Two Great Links to check out

Over the memorial day weekend and into this week i have been to busy to post anything new let alone even have much time to work on many new projects. I have started some things which i am quite confident I will have pictures of by the end of the week. For now I want to post two great links that i have come across recently. The first is a great maker who a friend of mine's father is good friends with and who I've found has quite a few similar interests to my own. Click here to see his work: Tim Hunkin. The second link I am providing is for a website which aggregates great Documentary Films from all over the web called Online Documentaries 4 U. Check it out if you are a fan of getting some new knowledge which isn't to readily available in the main stream media. Enjoy!

books on the brain

It started out as one thing, then turned into another, and now looks like its headed for another. Change is good. I'm open to letting the art evolve and show me things i wouldn't have seen in the beginning about where it can go. It's a process and right now my process is to let happen what happens and try not to resist it. I'm in this new studio space which i am loving shared with my friend Pat Blake and 4 others i have yet to spend much time with but am planning on having a first full group work night tomorrow which i am very excited about. Pat and myself have started collecting a whole bunch of different materials to work with and are experimenting around the stuff to see what we enjoy using and what works good for us. So far the book thing seems to be what i've been spending alot of time working with as well as elaborating on some stencil design work. My first idea with the current book project was to do an arch of books inspired some of Andy Goldsworthy's stacked stone arches. After gluing together about 7 books to form the arch I was just not as impressed as what i had seen in my head and decided to go bigger. My current goal with the book arch is to take the arch full circle and repeat this with 8 or 10 layers of book circles which i then plan on stacking on top of each other to make a very tall book totem pole. I'm anticipating this being quite an undertaking, but i also envision it to give me much more satisfaction in the end. Pushing your personal boundaries seems to be the best way to learn things about yourself that you might have missed otherwise. The pictures i have posted for it really don't show the magnitude of where i am hoping this goes but will at least hopefully give with a little bit of imagination a look at where its headed. Again, i will keep adding new posts to track the progress as it gets built. Enjoy!

Pat Blake - Mushroom Foam

Pat Blake's newest project is recycling throw away foam he finds and repurposes. This current project is hand carving foam rectangles into mushrooms of all shapes and sizes to mount onto a foam base. I may also be involved in this sculpture as we are talking about attempting to make this little foam world a little more interactive using a micro-controller to control different patterned LED lights around the mushrooms. As this project unfolds I will add a future post to follow up with what came from these bizarre foam shapes.

Grass Ribbons

These were created on a lunch break at work. Staying in doors and staring at computer monitors all day can drive me crazy, and nothing eases my crazyness like stepping outside and doing something creative in the middle of the day!

Venezuela - Andy Brehm

New film by Philadelphia artist Andrew Brehm. This weekend I went to the premiere of the film and was thoroughly impressed. Who doesn't enjoy a night out surrounded by retro airline stewardesses. I also was able to meet Andy who seems like a great guy who knows what he wants and isn't distracted by the world around him. Two thumbs up!

Viking workspace, Viking work

Creating a first project in a new space seems like the project should take on some quality of the new space it is filling. Above are the photos I've taken of that first project titled "the viking" created in the viking mill studio. This was done with 6 hand cut stencils and painted using various spray paints.

The Viking Mill - my new home away from home

For a few months now i have a friend that keeps telling me about his studio space that he rents out in an old textile factory, recently converted into a workspace for many local artists in the philadelphia area. "The Viking Mill" After checking out the space last week and getting the ok from Pat I've decided to become a part of whats on the horizon for the philadelphia art scene. From seeing the work that is going on in this place I have regained some hope for what looked to be a very stale present state of my local art world. Starting June 1, I will have my keys to the studio and be ready to spend quite a bit of time in what looks to be a very motivating and constructive enviornment.