Australia

Long time no blog. Lots to tell and even more to imagine and guess. We are in Australia and settling in to the town of Fremantle (Freo as it known locally).

On the way here we stopped for a week in Brisbane and then Sydney. The opera house in sydney is very iconic and famous. I wasn't really prepared for how dramatic it is up close. Here are some pics:







Freo- We have been in Fremantle for 3 days now and it is a lot to take in. The town is very similar to Charleston with a dash of new orleans mixed in. Very busy, a ton of cafes and market stalls.

As for art: It isn't easy to wait. My impulse is to jump in start something but I know that the good stuff (creativity) takes a while to come out of its shell in a new place.

Displacement

As the time is getting shorter before heading to Australia I have not been taking on many big projects but slowly working on a list of things that must be handled before we leave for the winter.

Here is a project that I recently finished. I traveled twice from california to Hawaii on containerships to get the footage used here. Definitely a new medium and lots to learn. IT is fun taking on a huge challenge though...

THis is about 7 minutes long and has a great soundtrack so turn up your speakers.

Displacement from Beholdthemayo on Vimeo.

End of August Update

The blog is not easy to keep up. THe news is all good and the work is flowing but taking time out to write about it seems to slide down the list.

Over the summer I completed a copper sculpture and installed it in its new home in Montana. It has three halogen lights that shine down on the table. The metal os copper and it is really great to work in heavy copper plate. The stuff is soft and easy in certain ways that steel is not.




It feels good to work and is fun to patina and finish. The center section of the work is oak. The wiring for the piece is part of the structure. The support wires are copper coated steel and they each carry a 12v DC charge. I tried to make the circutry as transparent as possible- something reminiscent of 1920s technology. I fell like it is a very successfull piece. I have the option to make one more similar to it. Please let me know anyone is interested. It can be shipped relatively easily.

BIG NEWS>>>>>> I have been granted an artist residency in western australia for 5 months this dec-may. The whole family will be going and we are very excited about it. We will be staying in downtown Fremantle. It is just a few miles from Perth. I don't know exactly what projects I am going to do down there.
Please let me know if you have insights or stories about australia! I have had several ideas for public art projects and sent out emails in order to get the ball rolling but have had little response. is it me or is email response optional down under? Oh well. It will work out one way or another.

We are planing to spend a week in Brisbane before going to Freo (Fremantle). We want to get a sense of life in the east coast first.

So the two residencies that I have lined up are almost exactly on opposite sides of the earth- (antipodes); Newfoundland and Fremantle. It seems like that fact should somehow be tied into the work. I can't quite see how to do it yet. Please send comments and ideas...

Studio over the North Atlantic

So far I have used this blog to as sort of a virtual studio. To show projects and ideas that are in progress or might never see the light of a gallery. It has been several months since my last post but my lack of writing has nothing to do with my creativity level. I have been very busy working on several commission projects and a few new sculptures.

Today I want to write about an inspiration instead of an action. I have always tried to follow my interests- investigate them thoroughly and hopefully they become fodder for my work.

At the moment I am totally absorbed by air traffic over the north atlantic. It sounds pretty strange, I know- but there is a alot here. It is the busiest air corridor in the world and also one of the most isolated and potentialy hostile.

I have the air trafic control frequency for Gander, Newfoundland playing on my studio computer. The controlers can't really talk to the plane once they get out over the ocean- they set them up with certain clearance containing altitude, precise speed, track, and time of entry and they funnel them onto this set of 6 or 7 skyways that are laterally separated.

Late in the afternoon pacific time is when many of the big jets are heading out eastward over the ocean for an arrival early in the morning in europe and asia, I am hearing flights receiving there clearance as they pass the maritime provinces of canada. Delta 72 from JFK to Itanbul, American 236 to Rome.

Coming back the other way in the morning and mid-day are westbound flights and the controllers are quizing them about the state of the air at their altitudes for the last several hours so they can pass the info on to the eastbounders.

There is something so exotic, dangerous, and romatic about it to me. To the people o the radio it is another day at the office. Navigating high above the north atlantic in the dark of night at 8/10th the speed of sound; It seems so brave and at the moment it is so interesting.

I am scheduled to do an artist residence on the north east corner of Newfoundland in the fall of 2010 . It is directly under these tracks. I know that focus will translate to something in my work, if not sooner than later.

Post bliss yuckiness

It has been longer then I would have liked since I wrote here. After hanging the two large works in the hospital and getting all of the documentation and loose-ends wrapped up, I am in that sweet place that I dreamed about since November; the land of no big projects to worry about.

Why am I not happier? Well, I do know the answer to that and it has taken me years to figure it out. The creative process and the energy spent getting a large piece finished and installed takes its toll.

It is a bit counter-intuitive. I thought that finishing a large work, getting paid, and feeling the sense of success and completion would lead to a high that would carry over into the next project. It doesn't work that way. Thinking it does only makes it that much harder to deal with the reality.

After a big creative and energetic push my energy tends to crash for a few weeks or even months. During this period I am forced to muddle through the details that I have been ignoring when I was working hard. It is depressing and slow. Sometimes in the past I felt so non-creative that I have gotten myself involved in other money making projects that, once the creative energy came back, I was not too happy to be doing. Learning what to expect and how to be patient through it has been a real learning curve.

I have to have faith that the creation will be back. Hopefully sooner than later.

Now, to address those envelopes and clean my studio. Blaaaa ;(

Color, hardcover Books!

I wrote a 20+ page book about the creation of each of my last two works, "Body Metaphoric" and "Insight". These can be purchased online. For the "Body Metaphoric" book go to

http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/619570

For "insight" go to:
http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/617334

These books are super high quality and very nice. They can be ordered in soft and hardcover. Thanks for supporting my work!

Hanging the "Body Metaphoric"

Today was a big day. I have been working hard for months on the piece of art for the new addition of Providence Hospital, Hood River. The work was part of the "Youthful art of healing" program. For this piece, I worked with a class of tenth grade English students from The Dalles to identify positive metaphors regarding the human body.

The womans form is based on the famous painting called "the birth of Venus" by Bottacelli.

The work is made of 1/2 inch thick corian solid surface material. The overall work is made up of hundreds of small pieces glued together. The piece weighs 350 lbs and mountaing it to the wall was a real challenge. It is a real relief and pleasure to see it on the wall as part of the permanent art collection of the Hospital.









Special Thanks To:
Dave Adams OF Adams construction,
Micheal the corian master, Siv Lavell,
Norm, John, Clinton and Sarah @ Versatile Supply.
Joe T.
Jamie Guth and all the staff at Providence.



Scroll down to the previous post to see a few more production photos.