Back to work

I'm back to managing my world of teaching, art making and living life. I've got the teaching and living life, and have been getting my home studio ready for art making. Nice weekend of work.

A little bit of woodworking and a bit of metalworking. We'll see...

SFA Student Workshops

In the past week, I've had Tedd McDonah, my former professor from Arizona State University, come and build a forge with me and fire billets for mokume gane. It was a wonderful experience. Shortly after he left, I hosted another workshop for students and their friends that consisted of cuttlebone casting. It's been a fun couple of weeks.

Refined Exhibition

Refined Exhibition is posted for call for entries. This is a beautiful show hosted at the Cole Art Center in Nacogdoches, TX. You can enter up to five works.

Not about art... but maybe

This is not associated to art, but maybe it will be. You never know when the inspiration will strike. I got a road bike, and plan to explore.

Faculty Opening

This evening we had the faculty exhibition at Stephen F. Austin State. It was a wonderful evening, and the professors are so talented. I'm so lucky to be in the presence of such "greats."

Here is a new work of mine.

Here is old work, but new to me. The last time I saw this piece, I hated it. Now, it was like meeting an old friend. Nice to be in a new place in life.

The Gault Project

I recently got the opportunity to go the the Gault project in central Texas to help with an excavation. Inspired by archaeology and the precise nature of preserving and saving relics and artifacts of our past, I have been exploring the options of working closer and closer to the field. I took a bundle of my students with me and we had an amazing time. The people were wonderful and very inspiring. I'm sure you'll hear more from this.

On Sabbatical

I have recently been on a long sabbatical from blogging.  It's not that I don't think it's important to share, it is a loss of time and understanding of what to do first.  I recently went to Europe on a quest for inspiration.  I hope it worked.  Here are a couple of images.  

Rome.  These images have certainly been taken a million times, by people from all over the world, with different temperatures and weather conditions streaking across the background of the ancient structures, but one is always

 taken aback when experiencing history like this.  

Ireland-  I love these walls and could be surrounded by them for weeks and still be interested in the individualistic yet cohesive structures that have been created by single stones stacked over and over to create a strong and beautiful barrier.

The Pieta-  Absolutely gorgeous.  I don't know if I have the vocabulary to explain further. 

Trying to have a studio

I guess the first step is having a good environment for working.

I just built this. I'm pretty happy with it. Simple and works well.

Conversation Starter 2

I recently participated in the Webster Show at the Cole Art Center. This gave me an opportunity to make work with a quick deadline. I was given a page from the dictionary and the work had to be done in a couple of weeks. With the words travel, traverse, trauma, and treasure in mind, this work embraces the regional conversation starters that I have grown to adore. Webster's dictionary states that the origin of the word travel comes from the Old French travailler, which was borrowed into English as travail, meaning "to toil, make a difficult journey." Now travel simply means "to journey". With travel and traverse (to pass over, across or through), I glorified the word bubble as brooches and ornamented them with various phrases. Moving to a new place is wonderful and full of new experiences, however finding a sense of home and the memory of those things left behind plagues the new member of the community. The exterior thoughts versus the interior monologue is discussed in this work while the light hearted nature of the "bubble" reminds the wearer to simply relax and allow new relationships to be born.

I'm a writer?

My article about fire and our link to the past is featured on a wonderful website. I was asked to write an article about cuttlebone casting and found it a challenge to talk to a digital crowd about "archaic" technology. I put in a lot of research and time; it was fun. I hope to keep writing more. This is the first "intelligent" article that I have out there, so I'm pretty excited. Enjoy reading.

Faculty Exhibition

The faculty exhibition at SFA is on its way down, and I thought I would show a couple of pictures of my piece. I still need to take more photos, but here is what I have for now.

Second Thoughts

I hardly accept these rooms as my "art work". However, I did paint these rooms and did enjoy doing so. Lately, I've been wanting to paint walls wherever I go. Thought the world might be interested in these rooms and since I haven't made work in a couple of months, I thought I'd show things that haven't been seen.

I don't like this one as much. But it was my first and I did like painting on the ceiling.

Who doesn't love Chutes and Ladders after all. This is my nephew's baby room.

And my other nephew's baby room. I hope they like them.

Choices, Chance and Character

My MFA Thesis Exhibition was up on April 14-18 at the Harry Wood Gallery at Arizona State University. For those of you who didn't see it, here are the images. Thanks for all the support.

Engagement is created with 130 copper hollow construction forms that are configured in a steel frame and suspended on steel pipe. Each object can be turned to reveal a simple image that was created with vitreous enamel. Vitreous enamel is basically glass that has been fused to metal.

The images all describe a personality trait of a person that you would want as your match. For instance, the hammer is hardworking and the penguin is loyal. As the viewer walked into the gallery, they were invited to have one of the 130 personalities. As this was given by fate or chance, the viewer then had the option of trading one good thing in for another. The back of the card served as a map to find their match.

It takes more than just keeping the line taut, shows a more grown up version of the choices we make and the interaction with those around us while still reminding us of the honesty of our youth. The cups were created using foundry shell casting techniques and were cast in aluminum, bronze and cast iron. They were suspended from a nylon-blend fabric.

Diagnosed is a nice middle piece conceptually. This work consists of medical bracelets that have personality traits etched into copper and slipped into the plastic bracelet. This shows that positive and negative traits are all around us and in us, and that there is a certain level of acceptance that must be maintained.