Blog
Building Completed, Indian Heads Look On
Aug 31
Last night they held a dedication event for the building for which I sculpted the Indian Head (click here). As you can see, the building turned out really well, I definitely like the look of it. There are seven total castings of the head at various places around the structure, if you look closely in the pictures you can see a couple of them. Next time you’re in the neighborhood of Akron, Ohio, be sure to stop by and check it out.
Hans
May 12 — 6 comments
I met Hans in a bar in Florence, Italy in 2003. On first appearance, Hans is most easily categorized as “Awesomely-Bearded German Homeless Guy,” but this broad stroke assumes too much, or more accurately, assumes too little. Hans is extremely intelligent, speaks multiple languages, and has for the most part chosen his life on the streets. He wanders around, meeting people, occasionally making money working as a model for the countless painters rotating in and out of Florence, notably Daniel Graves (below). He’s a strange and fascinating dude, always down for a thoughtful conversation about societal structures, human race/religion-based interactions, anything. He’s very much aware of his place in this plane of existence, and also extremely friendly to anyone with whom he happens to interact.
Hans by Daniel Graves
Over the 6 months that I was in Italy, my roommate and I would see him pretty frequently; with his place of residence being the front step of a church right by our apartment and his favorite outdoor wine bar in the alley right around the corner, he was usually in the neighborhood. That is, until one day he decided to go to Germany to track down his sister, whom he hadn’t seen nor spoken to in 30+ years. He planned to be up and back within two weeks, his friend who was on business in the area would pick him up on his way down to Italy. But at two weeks, Hans didn’t show. After two months, we were all pretty concerned that something bad had happened, that he had been arrested or killed by some deranged homeless guy with a broken bottle on a train.
The semester ended, my friends went back to America, and I left for a two week, semi-spastic voyage across Europe. I returned to Florence the day before I was to fly back to America. That last day I spent wandering around: I went to the Museo dell’Opera del Duomo and drew the final Michelangelo sculpture that I would see (to see my Michelangelo Odyssey click here), and walked through a few of my favorite spots in the city. On my final walk back to my apartment, I decided to take my preferred back alley route, a route which passed by Hans’ wine bar, just to check one last time, on the off chance that Hans had materialized. Bam. There he was, sitting in his usual spot, enjoying a glass of wine. At first I was mildly shocked, but he acted like nothing was even remotely out of the ordinary, that he had been there his whole life. We talked for a while, I sheepishly asked if I could immortalize him with a photo (topmost image), and then I said goodbye. He responded the way he always did when he parted ways with anyone: “I’ll see you around.” There is something about that phrase that is perfectly tuned with his existence, his way of life, and I always felt a strange admiration for his use of it.
A few years later, my girlfriend bought me a subscription to American Artist Magazine for Christmas. As she excitedly presented me with the first of 12 issues, I looked at it, then at her, and stupidly blurted out, “Uh, I know that guy.” There was Hans, glaring at me from the cover of the magazine in Daniel Graves portrait (below, click here for full size). Consider the absurdity of the odds of this scenario playing out in this way. Of all the gifts she could have given me (a third blowgun?), of all the magazines she had to choose from, of all the issues of that specific magazine that have been printed before and after, it happens that she stumbles on this specific one. She had no idea. Baffling.
Another couple of years pass, bringing us to a few weeks ago (we didn’t skip over anything that interesting). I was playing around with the Streetview feature on google maps (which is fantastic, and can consume many hours for a person like me). I was looking around for the apartment I lived in while I was in Florence, and bam, there’s Hans. Sitting on the street 500 feet from the patio where I took that last photo of him, 300 feet from where I lived. Again, I was baffled. Sadly, he looks pretty rough, but it’s clearly him, the Graves portrait taped to the wall behind him, next to an appropriately placed question mark. I never saw him dressed in anything but his (filthy) blue vest and blazer, to see him looking like the generic insane homeless guy is very disappointing, I’m wondering if his lifestyle is starting to catch up with him. And yes, I understand that seeing a person who lives on the street on Streetview doesn’t exactly register a high number on the richter scale, but still, the odds are insane. Search for “16 Via dello Sprone, Firenze, Italia” on googlemaps, he’s still right there. Then, look everywhere else, look on every street in the nation, and I guarantee you won’t see a single person you know.
Some day I will go back to Florence. It seems natural that the first person I see when I cross the Arno will be Hans. He’s apparently some strangely ubiquitous, omnipresent force, and I will be happy to see him.
Golden Gate Bridge, Metaphors, Guns
Dec 27, 2009
Preface: I recently walked across the Golden Gate Bridge. Thought: I am tired of the overused metaphor of the bridge as a connection between two things. To me, the metaphorical bridge as a link, a connection, is an oversimplification that ignores the absurd and unique structural power bridges represent. When I see a suspension bridge, I see a composition of innumerable interconnecting parts, working as one giant mechanism whose singular purpose is to resist the constant and unavoidable force actively trying to destroy it (specifically: gravity). Its entire existence defies nature; things heavier than air are not meant to be suspended in it. Its construction takes place in a constant state of difficulty: ocean floors are exposed, wind is resisted, and multiple massively heavy things dependent upon each other to remain suspended are sent into the air at separate times, before the supporting structure is fully complete.
I generally focus on the central section, between the spires, the gap-annihilating gravity resistors who, farthest from the land, anchored by the supports, meet successfully in the middle. These things are straining, struggling to remain in an unnatural place, inwardly saturated with a unifying tension, outwardly serenely beautiful and balanced.
But success is only temporary. The bridge will fail. It cannot last forever, nothing does; gravity will win, it will eventually plummet in the direction of the center of the earth. But it can be rebuilt.
Clearly I’m overthinking all of this. A bridge connects two things that would otherwise be separate. Done. The Golden Gate Bridge is an amazing structure, by the way.
Here are a couple of digital illustrations I did of guns. The second one is a 1911, which I have fired a couple of times, also an amazing piece of machinery that has lasted:
And one more shot of the GGB, just because it’s cool. It was really bizarre how the fog rolls in right through the channel, you can feel the blanket-effect of it, very surreal, and more than a little creepy.
Indian Head Installed, Leviathan
Nov 20, 2009
Here is the first picture of a completed stone Indian Head, installed on the facade of a building in Akron, Ohio. The casting looks like it came out pretty well, and the architect is happy with it, so that’s a good thing. There will be 7 total castings, I will post more pictures as I get them.
-Herman Mellville, Moby Dick
I recently started reading Moby Dick (seems to be one of those books everyone should attempt at some point), the first section of which deals with the powerful and seemingly universal human desire to be as close as possible to large bodies of water. Living in Kansas – basically as far from the ocean as you can be on this continent – this is a somewhat strange concept to consider. Even this far from the liquid prize, it seems that everyone has water on their mind in some way. Anyone who moves away from this area, takes a vacation, paints a picture, whatever it is, always seems to have the sea in mind. Non-coastal populations pack cities against the banks of rivers, build houses around lakes (go to the Minneapolis area, everyone lives on a lake); their own inland ocean substitute. Beyond the obvious – transportation, irrigation, the fact that we’re 60% water, etc. – is there some latent human urge to return to our primordial home? Tom Robbins said that humans were invented by water as a means of getting from place to place. Maybe the same magnetism of city-closeness is also drawing people back toward the water that invented us.
Somewhat related, these images are from the album cover of Leviathan, Mastodon’s strangely awesome epic metal album based on Moby Dick (is there a better concept for an epic metal album?) (No.). It’s not their best album (Crack the Skye is), but the artwork is fantastic. The paintings are by Paul Romano, who has designed many of their previous albums as well. I firmly believe that these designs are worthy of being listed amongst the best of all time (click here to see the work of the person responsible for more of the greatest-album-covers-of-all-time than anyone else, Storm Thorgerson) While we’re here, check out a few of Mastodon’s other covers:
Tree, Mont St. Michel
Oct 20, 2009 — 2 comments
Here’s a photograph I took of a tree, then digitally altered. Not exactly sure what I was going for, but it’s sort of interesting. I think the fence has a sort of strange quality to it, and if you look closely at the leaves of the tree, they have an almost electron microscope-image effect.
This is Mont St-Michel, off the coast of France. Pretty much the coolest looking castle/fortress/walled city/stronghold of all time.
Balloon Animals
Oct 08, 2009 — 1 comment
Not exactly sure how these two got themselves into such precarious positions, but they seem perfectly content, not even remotely concerned.
Frank Lloyd Wright, New Sculpture
Sep 30, 2009 — 1 comment
This is Frank Lloyd Wright’s home and studio in Oak Park, Illinois. It’s a really cool looking building, sort of hidden in the trees, sheltered from the road like it’s in the middle of a wilderness area. Oak Park is an interesting place, for many reasons that I will not delve into here, but especially for its almost ridiculous concentration of FLW buildings. We walked for 20 minutes and saw probably 10 homes and buildings designed by the man himself.
There are two of these figurative sculptures along the side of the house, very cool. The lines of his buildings are so different, so appealing.
I like most of his work, maybe not as something to live in myself, but the strangeness of his aesthetic is appealing in an I can’t believe he did got away with that type of way. I’ve been inside the Guggenheim (below), probably my favorite of his works, and to me one of the more impressive large-scale artworks ever.
Here is the newest clay study, Emerge.
Indian Head Medallion, Crater Lake
Sep 04, 2009 — 4 comments
Here is the completed Indian Head Medallion sculpture, to be cast into stone and put on the facade of a building in Akron, Ohio. You have to use your imagination, once it’s cast the hard lines and surface imperfections will soften. I had to simplify and rework the details so they would be sturdy in the stone. There are going to be 7 of them, roughly 20 feet off the ground, so I intentionally forced the proportions so that it will look better when viewed from below.
Here is a cool picture of Crater Lake in Oregon:
New Painting: Jughandle, Brockengespenst
Aug 28, 2009 — 2 comments
The new painting, Jughandle, is finally finished. It seemed like my mind was constantly being drawn in different directions while I was trying to work on it, so, as with everything else, it took longer than I would have liked to complete. This mountain has been a sort of constant visual presence in my life, it being the looming beast overlooking Payette Lake where my family gathers every year (we’ve actually climbed it, on a few occasions). I’ve always wanted to paint it, but I never thought anything I could come up with would stand a chance against the real thing. Obviously I am right — it can’t — but I figured giving it a shot and paying homage to a personally influential image is better than being afraid and hiding, doing nothing.
I was going for a slight sense of the brockengespenst (David Foster Wallace alludes to it in Infinite Jest, which is apparently an allusion [go here] to Gravity’s Rainbow, a book which I attempted to read but put down after 100 exhausting pages) without the shadow, or more accurately where the mountain, instead of casting the shadow, is itself the shadow.
I’ve also just started work on a cast stone medallion sculpture for the facade of a building. It’s in the embryonic stages now, once it evolves a little further I will post photos of it here.
This is a picture of two steel flange type things on the back of a truck I passed on the highway. There’s something bizarre and fantastic about the shape they formed. I want them in my yard.
Water and Light, part II
Jul 29, 2009
“He lay with his feet together and his arms at his sides like a dead king on an altar. He rocked in the swells, floating like the first germ of life adrift on the earth’s cooling seas, formless macule of plasm trapped in a vapor drop and all creation yet to come.”
—Cormac McCarthy, Suttree, pg. 430
