Tom Sachs

I recieved a nice e-mail from one of my uncle's in America this morning. It was about Tom Sachs and his works. Some very interesting matterial and a very nice short film he did recently. I thought it would be nice sharing with all of you: Tom Sachs

Thank's Pete

Only Monday

It's only monday but I feel like i've been working for a week already. Since I slept a bit long today and I have alot of stuff I want to do this week, so I decided to do as much I as could today. For starters I tried to make another wax form of the Takamatsu head bust (which unfortunately didn't work out). After that I selected and adjusted some of the pictures from last summer for screenprinting. I got 6 of them printed on transparent film and exposed 4 of them over 2 different screens. I booked a printing slot on Wednesday so I will already be printing some this week. After that I went back to the casting room to work on the head busts that did work out. I am adding some air vents and a pouring cup to get ready for casting. I know it looks a bit strange but imagine that it is going to be captured in a mould and everything that is green/wax will be melted out. This means that the thin lines will form narrow tunnels for the air to escape so I don't get airbubles in the piece itself (which will show up as holes in the bronze).

So I guess it was a quite short but productive day.

Meeting our Responsibilities

Yesterday I went to a lecture by Louis B. Susman, the Ambassador of the United states to the Court of St. James's. The title was "Meeting our Responsibilities as Global Citizens" and was mainly set out to be about the role of youth, their power and potential to affect positive change in the face of today's challenges.
It was very impressive and interesting, and also very inspiring since he talked about some of the subjects I am also trying to get to with my work. At the end there was some time to ask questions but unfortunately those went more into the direction of the US politics and such instead of the subject of the lecture, I thought that was quite a shame since I would have loved to ask some questions but wasn't able to get through.
I understand that it is nice to ask an US Ambassador all sorts of stuff but it just would have been nicer if the questions where a bit more about the matterial in the lecture.

Well better luck next time...

Projectspace

This year we will have another project space like last year. Only this time we didn't get to choose who we wanted to do the project with and a 3rd person was added (someone from the theory course). I was quite happy to find out that I was teamed up with William Mokrynski, since I asked him to team up last year but we couldn't do so time/date wise (I wanted to be in the beginning of the semester to get it over with). This year we are almost at the end of the semester (the 25th of november).
William is a photographer who bases his work around buildings with scaffolding, you can see some of his work on his website: William Mokrynski

Instead of trying to put togheter a show with both of our works in it we decided to start a collaborative work. For this we are planning to work with projected video material. Last night we drove around in my car to shoot some of it so we can start figuring out what to do with it (I don't want to tell too much about it since the project is still to be determend and I don't want to give away to much already).

I do have to ad that it is also very nice to work with Talia (who is the theory student) and to make use of her input in the project.

Just to give you a little sneak preview here is a small video clip of something a captured with my crappy camera last night:

Triads

I am running a bit late with my posts since I am being quite busy.
This monday I had my first triad crits which means that they are done in a specific format.
There is one speaker (a person who speaks about his or her work uninterupted for about 10 minutes (our tutor was actually timing everything exactly). One listener, this person listens to the speaker and then asks questions and or reacts to the story that has just been told (also for 10 minutes). And one observer. This person takes notes on what exactly happends, how there is being spoken and if anything is being left out. This kind of moves into an open discussion.

Since alot of triad groups where about to start on the mezzazine above my studio (I was in a group with 2 first year students and we where supposed to start with them), I suggested to look for a quieter space and start with me instead. Unfortunately that meant that I had to go first with something I have never done before, so it felt very uncomfortable and rusty. Luckily it was new for everyone and the questions I got about my work kind of helped me to explain it better (sort of a second chance for me to talk).

After we rotated it became easier and I think the last session (where I was the Listener) went quite well. I wish that we could just stay in the same group for the next triads since I am affraid that it will be the same rusty start if you have to talk to people you havn't really talked to before, but I guess that's kind of the point of it (getting different views on your work). Annywhay I would really like to ad that I was very happy with the 2 other students in my group who made it a very interesting afternoon.

Wax

I had a though week last week, but that doesn't mean I havn't been doing anything (just that I didn't feel like posting anything).
I finaly got to try out all the moulds I made and pour some wax in them. They came out pretty well even though they need some work (the usual air bubles/mouldlines). It is nice to be one step closer to the casting process (even though it might still take some time before I actually get to cast). So instead of trying to figure out what to tell you all about my work this week let's just post some pictures.

Tutorials and rain

I had another tutorial with Kenny Hunter today, so I had to face the rain to be able to get there (I think it is the worst rain since I moved here and it hasn't stopt all day). It was a 1 on 1 tutorial so I felt a bit more comfortable talking this time. It just saves alot of time not having to explain what I am trying to show with my work everytime a new student joins the conversation. We basically talked about the casting idea's  again and since I am starting to get the feeling for all this casting (I have been doing alot of moldmaking last week), I finaly start feeling comfortable enough trying something bigger. Though I have to say I will also stay a bit stubborn and do the glass casts anywhay since I want to experiment with different things (Kenny feels that if I just place glass casts of handless and hinges on the boot bonnet I have it will stay too much car like and thus more art for car lovers instead of fine art for everyone). I don't know if I explained this idea already but that is kind of what I am working on aswell. Anywhays it just feels good to try out different things and just see where it will end up (I have always enjoyed working like that). I am also still working on screen printing but I have to find out how big I can actually go with my pictures (I would like to go billboard size for my final exposition but don't know if the quality will be good enough).

annywhays thats the confusing story for today, thanks for reading.

This is the tank I am going to use as first object to cast.