phew

graduate school is a large portion of work. it makes blogging a difficulty to say the least. right now it is a rainy day and i've been working on some email business arranging things for the coming days and weeks. earlier today Shauna and i went to an apartment a couple blocks away to see what a lower rent would get us (a much dirtier spot with a trip through some seriously puddle filled alleyway to get to a rusty laundry room) and so far we are happy to stay where we are. Shauna is loving her job and is getting more and more encouragement from her employer for a job well done. my second semester just ended and i am preparing for a really busy summer. going to Colorado to unload our storage unit, going to Italy to study old art with a class from school, hopefully going back to Colorado for a family reunion, opening a new show at Autumn Space, preparing for the Fall season at Autumn Space, and surely some other things that i don't know about right now. so that is the fast update... oh, the pictures are from a show that took place at Manifest Exhibitions (a basement gallery), they are details of the architecture of the space.

Autumn Space

days and months... so much time and work has passed. three parts to my life right now (at least in the most simple terms):

1. Shauna (my amazing bride/friend/encouragement)

2. school (i have three very different advisors this semester and my brain is full)

3. Autumn Space (a gallery that my friend Brad and i are running)

i am sorry that i haven't had more posts here over these first weeks of the semester. this will be a quick overview of what i am doing now. i have four "classes": a seminar with John Corbett that is half in class discussion and half in studio critique (3 hours each week), a critique class with Gaylen Gerber (6 hours of critique each week), advising with Chris Sullivan (an artist from the film/video/new media department who comes to my studio once every two weeks for 45 minutes to an hour), advising with Mark Booth (an artist and writer also comes to my studio every two weeks). Autumn Space is a contemporary art gallery (autumnspace.com) and we have had four solo shows and one group show. our next show opens on March 19th. i have too many things in my head to lay them all out right now... would love any feedback on Autumn Space.

figuring it out

made this painting on top of someone else's painting that i had found in the trash. (this isn't the finished thing but it relates to the painting below, which was a second version of this stack painting)
this second one i painted over with purple paint and a pattern in white... it was AWFUL!
so i turned it to the wall, put some paper binding tape on the right and poured latex into the space between the canvas and stretcher.

the paint dried and cracked
i taped the top edge of the binding tape with a piece of duct tape and it was finished... i was realizing that i don't like making "paintings" right now. this is my first "anti-painting"

first piece in the studio

i found a bunch of bungee cord and made a ball from it

the next step was to dip the whole thing in white paint.
it ended up not being a very worthwhile object but when i put it on my newly fabricated pallet it totally changed and looked pretty interesting. sometimes, this is how i make discoveries. this is yet another "failed" piece, but this picture of the ball and the pallet might be important later.

a failed painting

this was an attempt at letting paint bleed under a bundle of wood... it didn't work out very well

the pallet for the prints

this is a bit of a step back but wanted to show the process of re building a pallet for the prints from the pallet that the paper was delivered on.
first i took it all apart

re-assembled to be stronger and better kind of dimension for being a platform for "million"

studio life and changes part 2

i wanted to build a wall so i needed to trim the floor.
building the wall
installing the wall
finishing the wall
the detachable portion of the wall is three feet wide, used to fill a four foot space and allow a twelve inch gap to slip behind the wall
the finished wall section with the detachable part leaning to the left
shot of installation for open studio event
the twelve inch gap is on the right side of the photo
this is the view from the alley where i had found my hardwood flooring... the tallest building with the fire escape is our apartment building from the back
i found another load of flooring recently (i can actually finish my floor and have a full floor instead of a half floor)
organizing
also found some nice old 2x4s and 2x2s that are actually 2x4 and 2x2 (i love old building materials!)

studio life and changes part 1

turning the studio into my own place. once i moved in it was a matter of organizing my collection of stuff so i could really get to work.

the pile of wood in the corner is hardwood flooring that i found in a dumpster behind our apartment a couple months before the semester started... i found it after realizing that i wanted to have a floor in my studio to record my activity these two years of graduate school.
Shauna came to the studio and helped me clean up the flooring and then installed it. the cleaning and installation took quite a while....

i soon realized that there wasn't enough floor to fill the studio. even without the whole studio filled i thought that i could use a half floor (kind of divide the space into work space and show space)
i attached the outside edge of the floor and while i was in class Shauna cleaned it and oiled it. a beautiful floor ready to be used.
the floor being put to good use with a heavy stack of paper on it.


i decided to put up a drape of two old paintings to cover up my collection of junk and show the million rectangles.
back to work again

million rectangles (VI)

this is what the million rectangles looks like as a finished piece (at least for now, i hope to show it as all the prints being visible someday). 6,945 sheets of paper, weighs 900 pounds, is nearly six feet tall (including the pallet it is on).

my studio

this is a quick set of pictures to show what my studio looked like right after i moved in. all of the stuff was either at our apartment (thanks to Brad for helping me haul the apartment stuff down there!) or at the school in the painting racks (i was taking up 6 painting racks and two lockers). having space to spread out and look at the materials i've been collecting has been so awesome! i love having a studio!