud farts...teehee

For the last week i have been enjoying the daily check for each new painting so i am going to add her to my blogroll in the sidebar in case you would like to be greeted by this each day:








Now if you will excuse me, i need to go get ready for a sushi date with Miss Amy.

UPDATE ADDED:

   Per Diane B.'s request in the comments, here is the caterpillar:

convergence

The studio has been a place of experimentation for the last 6 weeks or so.
As I got ready for this festival season with NikCo jewelry I was trying to keep the creative juices flowing. It is one thing to create when you want to and a totally different thing to create when you have to.
One experiment that produced results with which I am rather pleased was trying to visually represent a piece of music.
We all know that music is one of my greatest loves and that is partially because I see it as well as hear it; that is, the music exists in 3 dimensions inside of my head when I listen to it. In trying to describe the phenomena to various musicians we've mostly come to the conclusion that it is a resulting combination of the stereo-dimensional mixing in recorded music and me being... well,,, you know... a bit odd. (fTM Matt said That is so weird; I wish I could hear music like you do)
Anyhoo, there is a short instrumental piece on Thirty Seconds to Mars' new album Love Lust Faith and Dreams called "Convergence". It is a cyclical, percussive piece that really looks cool behind my eyes and I decided to try to capture it on canvas.
It sounds like this.
My intention was to do it with mixed media; I even know what I wanted to use to represent all of the layers, but in experimenting it ended up being all paint and ink.
The full background is the xylophone base painted with gesso and two shades of acrylic blues.
Next is the keyboards, done with pearl, teal, purple and silver paint washes in diagonal swaths.
The kick drum is pearl, silver and teal paint pounced at the bottom.
The guitar is the black pen lines; they are on the canvas where I hear them in spatial relation to each other. There are descriptive phrases written on two of the sides about how I personally interpret the song and I glazed the whole thing to make the colors look wet.
I could go into a lot more detail about each of the layers as the brush strokes, placement, depth, width, color selection and layering all represent something, but I think I've bored enough of you by now so here it is:

the shiny glaze makes it hard to photograph so this is taken in low light; it is much brighter in real life

kind of a mess

It's a miracle

that any paint makes it to

 the canvas at all.

why i don't draw

There have been several people in my studio over the last few weeks that asked me if i paint or draw.
Yes, i paint abstracts but not figures and no, no, no, i do not draw.
My mother drew really well, but i didn't get that particular talent.
There are folks who believe that if you are taught the principles of drawing (line, shape, shading, perspective, proportion, negative space, etc) and practice that you can learn to draw.
POPPYCOCK!
Okay, maybe some people just need some instruction and practice, but not me.
I know about the principles of drawing and goodness knows that i've tried, but something happens between my brain and my hand and the paper.
In my mind i can see what i want to draw and intellectually i know where the lines should go, but something happens when i try to put those lines on the paper.

Today i was at Jason and Kate's and had forgotten my notebook so Jason handed me a pad of paper.
Why is the circle at the top empty?
It looks like there should be a cameo there, right?





After i'd been doing some NikCo work i decided to draw in a profile cameo with side-swept bangs like mine. Honestly, i could SEE it; i knew just where all the lines needed to go.

It looks like a zombie lion with a weak chin and a pompadour.
...sigh

T-Rex Trying

We all know that i am short (5'2"and three quarters), but it has been pointed out that even for my stature i seem to have kinda short arms. Really, my arms aren't that short, i am just super long torsoed (thanks Dad) so both my arms and legs seem proportionally short. Some of my closest friends and colleagues enjoy referencing the tyrannosaurus rex when helping me reach things on high shelves.
Why am i telling you this?
T-Rex Trying is a tumblr account that was brought to my attention last week when we were telling a bunch of science jokes (yes, we are geeks, but it was actually for a project; wait, does that make us bigger geeks?).
It is a series of drawings of a lovable t-rex trying to do ordinary things like jump rope or clean the windshield or use eyedrops.
With my wee little arms it is the funniest thing i have ever seen; i was laughing so hard that a co-worker came from the other side of the room to make sure that i was breathing. There are a few that are sad (trex trying to win an auction breaks my heart) and some that cut waaaaay to close to home (trex trying to get food from a buffet with a sneeze guard; i actually look like that if i want something from the back row - make salad bars only one row people!), but mostly they make me snort with laughter.
Given my penchant for ribbon dancing on the Segway, this is my favorite.

He just looks so befuddled.
I'm keeping an eye on their t-shirts cause i will scoop that up if it ever appears.

seeing my own city

When i go to a conference i love to take some time exploring the host city, but when it was my own city there just wasn't a lot of spare time. However, at lunch one day i did take a few moments to shoot some of the art conveniently located in the rooftop garden where i was eating:

As i shot that last picture i heard trumpet music drifting up from the street.
I didn't think that i had ever seen a street musician any place besides the Inner Harbor, but then it occurred to me that i am hardly ever any place in the city besides the Inner Harbor.

Not all public art is a joy, of course.
In the lobby of the conference is this travesty:

Man, i really, really don't like these creepy "real life" pieces at all.
{Do you remember when i found the courtyard of unholy, green children?}
Sometimes i still dream about them.





To make up for that icky statue i walked out onto Pratt St to cleanse my palate with one of my favorite piece of public art in Baltimore:

This big sail is supercool because it is kinetic; the wind spins it slowly. In fact, you have to really watch carefully sometimes to see it move at all.

Love it.

Hail (a really big) Mary

If you've ever been on the Delaware Memorial Bridge between New Jersey and Delaware, you've probably noticed this large statue of Mary.

TM Joey and I were at one of my favorite schools in northern DE so during lunch we went on a quest to find her; basically we found her from the highway and just drove around neighborhoods until we found the church where she lives, Holy Spirit Catholic Church in New Castle.
From the road you can't tell how she was fabricated, but up close you can see the thousands of sheets of stainless steel welded together; it is truly amazing. Because of the spot welding technique, there are nooks and crannies where people leave rosaries and medals and prayer requests:

Named Our Lady Queen of Peace, the Delaware statue is one of a series done by sculptor Charles Parks and was dedicated in 2007.

From the road you can tell she is large, but like many giant sculptures you can't really appreciate her size until you stand right next to her.
At over 33 feet, Mary dwarfs everything around her, including TM Joey.

i don't know if it is art...

but i know that it is something intentional:

Obviously the first cups were litter, but at some point people began to carefully place their trash to create... something; the stacking and balancing continues under the phone as well.
I really wonder what people were thinking as they added each cup and how long this installation has been growing.

Li'l monster car

We see all sorts of crazy things at work.
This is the car that was parked next to our van in a school parking lot - it belongs to the art teacher:

I am so in love with all of the little monsters,

like the ones who will devour tailgaters,

or who love their moms,


but my favorite is this pink one:

He looks so forlorn. He really wants you to be his friend even though he is a monster. I imagine him speaking with just a hint of a lisp and the occasional sniffle.
Of course, TMs Joey and Katie had to be little monsters, too

The teeth on the bumper just bust me up.

I took these pictures about 3 weeks ago, but today on Michele's blog i saw that she had spotted this car too so i wanted to add my monster love to the mix.

art exhibition - raging calm

The second piece that i showed at this year's art exhibition was an embellished photo mosaic called raging calm:

This piece has two different stories that i can share: one about the photos and another about making the piece the night before the show.
The pictures are from October 1997. I was on a week-long overnight in Caroline County, MD with one of my favorite former team members (obviously, he was a TM at the time). Setting up Starlabs (portable planetariums; they're awesome) one morning i came around the side of my dome to ask him a question and found my partner passed out on the floor.
YIKES!
Ever had to walk down to a school office and ask them to call 911? It's interesting.
Anyhoo, the county we were in is so small that they didn't have their own hospital or even their own ambulance, so we had to wait for the paramedics. Meanwhile, i'm in negotiations with the principal about doing half of their shows, resceduling the shows, cancelling the shows, whatever. The decision was made to reschedule all 8 shows and i started to pack up both my equipment and his as the ambulance rushed him to the hospital in the next county. However, no one told the teachers what was going on, so my first audience arrived and i had to be the one to tell the kids that they didn't get a show that day, while appearring calm and professional.
Once i finally had all of the equipment loaded back into the van i could race off to the hospital.
On the way there, a bird flew into my windshield. I had never hit any animal before and was FREAKED OUT. Was it an omen? Was my partner dying? panic, panic, panic
Arriving at the hospital i was told that it would be a hot minute before i was allowed to see him and i started to lose it.
[some quick background for those of you joining the show already in progress, i had already spent the night in a hospital once with this TM where he had almost died; plus i was still mired in my own grief pit so even a hint of a whisper of death made me insane]
I knew that when i was finally allowed to see him i was going to have to be calm and strong and rational and comforting and at that second i was the exact opposite of those things.
So i ran.
I got into the van, pointed it at the water and drove.
You see, i love water. I have been drawn to water my whole life. In it, on it, under it, next to it - as long as water is close i am happy.
I drove and drove farther from town and closer to the water until i was on an island in the Chesapeake, until finally i was out of land and surrounded by water on every side at Black Walnut Point.
sigh... water...
Watching the waves crash, feeling the spray on me made the panic start to disappear. I had my manual camera in the van to play with; i started shooting, experimenting with different settings. As the film advanced, my fears wound away.
I have always been fascinated by my relationship with water. Oceans, bays, and gulfs are all full of ferocious energy, but they make me calm. It's almost like any turbulance inside of me is translated to the turbulance of the waves and ebbs away with the tide. It sounds crazy, but has been true my whole life.
Once i had control of myself, i returned to the hospital.
It all worked out in the end; the TM lived on to become a fTM and he is still kicking around, annoying me whenever possible; in fact, we met for fondue just 2 weeks ago.
Once developed, i instantly loved the pictures that i'd taken. They were filled with so much emotion for me that i knew i wanted to do something special with them.
A few years later i started a set of mosaics with the pictures, but the project remained unfinished. It just wasn't quite what i wanted.
Come forward another decade.
While working on a painting and a shrine to show and trying to finish setting up the exhibition itself, i was suddenly hit with inspiration. Instead of mosaicing individual pictures like i'd been doing before, what if i used parts of all of the pictures to make one big mosaic?
 Start a new piece at 11:00 the night before the show?
SURE, why not?
All of my work is done in lots and lots of layers, most of which need time to dry in between, so i was steadily able to work on the shrine, then the photos, then the shrine, then the photos. If both were wet, i worked on logistics, having decided to abandon the painting; after all, i can't do 90 things at once.
Things were going along well, when -you might remember- i lost power.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
There was no way to finish the shrine in time, but i got up at daybreak and by the light of the rising sun i added words, graffitti, a brushstroke finish, and water droplets.

Mostly in the dark, I weathered and inked the frame to match the driftwood and algae in the pictures and then put it together. I honestly didn't know what the finished product looked like until i hung it at the show.
It makes me smile everytime i look at it.

art exhibition 2011 - entropy

As i mentioned before, i want to show those of you who couldn't make the art exhibition in May, the pieces that i displayed.
First up is an old piece that has been hanging in my studio ever since i moved to the new apartment, so some of you will recognize it (even with the terrible yellowish lighting in this pic):

entropy, mixed media

A little larger than 9X11, this was originally started as a birthday card for fTM Rob. I wanted to do something metallic and monochromatic that relied completely on texture for visual interest. A lot of times when i am working on a project i will make a masterboard (larger collage or assemblage that is then cut down and used in pieces) so i started the paper layering much larger than the finished card.
I cut and punched and layered more and more pieces of cardstock to build up the background; everything was different colors and looked a fright, but it didn't matter because then i covered the whole thing with silver acrylic paint.
After the paint dried i was kind of in love with the way the layers took the paint differently and i realized that i couldn't cut it apart.
Rob ended up getting something else on his birthday card.
Little by little i would add more texture, more variations of silver using found objects in my old studio (raise your hand if you remember the blue room? anybody miss it as much as me?):

washers, punchees, gears, embossed paper, a watchband connector and some diamond glaze squiggles;

mirrors, the wrong sides of gems, the letter Q cause no one ever uses poor little Q (plus i like that it is a letter with a tail like a puppy), various sizes of holes, more textural squiggles and a painted imagine, that i'm not sure why i picked, it just felt right.




Like most of my projects, it got done in fits and starts. I'd add things and remove things until the balance felt right, until it felt done. Even when i was sure that nothing needed to be done to the assemblage i set it aside for a few months while i contemplated how to frame it. For me, how a piece is displayed and hung is the final step, the completion. In my head i knew what i wanted, but i wasn't sure that it existed (as most things in my head don't).
Finally i decided to find or build a naked wood frame so that i could make it be exactly what i envisioned.

After months of searching i found the right frame and did a metallic finish with the same paint as the assemblage. I wanted the whole thing to blend perfectly, for the wood of the frame to simply be another layer or dimension, but it looked a bit flat. The frame needed to be just a little different, have just a touch of something to set it apart so i did some black washes to make it look like parts of the frame were tarnished as if it was old silverplate. [btw, that thin strip of metal at the top used to be one of those wedding ring favors]

Finally, it was done.
Well, almost done.
It needed to be signed and named.
Sometimes i have a name in mind when i am working, but more often than not i can't name something until i see it completed in reality instead of in my head.
I looked and looked and looked at it and the sections of chaos surrounded by sections of order with sections of virtual blankness made me think of the word "entropy". The Second Law of Thermodynamics basically has to do with usable energy being converted into unusable energy over time, but it is often described in popular terms as an increase in randomness or that it takes more energy to create order than disorder. My genetics professor described it as meaning the universe is going to hell in a hand basket, which is oversimplified almost to the point of inaccuracy, but it has always stuck with me.
It is a piece that i'm not sure i could ever sell (though if you wanted to buy it, i'd entertain offers - obscenely high offers, that it) because i really do like having it hang over my paper racks; a constant reminder of how much energy one must invest to make sense from chaos.
Probably my favorite thing about entropy, now that it is over 5 years old and i have taken it down, cleaned it and hung it in a show is that you can just barely start to see some of the edges of the layers curling a wee bit, exposing the true color of the paper underneath:

entropy at work within its namesake

National Building Museum

The lovely Colleen and I continue to plug away on the Local See and Do List, but i swear it doesn't get any shorter. Of course, since local encompasses parts of 4 states and 2 cities - one of which is the nation's capitol - there are a lot of things to be seen and to be done.
Our latest foray was to the Nation Building Museum. As i mentioned on the Memorial Day post about the law enforcement memorial, all we knew before we left home was the address and Metro stop. As we were looking at the memorial and taking pictures of lion statues we were trying to figure out what street we were on to know which direction to walk to find the museum.

hmmmmmm...

maybe if we can figure out what this huge building right here is, one of us says to the other,

only to realize that this IS the National Building Museum.

That's convenient.

Built in the 1880s, this was originally the US Pension Bureau Headquarters, which is reflected in the 3ft high frieze circling the outside portraying various scenes of soldiers returning from the Civil War.

100 years later, an act of Congress repurposed it from offices to a museum celebrating the environments we create for ourselves.

When we went, there were 5 exhibitions staged: Cityscapes Revealed highlighted permanent collection pieces; Washington: Symbol and City told the in-depth story of the designing and construction of our nation's capitol, as well as describing some of its neighborhoods; Designing Tomorrow captures the design and impact of the World's Fairs of the 1930s (runs through Sept 5th 2011 if you want to see cool early/mid-century stuff); Walls Speak displays an amazing collection of the Art Deco artist Hildreth Meiere (runs through Nov 27th 2011 and is awesome); and, LEGO Architecture. The first four were free, but there was no photography allowed.

LEGO Architecture: Towering Ambition is a touring exhibition, running through Sept 2012 and was a reasonable $5 buy-up. It features replicas of 15 famous building, rendered in LEGO:





cute Empire State Building in the back






Leenie checks out the Chicago Spire

 




Falling Water was my favorite

There was also a building area with so many LEGOs it was mind-boggling. You could build anything you wanted, but there was signage about different urban planning schemes so that your building could be designed to suit various purposes.



the stripey one is mine



Once your structure was done, there was a cityscape where it could live. It was neat to see not only what structures others had built, but where people chose to put them in the city.

Even if you don't have time for the exhibits, you have, have, have to at least walk into the Great Hall:

 words don't even begin to capture the beauty

or the vastness of this space. 

Each of the column is humongous and gives the Great Hall a feeling of an open plaza inside of the building.



i'm so tiny in comparison

There were a lot of people hanging out, reading, and eating in this lovely, comfortable place. Also, there is a children/family area right in the Great Room where folks can build their own structures from all sorts of materials.
BTW, if the room looks familiar to you, there have been Presidential Inaugural Balls here since Grover Cleveland.
I recommend a visit and be sure to check out the super fun sculpture on the far-side from the Metro stop:

and maybe even be a part of it!

[note: there has been a pricing change for this museum since i visited it; info can be found here]