New Studio, New Job, More time

It's been way too long since I last posted on this blog and a lot has changed in my life. I acquired a spacious studio in the INscape building in the International District of Seattle last April. I quit my day job in June and now after a Summer full of lots of art camps, I have lots of time to spend in the studio working of new pieces. I've begun a new large styrofoam piece (big surprise), but with a totally different formal concern and a much more specific conceptual concern. I'm calling it Mountainscape right now, and instead of the usual airy, suspended form this one is supposed to feel a little more massive and heavy. The architectural edges from the molded styrofoam contrasting the natural looking "eroded" surface is one of my favorite aspects of the piece.

Gun School, 2012

Here are two images of a recently finished sculpture that I've titled "Gun School," because I love how it reminds me of a group of fish swimming and I enjoy the play on words involved. What are squirt guns doing to those who play with them? Do they desensitize us to gun violence? Personally, I'm grew up playing with all kinds of toy guns and loved them...especially if it involved Nerf darts, and I've grown to enjoy firing all kinds of weaponry. But I'm also appalled at the number of gun violence incidents that have happened this year in my own city (one was just a few blocks away from my apartment). Are these toys that children grow up with and adore preparing them for something more menacing?

It just occurred to me that the items on my refrigerator make a fairly compelling still life. I'm posting this image as a challenge to myself to draw or paint it before the end of Summer. I've been considering a drafting challenge to get my chops up.

Cloud Jar

I found a little metal pipe in the large planter outside my apartment building. I picked it up, because I'm trying to develop the habit of picking up things that I think might have potential. It being a pipe I also thought it would be smart to clean it. I tend to just soak my found objects in bleach water, and look what this did! It's been growing for a little over a week. I'm afraid to touch it now.

Zeitgeist 2010

These are images from an installation at Zeitgeist Coffee in Pioneer Square. "Refuse Flock" arose from my investigations into the Pacific Gyre Garbage Patch, which is a massive accumulation of debris in the Pacific Ocean that is twice the size of Texas and growing. I became interest in the idea of what it might look like if we had a similar issue, but floating in the sky.

current work

This is the piece I am currently working on. It's a suspended sculpture, which seemed like the natural progression from the work shown in "We Built This to Leave". One of the comments I received most from people was how drawn in they were by the shadows that most of the work projected on the wall. This led me to think about the secondary effects my forms were having and how to emphasize those effects. I'm trying to build a piece that will be viewed from below and will cast a shadow onto the floor. As of yet, it doesn't have a title, but I'm tossing around words like cloud (which might be too obvious) and the word flock. Flock strikes me as more active and descriptive--not to mention, less obvious.