Back at Haystack

Well, this June, I was able to cross off a major life goal from my bucket list (I hate the phrase “bucket list” but there you have it) by teaching my first full session course at the Haystack Mountain School of Craft. 

I first attended Haystack as a work Study student in 2007, an experience that was directly responsible for me applying to graduate school and formative to me in many ways. Since then, Haystack has served as a yearly (sometimes a few times a year in one capacity or another) reset. While I have taught short workshops there over the years, this was my first time as a two week course instructor and it did not disappoint. The class, entitled “Reinterpreting the Familiar Object” was loose in theme with sporadic intensive demonstrations and one on one training and discussion. A small group, my Seven student class consisted of a fantastic mix of people from a broad spectrum of life. 

I teach best in these kinds of settings. A class in which students propose their own ideas, and I guide them through the execution of that idea. We had furniture, turning, sculptural boat forms, and much more. So much fun and such a great group. 

Here is a smattering of images from the class. 

Also, we were there for an amazing full moon on the summer solstice. It was positively glowing for most of the two week session. 

Stay tuned for more updates as I prepare to leave Maine for California and a whole new grownup teaching adventure. 

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Madison Windgate Fellowship Residency: Week 3

Madison is on an Isthmus, and that’s where we are. Between two lakes.

Madison Windgate fellowship residency: week 1

Hi Everyone. I have just finished my first week in Madison for my Windgate fellowship residency. I will be blogging weekly while I’m here, and this is the first of those posts. First of all, I always like to start with a good picture, so here is this…

3 Things

Since I apparently can’t post with any real consistency any more, post-worthy topic tend to pile up for me. So, in order to bring us up to date, today you will learn about 3 big things, in chronological order, all of which are awesome for me.

But first, This hospital pain chart from the Blue Hill Hospital…

Suzie home maker

these parts are starting to look familiar

Why is it that no matter what I do, I always end up making tiny houses. I took this picture at about 1:30 this morning in the midst of making a stack of parts for my diving board’s cam mechanism. The parts are intended to be set up something like this…

Its raining raindrops!

Tonight I went in to the Studio at about 11 pm to get a couple of little tasks finished up and it was raining really hard. This was a really beautiful rain so I’m ok with it but the SDSU art building is not. our back porch was about two inches deep at the center and the drain was totally clogged. so, I plunged it out and it made the coolest whirlpool I’ve ever seen. It was dark out and I was cameraless so you’ll have to take my word for it but it was wicked fast and then it started making this really loud suction noise as it drained the water as quickly as it could.
After dealing with that, I went to check on my rocking shed (it looks a little something like this…

Tech Tools or: how I learned to stop worrying and love the Jesus Phone

Since we live in a world completely filled with advertising, I, unfortunately, take in a lot of commercials and ads. Also, as a thinking person, I am constantly wondering who the hell is getting paid to create this stuff. Here is a good example that I encountered one recent evening at a CVS.

at the entrance to a CVS...

At first glance this may seem to make sense:

Artish

Today we had a crit in Seminar of a short term project that began over Margaritas and Mexican food last week. Wendy handed out a paper napkin to each of us and told us to draw or sketch the first thing that came to mind. Then we passed them one person to the left and she told us to make a piece in a week about that person’s drawing. Some fun work came of it. I like these short assignments like this because it allows for a kind of unrestrained creativity that sometimes gets complicated over the long term. That kind of exercise, I think, really helps inform how you think and make work in the long run.

Making Our Mark: mapping the ridiculous

The Colon may just be the fanciest punctuation in the English language. Honestly I’ve never quite known if I use it properly but, in most cases, It can take any phrase and immediately make is sound like the title page of a doctoral dissertation. Here is the title of my undergraduate thesis paper…( yes, undergraduate International Relations students write thesis papers no matter how pathetic they turn out)… “Weimar’s Demise: The SPD’s Misguided Approach to Preserving the Republic and Their role in its Collapse.”
That sounds absurd to me right now. That feels like a different life. I remember it being half-assed and uninformative. In hindsight though, I’m glad that for a moment there, I thought that maybe I could do something “meaningful”. But, lets be honest, I don’t think I ever really thought that. I’m finding this art thing to be far more meaningful anyway. I mean, who has ever learned anything about the future by analyzing the past? pffft…

when one door opens…

Another is broken...

I struggled a bit with the idea of going techie on this new piece but I think that I have fully embraced it. after a long talk with Jon about parts, a longer talk with Matt, some head-scratching with Andy, and then another refresher with Matt, I may just have the details of this thing figured out.

diving in: its kind of cold outside

so, compared to much of the rest of the county, no, its not that cold here in San Diego. However, two days ago i took this picture which is a bit unusual… in my short history here at least.

12 feet of sun drenched fiberglass

Before I get started with what I’m working on right now, I want to show you what my special lady friend, Amertah, did with my sawhorses that I posted the pictures of the other day, while I was at the studio today. here’s a hint… genius.

Talking “Helter Shelter”

So last night we had a grad critique on the theme of shelter that most everyone (Although I’ve worked a lot within this theme, I’m kind of doing my own thing at this point) has been working on for the past five weeks or so. It was a good crit and I took pictures of it for your viewing enjoyment.

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shapes and sizes

As I mentioned in my last post, I have been working on a sort of sprawling roadmap of sorts constructed as a long string of mutant sawhorses. here are some progress shots of it a couple of days ago. It maps out the swimming pools in a particular neighborhood and I have since painted the pools and advanced a little further on the project.

thinking of new work

As I get ready to get back into the studio and finish this current piece up, I’m (as usual) more interested now in what’s next. I really want to move past these house structures that i was working with so much in the past few months and this sickness interlude has really stalled my momentum. I’ve been looking at some new artists lately that are making some really cool work that inspires me. Here’s a guy named Michael Beitz who i found out about because he just finished up a Bemis residency, which i just applied for. his house box fan in particular is pretty awesome. His work is right up my alley and it seems like he too is a recent MFA grad. i like his level of interaction and playfulness but overall i want to make more intervention type work that speaks to its location more that that.

There are some really great local artists that I have been looking at too. Andy Ralphmakes some great work. you may remember his wacky outdoor lawnchairs from the Here Not There show at MCASD La Jolla. This piece however,