Week 22 of 48 (5 Months!)

Show preview… Without much explanation, here are some photos and a time-lapse video of what I am working on for the show. It is a week and a half away (the opening got pushed back 2 days) and for now I am feeling good about where I am at in terms of getting everything done. I still have a lot of work to do, but things are moving along without too many glitches so if it continues this way, I should be just about ready. I might have to pull an all-nighter or two, but by now I feel like that is just part of the process come show time.

a first prototype, 2'x3' sheet melting over time

back of prototype sheet

close up of another test sheet

bugs! hundreds of dead bugs stuck to the sheets of sugar

the first layer of sugar on six different sheets for the show

And the time-lapse video of the prototype melting over several days:

Week 19 of 48

As promised, stills from last weeks Dawn to Dusk project—the first of what will hopefully be several time-lapse videos of sugar diamonds in the outdoors. My show at the Red Mill Gallery is exactly 4 weeks away so I will be spending 100% of my time between now and then preparing for that. Since there isn’t a reliable way to show video in the gallery, I probably won’t revisit Dawn to Dusk until after the show is over…

funny jerry-rig to protect the laptop from stealing hands and pouring rain

three diamonds sun bathing between bouts of rain on day 1

four diamonds and the jerry-rig: you can actually see the video image on the laptop inside

some close ups at the end of the first day, before it really started pouring...

four diamonds enjoying the sunset together... compare to the next image...

taken after five hours of non-stop downpour... they didn't last long on day 2...

skeletons at mid-day... the rain wiped them out

And of course, the video itself:

The Show

The "staircase" display when you first walk in the door.

 I finally managed to find some time to drop by the Arsenal and take some photos of the completed piece so here they are!  I also received this link to a flickr page that RISD is maintaining for the show.  It has images of all the work in the show (in case you can’t come see it in person) and will supposedly be updated with photos from the opening at some point.  Of course these photos are not even vaguely equivalent to seeing the work in person, but it’s a good start.  And lastly, I’ve started my own YouTube Channel.  Originally I opened it just to post the one video in the previous post, but now that it’s there I might as well put other things on it!  There’s only one additional video right now, but I hope to post a couple more of both this piece and the Paper Jungle.

And now the moment you’ve all been waiting for… Installation Photos!

The final layout of stacks and piles

Broken Tiles Pile

Single Broken Sheet

You can even see all the dirt on the fabric/tiles from people going up and down the stairs

Post-Processualism = Archaeological Theory related to Post-Modernism

View from the 2nd Floor, looking down

A couple of the framed pieces, scattered throughout the gallery

One of my favorites

Some of the frames in context

They are purposefully scattered in forgotten places

Oftentimes the forgotten spaces are unlit, making photographing the pieces quite difficult

Installation

The show opened yesterday.  Sadly I forgot to take my camera with me in the rush to get out the door so I have no photos to share yet. I can, however, share a couple from the installation process.  I went to the gallery on Thursday, after the majority of the show was already up, and began installing the “pile”, then went back on Friday afternoon to install all of the frames throughout the gallery and touch up the pile.  I don’t have any photos yet of the completed piece, or of the framed elements hanging throughout the gallery, so those will have to come later.

When I walked in with my boxes of tiles, here's what the show looked like.

And here's what my piece looked like after the first day of installing

Initially, I was just stacking them randomly because I had no idea what I wanted to do, or what form they should take.

A few unexpectedly did this wonderful layering with the broken edges where you could see some sort of form emerging

To me, it hinted at some sort of decay or ruin to the perfectly arranged stacks, so I intentionally rearranged them to emphasize this

I had one box of blank tiles left, so I printed those later in the evening and brought the final pieces in the next day to complete the "pile"--I will post those photos as soon as I take some!

One of the coolest things about installing was the breakage factor.  Especially with the larger central tower, as I added more to the stack, tiles below would break as they succumbed to the weight of the tiles above them.  They made this amazing popping noise and would shake the whole stack whenever one broke.  I thought it was so cool, and something no one else would get to see once the stacks settled, so I caught a bit of it on video just so I had some sort of documentation of this phenomena.