Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Burroughs Elementatry BFG Project!

In the last few months, David and I constructed a Big Friendly Giant (based on the story and illustrations by Roald Dahl) for Burroughs Elementary in Columbus, Ohio.





We have truly enjoyed meeting the students and seeing the sculpture reach completion. For now I'll share some pictures of our first day at Burroughs.

Friday, December 4, 2009

Downtown installation cont...


Interior view of plastic house


Monday, November 30, 2009

Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Broad Street Installation

The installation project downtown has officially concluded. During the month of September I moved an 8x8x8 translucent space from Sherman studios on west campus to a vacant office space at 20 E. Broad. The whole effort culminated in three openings as a part of the Art Squatters Downtown group show. I have many more photos, but included just a few to show you a bit of my playing around with the plastic membrane
before the first tear down.





Above is a view of the roof before the tear-down at Sherman.


The farmers market took place every Tuesday and Friday outside of the installation space windows. For those of you residing in Columbus, head down to Pearl Market some time. It's very active and offers good looking produce, Belgian waffles, handy crafts...


Laying out the framing


This is a view from the back of the space. Near the end, this was surrounded by a large plastic curtain, and filled with cob. I'll post those pictures in a bit, but for now, try to imagine 4 tons of clay and sand in piles near that little ladder.

What a task this was! David and I removed some tiles from the cramped ceiling. Thanks for your help buddy!


...mixing a batch

I left the window blinds open always, even late into the evening, which meant that I experienced a huge variety of interactions with people. Mid-day downtown is bustling, but by night fall it's usually inhabited by a few people waiting to transfer bus routes. I sort of got to know the city side walk patrol-ers near the end of it all and really enjoyed our attempted conversations through the window glass.

Sunday, May 3, 2009


"The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

"Why look'st thou so?" "With my cross-bow
I shot the albatross...
And the good south wind still blew behind
But no sweet bird did follow, 
Nor any day for food or play
Came to the mariners' hollo!
And I had done a hellish thing, 
And it would work 'em woe;
For all averred, I had killed the bird
That made the breeze to blow. 
Ah wretch! said they, the bird to slay, 
That made the breeze to blow!"

Apparently there was a ship returning from Antarctica in 1959 with an Albatross on board. The ship housed it caged to deliver the bird to a German zoo. 
The Albatross died shortly after the ship left. 
According to an account in Seafaring Lore and Legend, "The rest of the voyage to Europe was such a litany of storms, engine trouble, and other disasters that the crew went on strike."
Once the vessel arrived at Liverpool, The captian finally declared what the crew had known all along: "it had been a very bad thing indeed to catch an albatross, let alone imprison it in a cage."

Friday, May 1, 2009

SKETCH FOR A NOVEL
by Franz Wright
APRIL 27, 2009

Chapter minus two hundred and fifty
in which the author pays (and pays for it,
as always) a visit to one of the lost: I

dropped by the dark house with no furniture,
knocked, and was introduced to her mother,
a woman much younger than she was

and for obscure reasons known only to
no one had kept her from childhood on
locked in the oven, &c. At this time

they were living together or, hard to say,
dying, possibly from a mystery
condition which fuelled and quite vivified

their blunt if obsessively honed and
devotedly mutual hatred
and hissing contempt: classic case of

the weapon lying down with the wound?
From the first I had no problem picturing
(and would have preferred to eat decaying

fish and live, rained on, under a bridge)
what would happen if harm came to one of them,
should indeed anything this side of murder

slash suicide occur, although if that did
it was anyone’s guess which event would
come first. In a flash you could see it:

all hostilities concluded, and their own
miniature World War III’s aftermath,
and the all-out final progressive and

uninterrupted commercial-free
stone-cold muttering psychosis awaiting
lone survivor of this conflict, the end.

Monday, April 13, 2009