December 2, 2009

Crambo!

Omar just IM'd me a great Tom & Jerry memory. So good...

November 28, 2009

The Moat – Second Attempt

Latex moat on clayboard

Latex moat on clayboard

This attempt has more promise than the last. I used clayboard instead of gessoed paper (no buckling, hopefully). Instead of a huge bead of latex, I put down a flat border and then used thin, twisted paper (coffee filters, it's all I had around) and dipped it in latex. When I filled the moat with liquid, one of the connections didn't hold but it looks as if there wasn't much leakage.

After talking with E, she recommended using paraffin wax on thick twine to create the walls. It's cheaper at least. I'm going to get some today.

November 26, 2009

Small Study

Study with dyed liquid and ink

Dyed liquid latex resist and ink (detail)

I've been working on a way to contain a pool of liquid on a surface. The above detail was a failed attempt which yielded a nice surprise.

I used liquid latex (used for applications similar to wax resist in ceramics) that I'd dyed blue. I've had this stuff sitting around for ever (I used it for glazing pots) and dyed it blue to make it stand out more on unfired glaze. I figured I could use it to build a little moat that I could pour liquid in. Well, it didn't work. The paper buckled and the moat wasn't high enough to contain the liquid. It also cracked like a desert floor before the liquid evaporated.

Even though it didn't go as planned there are some nice effects. The blue seeped into the paper and the liquid created some really great edges where the color pooled up against the latex. I've bought a stretched canvas and a clayboard for more tests. This should eliminate the buckling problem.

November 24, 2009

Scan Processor Studies

There is something very unnerving and beautiful about this video: Scan Processor Studies excerpts pt.1 by by Woody Vasulka & Brian O'Reilly.

The source materials were generated by Woody using a Rutt-Etra Scan Processor in the 1970s and sat on a shelf for years, having been recently digitized. Woody came into my studio one day and asked me if I would be interested in using them to work on a collaboration, and the project began from there...

[via Today and Tomorrow]

November 19, 2009

I Need to Improve My Correspondence Skills

This correspondence between a Blockbuster customer and manager about late movies put tears in my eyes:

With the possible exception of Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay, the movies were not worth watching let alone stealing. In Logan's Run, for example, the computer crashed at the end when presented with conflicting facts and blew up destroying the entire city. When my computer crashes I carry on a little bit and have a cigarette while it is rebooting.

[via The Morning News]

November 18, 2009

Diverting Arts Funding

David Byrne suggests diverting arts funding to more education rather than arts institutions. I'm not sure where I stand but it's definitely worth discussing.

I suggested that it was more important that children, and everyone really, be imbued with a sense that they themselves might make things — that the things they might make have value — as opposed to learning mainly to appreciate the great masters, whether they be Bach, Picasso or the literary canon. I proposed that the value of art might be of more use to society in that regard, rather than focusing on supporting, well, museums and symphony halls. Naturally, to a senator who has made it her noble mission to argue for more support for the arts, this is slightly heretical and, as she said, “very American.”

I wonder how much money would be wasted trying to imbue uninterested students "with a sense that they themselves might make things" other than bongs in ceramics class.

November 8, 2009

Ridiculous

Bangladeshis, Koreans stake out their pieces of L.A.

I couldn't help but notice that the Bangladesh Assn. was above a Oaxacan restaurant and a Salvadoran furniture shop, and next door to a Guatemalan mail service. Also nearby, in the same building, was a Peruvian smoke shop and a Korean American cellphone shop owned by a Korean national who speaks Spanish, but not Bengali.

All this "Little [Country]" stuff really becomes tiresome as it does little to actually describe any neighborhood. Not only that, no one ever agrees on the boundaries anyway. When I tell people I live in Koreatown they ask where, when I say "1st and Vermont" they say "That's not Koreatown". When I tell someone else that I live near Koreatown but my neighborhood doesn't have a name, they say "No, you live in Koreatown".

November 4, 2009

Observations on Observation

Chris gives his affirmation on an excellent post by Carol Diehl at Art Vent.

Her site is a great source for smart and informed writing on art.