my parent’s house in Warren Maine, from my recently acquired drone.
Hello all, and welcome back to SnarkAttack. I haven’t posted much of late because things have been a whirlwind since about midway through my four month stint in Madison Wisconsin as Windgate Artist in Residence in the Furniture Program there. A lot has happened.
Firstly, that residency was fantastic. I got to spend time making, meeting new people, hanging with old friends, and taking a break from teaching, while I explored some new directions for my work. I stayed with my dear friends, Jordan Gehman and Mali Mrozinski. click the links to see the great art they make.
They look like this, when they are engrossed in conversation…
and like this, when they ride the bus…
More importantly though, At some point during my stay, they looked like this, because they got married…
and I looked like this…
Because, I married them…
This is just adorable. Those two!
It was magical.
Aside from performing quasi-religious ceremonies and hanging out with these two, I got to connect with a whole bunch of great friends and art people who I hadn’t seen in a long time. It turns out Madison is something of a hotbed of awesomeness.
In the studio, I worked on a few different projects. I took the time to advance the Flat Rate Exchange project that I have been working on with Jordan for some time now. We put together an exhibition, and began developing a design line stemming from the same principles and designed around flat rate shipping boxes. This work will continue as an ongoing project for the foreseeable future and I just received the first exchange since returning to Maine. Time to get back to work.
In my personal work, I started a new project that I am calling Itinerant Landmarks. This work is made up of a series of breakdown objects that stow into travel cases and can be setup in various landscapes, as ephemeral markers and confounding directionals. here are a few shots, but head over to my website for more and some trial flyover drone videos of the work installed at UW Madison. The drone thing is obviously new to me and I’m figuring out how it will come into the work, but It will certainly bring a new element to the landscape objects. This work, much like other recent projects, will exist as photo-documentation as well as the actual objects. I will be publishing a small book of the project as I install it in more locations.
My experience at UW was truly excellent. The grad students in Tom Loeser’s program are doing great things and were super helpful in getting me settled in and helping me get situated. I loved getting to critique the work they were making, and getting their feedback on my studio progress. I wish that I could be there this semester to see the two MFA thesis shows that will happen. I intend to continue making work in this vein moving forward and will be posting updates here and on my website.
Anyway, I’m back to life in Maine, and I have to say, I’m glad to be back. I love the residency experience specifically for its temporary nature. Sometimes I had wished it could keep going, but it would only prolong the inevitable. I love the idea of the residency as a short term break from the everyday, to take stock and really focus on work, before returning to what you do. I’m teaching part time, at MECA and a class at UNH, and it’s really great to have the freedom that comes with adjunct teaching. I know all the complaints about it: low pay, unpredictable schedules, no benefits, etc… but there is something to be said for the freedom it provides as well. I show up, do the teaching that I love to do, and then go home. A little grading and prep work here and there, but otherwise, my time is mine. No committees. Just teaching and working on my own career. I’m not sure what will come next and may even be better motivated when my schedule is filled with administrative and teaching responsibilities, but for now, this is great.
Thanks for tuning in.
here’s this…
Snark Attack! 