Labyrinth - Day 1

Great progress was made! Today we got 63 of the 180+ stones mosaiced.

 Over the course of the day I'm guessing we had 25 or so volunteers come by and create a mosaic stone or two.

We'll be doing this again on Thursday, August 25, between 4pm & 7pm. 

Once all the stones are completed we'll be touching up the alignment in the labyrinth, filling in the areas around the stones with the dirt and laying sod. The small gaps between the stones in the pathways and the larger gaps between the stones in the switchbacks will get filled in with dirt and be seeded with grass so that the visual effect of the gaps will be minimized.

Getting the stones in place. We had to re-level the ground because the sidewalk ended up higher than we thought it would be.

We ended up placing all the stones in the actual labyrinth space and taking up the paper template. It worked better than I thought it would.

Our workstations (and the sand pile)

Buckets of recycled glass stones and buckets of river rocks

Mosaic work on the concrete paving stone

More mosaic work - a mom and her helper

Meanwhile the excavation and leveling continues

See the frog?

Some of our volunteers

Laying out the labyrinth

Working on the stones

More volunteers working

A closer look

One of the switchbacks

All but a few stones are in place

A fish

A whirlpool

Bends in the river

More bends

A turtle

Taking a look at the end of the day

Evaluating the day's work

Being contemplative

In the end, kids prefer a pile of dirt over most play equipment.

The Long Year

A quick update: here's what it looks like as of tonight...

This photo is a bit orange-y, but I wanted to finish up tonight without color correcting.

The difference between miserable and exhilarated

Well, I wasn't singing in the rain... but it sort of felt like that when I rode home today.

I think that during the 20 minutes it took for me to get home tonight nearly an inch of rain fell. It had been raining on and off during the day, but when I left my office it was not raining. By the time I got to the outside door the drops were beginning to fall, big, fat rain drops - the ones that make splotches nearly an inch in diameter on the sidewalk. I was wishing I'd left my work clothing on instead of changing into my biking gear.

It was miserable and cold, and I was drenched before I even got to the bike path (less than 100 yards from the door). I worried that I'd hydroplane and go down or that cars and trucks wouldn't be expecting me to be there in a downpour (so I turned on my flashing taillight and was very mindful of traffic). The wind was blowing hard enough at times to turn the rain drops into stinging needle-like projectiles.  I couldn't tell if it was worse to wear my glasses that were so streaked with rain that I couldn't really see, or to go without them and try to squint enough to keep the above-mentioned stinging-needle rain out of my eyes while hoping that I could see enough to avoid any mishaps.

Oh, yeah, I really didn't appreciate the driver of the beat up pickup truck deciding to hit the gigantic puddle at full speed just as I rode by going the other way... luckily it was during the worst of the rain, so the debris got washed off pretty quickly.

Even with all that I have to say it was the most exhilarating ride - the most exhilarating thing - I've done in a while... totally worth being really cold, wet and scared. Strange how something so simple makes us feel so alive.

arriving home

Best of all - my new Timbuk2 backpack kept all my stuff mostly dry!

New Projects

Want to see the new things I'm doing?

Sorry for the long dry spell – I've been working on several new projects and it's difficult to make myself take the time to write when I want to be doing...

Projects:
A stone & glass mosaic which might end up in a show at the Gallery of Contemporary Mosaics in Chicago (at the Chicago Mosaic School)
A clean up of the back porch and yard (Wes and the bees were part of the backyard urban farming tour, so...)
New shelving in the pantry (ok, it's not really a pantry - it's just this weird cubbyhole at the top of the stairs going from the kitchen down to the basement)
A large planter for the front yard (concrete with glass & stone mosaic)
A public art commission

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First the small mosaic:

Working title: The Long Year.

Some of the materials for the mosaic.

It measures 18" x 11" and is made up of two partial pizzas of smalti, rocks I collected from the river, tumbled stones I purchased at various places, some landscaping stone I picked up (legitimately - from a local stone company) and some glass from Kokomo Opalescent Glass.

Inspiration - all the sorrow and joy life brings you and the strange way you can experience both at the same time.

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The back porch:

 

At our house the porches can get pretty messy... and they sometimes stay that way far longer than we like. Earlier this month Wes & I cleaned the back porch and the back yard. It's so much nicer to sit out there now.

Inspiration - the Backyard Urban Farming Tour - Wes & the bees were part of the tour...

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The rebuilt pantry:

This may not look like much - but if you'd seen the old shelves you would simply be amazed...

Inspiration - not being able to find anything and the ugly-gross old shelves...

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The Planter:
This has been dominating my front room for a month now...

Planter - 48" x 80" x 16"

I'm waiting for more fiberglass mesh - it's ordered and should be here sometime next week. I also need to find a place to get some concrete additive for accelerating the curing/adding strength.

The foam armature/base is made up of FoxBlocks reinforced with 1/2" rebar. The entire planter will be wrapped in the fiberglass mesh (most of it is right now) and nailed. Then it will have layers of concrete and mesh and concrete added until the concrete is around 1/2 - 3/4" thick. Once the concrete work is done I will mosaic it.

Inspiration - the prickly pear cactus that grows so well in Minnesota...

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And, finally the public art commission which merits a post of its own...

East End Rec Center Park Labyrinth

I've been commissioned to create a labyrinth in the newly recreated East End Rec Center Park.

The rec center location: the entire block between 4th & 5th and
Zumbro & St. Charles streets – building, the basketball courts,
the skateboard park, and the park.

The park as it was

The park as it will be

The work of building the labyrinth:

The first step was to select a design for the labyrinth. I decided that we should use a Classical labyrinth design instead of a Medieval or Contemporary design. I choose a Baltic Classical labyrinth which is a double spiral labyrinth. The double spiral labyrinths can be walked in multiple ways (as opposed to other forms of labyrinths where one follows the same path in and out).

The location for the future labyrinth. Note: all the old playground equipment
is being replaced with earthenworks and other interesting play adventure features.

The labyrinth will be in the southeast corner of the park. Originally the plan called for a 20' labyrinth, but I convinced everyone that it needed to be bigger in order for the pathways to be wide enough. It will be a permanent installation, but we're creating it with blocks instead of digging a footer and pouring concrete. We wanted the walking surface to be grass, not pavement.

Materials:
We will be using solid concrete blocks that will have mosaic work on the top surface. They will be set into the ground so that they can be mowed over. The mosaic will be a river with river creatures in it. We're using recycled glass and river pebbles for the river and the river banks. The river creatures are being created by local glass artists, Bernadette Mahfood and Walken Ratajcyk.

The Work Days
The mosaic work will be done over the course of 3 or 4 days by members of the community – Saturday, August 18, 9am - 3pm; Thursday, August 23, 4pm -7pm (at the Rec Center's Block Party Olympics); and Saturday, August 25, 9am - 3pm. The builds are open to everyone (but we're asking that any child under the age of 10 work with their parent or another adult/older teen).

Making the River:
The surface of the blocks measures 8" wide and 16" long. The river will be 4-6" wide (varying width as it goes along) with an inch or two of shoreline on each side. We'll draw the outlines on the blocks. I'll have a second full-sized drawing to spread out on the parking lot at the park. We'll lay out the blocks and trim any that need shaped. We will work from the spread out blocks during the mosaicing  – the blocks will be numbered so that we can keep track of where they went in the pattern. We will let the blocks set for 24 hours before the installation to make sure that the thinset mortar is set up anhd they can be handled without damaging them.

What's been done so far:
I drew the labyrinth full size (the 20' size – which is how I figured out that it needed to be a bit larger) on heavy paper (with the help of Emerald) and took it to the park last Friday. Since we were increasing the size we cut out the diagram and expanded it on the field. We pinned it in place with insulation supports (very strong thin metal rods), and once it was all in place we marked the path dividers.

After I left the Parks & Rec crew and volunteers dug out the path divider trench. 

Dad

Happy Father's Day, Dad. I miss you.


More

Gluten-free, corn-free, almost dairy-free brownies

 
Here's the recipe... it's a triple batch 'cause making any less than that is just plain silly.
Organic ingredients are best, of course.

Best-ever Brownies
Preheat oven to 350^o

1 cup coconut oil
1/2 cup butter
1 bag of chocolate chips

Melt these together, in a heavy saucepan, over low heat (stir constantly) or in a double boiler, over - not touching - boiling water (you don't have to stir as much). Let cool slightly while you get the rest of the ingredients ready.

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1-1/2 cups flour
I use 1/2 cup fine ground almond meal (Bob's Red Mill) and 1 cup Chebe All-purpose Bread Mix
3/4 tsp sea salt (fine grind)

Sift (if you care to) these together - or just pour them all in your mixer bowl.

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3 cups sugar
6 eggs - slightly beaten
1-1/2 tsp vanilla

Add these to the melted chocolate & fats.Stir well, add to dry ingredients.

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Stir in a second bag of chocolate chips. Add 1-1/2 cups of chopped nuts if you like them.

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Now for the big decision - which do you want?

1. a few brownies with crunchy edges & chewy centers and lots of chewy-gooey brownies with no crunchy edges, OR
2. every brownie to have crunchy edges and a chewy center

If you are partial to scenario #1 - bake them in a 9" x 13" (or so) baking pan - oiled very lightly - until the edges are done, but the center is still somewhat soft. Let them cool thoroughly and cut into whatever size brownies you like.

NOTE: I recommend small squares. If you make them big you'll end up making yourself sick on them because they're rich and yummy and there's no way you're going to throw out a half-eaten one (or even stop and save it for later...).

If you like scenario #2, or if you want more portable brownies, bake them in muffin/cupcake papers in a muffin pan, until the edges are firm and the centers are still pretty soft. Makes around 36 brownies.

For some crazy reason these keep really well. My last batch made it a whole week (only because I forgot about them) and they were still deliciously soft and gooey in the centers.

Modern Expression 2 Workshop with Verdiano Marzi - Day 4

There is so much to say about being a student in one of Verdiano's workshops. I'm not going to write about it this morning, mainly because I don't have the time to do it justice...

So here's the photos from the end of the day yesterday:

Modern Expression 2 Workshop with Verdiano Marzi

I'm taking the 6-day Modern Expression II workshop at the Chicago Mosaic School with Verdiano Marzi. We're three days into it and it's been absolutely amazing. Verdiano is a powerful teacher. Matteo Randi is translating for Verdiano this time. Last year I took the Modern Expression I workshop and it transformed my practice... I feel like this workshop is going to result in an even greater understanding of mosaic and what I can do as an artist.

Just wanted to post a few photos of yesterday's and today's mosaic work. I'm working in petrified wood, travertine (a type of limestone), marble and glass, along with some assorted undefined rocks that I've collected here and there.

At the end of the day yesterday:

Today's progress:

Verdiano likes all that I've done so far, except for one small area. He said we'd talk about it tomorrow...

Thomas Kinkade

Well... not a fan, but you most certainly mastered your craft. Even so, I would never have named you The Painter of Light... but rest in peace, Thomas Kinkade. The world is lessened by your passing.

Thomas Kinkade dies at 54; artist was called the 'Painter of Light' - latimes.com

Still... the idea of selling reproductions as art disturbs me.

About a month ago I had the "reproductions vs. art" discussion with some friends. We were sitting in a local diner that had Kinkade-ish prints spectacularly framed and hung on the walls. Like a fool, I mentioned my disdain for the practice of treating prints of paintings as paintings... I then had to try to put hours and hours of thinking about this into a coherent statement during the 25 minutes our meal would take. I wasn't eating, so at least I didn't have to give up chewing time.

One of my companions said that he was in favor of "Kinkadeing" since it put art in the hands of people who couldn't ordinarily have art (of that quality). He thought it was perfectly fine for an artist to create originals and photograph/scan them to create printed reproductions AND call those reproductions art.

Leaving alone the fact that Kinkade prints weren't cheap enough for the people he was referring to to purchase, I tried to explain my view on the whole idea...

I believe that for most artists selling reproductions of their work do so purely for a financial reasons, not for some altruistic desire to put art in the hands of less-affluent patrons (an exception to that, I suppose, is the ego boost of having your "art" purchased by people and the warm glow that it creates deep down inside you).

For the most part, I have no issues with the practice of selling reproductions. It's hard to make a living doing art. But I believe that the artists who sell reproductions as if they are art are making a mistake. In fact, I think it's the biggest mistake we make - plus it's a bit like snake-oil... 

The primary reason it is hard to make a living making art is that we have a predominantly ill-informed/under-informed audience. They already don't see making art or being an artist as a realistic career. Unless they are among those who idolize artists (and this group is just as likely to be ill-informed), they tend to think we're all dreamers and misfits who have yet to "grow up and find a real job." They don't recognize the validity of an art career or the benefits of having art in their life. They don't know how to determine the amount of work that goes into creating art or the monetary value of that work.

So we have an audience, a client base, a market, that has no method for determining the value of the work we want to sell (for me, being unsure about the cost/value of something makes me less likely to purchase it). Selling reproductions as art compounds the problem by cultivating the point of view that art should be inexpensive. 

Someone said to me that I only felt this way since my work (they meant mosaics and sculptures) do not work as prints (no one is confused thinking a photograph of a sculpture is a sculpture or even art). While I will concede their point, my argument is not a sour-grapes point of view... I do make art that could be sold as reproductions - my encaustic abstract art would make fabulous giclee prints...

I guess I just think that the only visual artists that should be selling prints as art are the printmakers...

Artist in Residence

My 4th graders are doing amazing work on their mosaics.

Mosaics being made by one of my five classes of fourth graders.

I have five classes of fourth graders at Goodview and Jefferson elementary schools (one class on Monday, Tuesday & Wednesday and two classes on Thursday). The Artist in Residence program is funded by a Laird Norton Family Foundation grant.

In the classes on Wednesday & Thursday of last week and Monday & Tuesday of this week we talked about mosaics and looked at several images of old and new mosaics. After the talking and looking I gave them grids and colored pencils and had them plan out their mosaics.

I gave them some Latin vocabulary terms: tessera/tesserae, andamento, and opus regulatum, which they had no problem with. Amazing kids.

Today the Wednesday class started the tile work (the others will start next time I meet with them). Some got pretty far. Some are taking it a bit slower. They will have one more class to finish them up. I think most will finish.

In May there is usually an art show with the students' work from the Artist in Residence program. The last few years it's been at Saint Mary's University in our wonderful Lillian Hogan Davis galleries. We're going to hang all 110 mosaics together, salon-style. It should be an impressive display.

Packaging

I admit it - I'm a packaging geek... a sucker for a excellent product wrapper, one that is clever or extraordinary in some way. I love brilliant design.

Thanks Barb for the wonderful chocolate bar. It smells sublime. I've not tasted it yet - I wanted to savor the wonderful visual aspect for a while first... and I'm hoping that along with the organic part that it's also fair trade... I'll have to look that up.

This lovely, simple package is printed with soy inks on recycled, unbleached cardstock that has a nice "tooth" to it. There's no glue used in the outer wrapper - it seals, or rather closes, using a tab and slot. Very nice.

Oh, yeah. I like the idea of being fearless.

One day at a time

I’ve been avoiding this blog… mostly because I’m still wandering about in the land of loss, pain and disbelief. I’m beginning to wonder if anyone intimately touched by violence, anyone left bereft by violence, ever really leaves this place fully.

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We thought at the beginning that Aaron had shot Jude and then himself; that was the first report we got. Later on we discovered that Jude had shot Aaron – during an episode of domestic violence – and then killed herself.

I tell myself that I don’t understand, that I’ll never understand, why Jude – and for that matter, Aaron – had to die like that. But I think, if I’m honest with myself, I can all too easily understand.

There comes a point when abuse and violence boil over and all the sane responses flee and all the possibilities narrow to one, single, destructive option.  And while none of us will ever really know for certain what happened, I believe with all my heart that Jude did what she did because at that moment, a moment that probably seemed like a hellish eternity, there was only one possibility.

People talk about abuse victims like gossips over the back fence with a particularly salacious story to share. They wonder why women stay with abusers. They wonder why we don’t just leave when he hurts us… I can tell you. Abuse makes us vulnerable. It’s like the wind in the desert, eating away at your strength, your will, your ability to make rational decisions. It eviscerates the you that you thought you were. Pretty soon you’re like one of those gravity-defying formations – at risk of being toppled by the next big blow. You’ll grasp at any promise, at any and all the insufficient apologies, trying to shore yourself up. You’ll do your damnedest to make things work because you know – you really know – that you’re not nearly strong enough to walk away.

Some of us eventually find a way to leave... too, too many of us do not.

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I understand why it’s called heartache…

About the time it seems that I’m doing better I discover that the unbelievable pain is still there – it grabs me and throws me to the ground again, leaving me broken and defenseless.  People keep trying to give me solace. I love them for it, but…

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I am so looking forward to the day when my thoughts of Jude are the kind of happy memories that everyone tells me I should be thinking.

I love you Jude. I'll miss you forever.