Springville Museum of Art Spiritual and Religious Show

The Springville Museum of Art has an annual spiritual and religious art show.  I entered two sculptures I made last year, and one of them got in!  It was titled, Heaven but I changed it to These are They Who Came Out of Great Tribulation.  Apparently, it was debated among the curatorial staff whether it should be curated in or not.  Anyway, we got to go see the opening on Friday and it was cool, as always, to see my art on display.  Call me narcissistic, but I always think its cool when my art is out for everyone to see.

Nature and Nurture Update: Pictures and Prizes

This is the piece I put in the Nature and Nurture show.  It is entitled 2,358 Nails.  My mother passed away the day after I was born.  There is a nail for each minute we were alive together.  Each nail was pounded by hand.

 

This sculpture also won a 3rd place prize from jurors Madison Smith and Brian Kershisnik.

Nature and Nurture show update

There will be a reception for the Nature and Nurture show on Thursday, October 14, 2010 from 7:30 to 9:30 pm at the HFAC. Come, meet the artists (all of whom are cooler than me), and get some refreshments! See you there!

Nature and Nurture: Narratives of the Family

Awesome news: One of my works was selected to be in the Nature and Nurture: Narratives of the Family show at Brigham Young University.  The show is a collaboration between alumni and current students of BYU, and it is really cool.  I just found out today that I got in, so I will put up some pictures as soon as I can.  The piece I put in is called 2358 Nails.  You should come and see it!  (No, seriously.)  It is in the Harris Fine Arts Center here at BYU from October 12-28.  The whole show takes up the main floor gallery, as well as the 4th floor hallways.  My piece will be on the 4th floor, so come find it!  I will post more information as soon as I know when a reception will be and as soon as I get pictures of it installed.  Bring your mom, dad, or other family and see it!

New Slinky Sculptures

I've been working on a new Slinky sculpture in the last little bit.  I've had the idea for this piece for over a year, but I'm just now getting the engineering down.  I wanted to recreate the motion of a Slinky as you "juggle" it back and forth in your hands.  After a few failed designs, the one below won out. It's not finished yet, but it is in moderately working condition, so here's a picture:

(P.S. This picture is a composite of 4 separate pictures.)

I also made a static (mostly) Slinky sculpture with some steel I found out in the scrap bin.  This one is inspired by one of my friends who, while playing with one of my Slinky toys, draped it over his finger.  I thought "Hey, that's a cool way to look at a Slinky."  So I made it.

There are lots more things on the way.  Stay tuned.

Catalog for Museum of Glass

So the catalog for the Museum of Glass Red Hot Auction is now up. The show happens the 11th of September and Reflections of a Parallel Universe is going on the (silent) auction block. The link is here if you want to check it out: http://www.museumofglass.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/catalog_art.pdf

PS, he's on page 26--item #40.

The Show Must Go On

And so it did! Thank you so much to everyone who helped make Apparatus of Play a success. It was a great learning experience to put up my first solo show, but hey, that's what college is for, right? So, I will take you through a mini-tour of the show via pictures and I will upload video in the near future.

This was the first piece you saw when you walked in the door. It's title is And Time Creeps On and On Like a Slinky Attached to a Windshield Wiper. The Slinky is roughly 4 1/2 feet long and is powered, as the title suggests, by a windshield wiper motor.

This little guy is called The Battle of Four Corners. Its a steel frame with plastic army men inside. About 9 inches square, hangs on the wall.

This is Contemplation Chair (On the Other Hand). It is a found chair with a Slinky on it. You're supposed to sit in the chair, hold the Slinky, and contemplate life.

This sculpture is entitled Heaven. I found the gear in a dumpster a few months ago, put glass panes on either side and filled it with 144 marbles. It also hangs on the wall.

This is Heaven's companion piece. It is called Labyrinth and is made from stone, bronze, and dross. The dross represents the damned who are esteemed as dross and cast out to wander forever under the watchful gaze of Cerberusaurus, the three-headed dinosaur.

This was a favorite at the show. Nappy Noah is a 32 x 42 inch replica of the old Wooly Willy toys. I changed it to be me so it would be a self-portrait of sorts. It really has iron filings and a magnet wand so you can change the facial hair. Man, I look good with a beard.

Parachute Soldier. This is a bronze cast from a paratrooper toy. He hangs helplessly on the board, as his parachute has been caught on the nails in back.

This is a funny one. It is called Permanent Record (GPA 1-12) and it is a Slinky graph of my academic performance from first through twelfth grade.

This is Slinky Self Portrait. This was on display by itself in January, but fit wonderfully into the show. It is 5'11" high and wide (my height and arm span) and has Slinky toys strung across it. The Slinky toys are picked music box style by a steel bar at the bottom. Really fun to watch.

And last, but not least, When Enough is Never Enough. There are four little bronze paratroopers dangling from a real live parachute. They are kept aloft and twirl around because of the breeze from the fan underneath, and occasionally they will ping together.

Well, I hope you enjoyed the virtual picture tour of my show. I will have video up in a week or so, depending on how quickly I edit and compress everything. Have fun until then!

Museum of Glass Red Hot Juried Art Auction

The other day, my good friend and potter extraordinaire Katie Jahner tipped me to a show at the Museum of Glass in Tacoma, WA--the Museum of Glass Red Hot Juried Art Auction. It looked really interesting (and it was free to enter) so I put together an application and sent it off. I entered the piece you see above, Reflections of a Parallel Universe. This was a really fun piece to make, and I'm glad that it will soon be at a show where many people can see it and be able to buy it.
I started out with this piece by sculpting a head out of clay. I then made a mold of the head and cast it in wax. I used the wax, in turn, to make a special plaster mold that would stand up to the intense heat of glassblowing. I then took a hot gob of glass and blew it into the mold, thereby recreating the head I had sculpted in a hollow bubble of glass (Shortly after I blew this head in the mold, the mold broke, so it is the only one of its kind!)
My roommate at the time had recently taken a class where they mirrored the inside of a flask with silver nitrate. I contacted his professor and his TA's were kind enough to show me the reaction and let me perform it on this glass head. I now had a clear glass head mirrored on the inside with silver. I mounted the head inside a hexagonal box that I made and it was done!

Well, I'm excited to box this bad boy up and send him off to Washington, but sad to see him go at the same time. I'll let you know how the show goes in September.

Blown glass

In addition to beads, I also blow glass. When Krista came over to take pictures of our recent bead work, we talked her into taking pictures of my blown glass items. Here they are:

More (cooler) beads

I thought these beads (and the pictures of them) were so cool they deserved their own post. They were created with ivory glass and silver. The glass has a very strong reaction with the silver and creates an intricate webwork of lines and colors. The largest bead in the set is average marble size (maybe 1/2 inch or 5/8 inch in diameter). Krista, our photographer, pulled out all the stops (and the macro rings) to get these shots, and they turned out awesome! Enjoy.

And now, the beads...

As promised, I am posting more from our photo shoot with Krista Wahlquist. There are some really good shots in this group (because Krista is a really great photographer). We will be at the Provo Farmer's Market every Saturday through October, so you should come check these out in the flesh! The Market is located at 100 South and 500 West, Provo, UT. It runs from 9-2 every Saturday, so come check it out!

This is a piece we made for a show in the Covey Center for the Arts, Dreaming of Spring. It has over 20 handmade glass beads with sterling silver beads and findings.

This is a closeup of a floral pendant. I make these in all colors and sizes, but this one was the best example. The pendant is only about the size of a penny or a nickel, so you can see the huge amount of detail for such a small space.

This is a set of blue charms. The fourth bead from the left is a floral bead. With the charms, we string a lampworked bead with some accents on a headpin. These charms are extremely versatile and work great as pendants, as matching sets, on chain, on cord, on necklaces, bracelets or earrings.

Here is an example of two sets of charms: one purple and blue, one pink and green.

Some charms on a loose, dangly bracelet.


This is a great example of some of the new necklaces we are making. We cluster 4-7 charms together on a chain to create a unique sort of pendant. Because the beads are constantly rolling over each other and changing positions, the necklace never looks the same way twice.


This is a necklace we made with opalescent green glass mixed with adventurine.

This is an example of some of the different, fun types of beads we make (L to R): landscape, apple, hollow heart, pig, bird, turtle, pumpkin, tree, turtle, candy.

A close up of some of our birds. These are very popular.

This is a multi-strand necklace with ten purple on purple glass beads. Thanks to Becky for being the model.

This is a fun necklace that combines glass, wood, chain, ribbon, and pearls.

This is a really cool necklace that I made for Becky for Christmas two years ago. There are three pieces: a bracelet, a shorter necklace and a longer necklace. Each component can be worn separately, or they can be linked together to create a really long necklace. Nearly infinite combinations!

Here is a closeup of the bracelet that goes with the above necklace.

Here is a fun necklace with green and purple glass beads, pearls, chain, and ribbon.

Beads, beads, the magical fruit....

So we have begun another year of the Provo Farmer's Market and all that that entails. I'm really excited about it this year. We have a really great market manager and a really great booth. All winter, I've been making beads and stockpiling them like a squirrel so that we would have a good inventory. Last week, however, my wife and I realized that we had no pictures of any of our recent works, so we called up our good friend Krista Wahlquist to take some pictures for us in exchange for some jewelry. Here is a taste of our wares via her lens:

Great job. Top notch. That being said, you should come visit our booth and see all this stuff in person at the Provo Farmer's Market every Saturday through October from 9am to 2pm. The market is held at Pioneer Park, 500 West Center, Provo, UT. You should come and bring a friend.

Red Herring

I am currently part of a group show at the Harold B. Lee Library at Brigham Young University. The show is entitled Red Herring and it is all about false starts, misleading clues, and visual puns. If you're in Provo, UT, you should check it out. It's on the 4th floor in the Juvenile Literature section (south end of the building). It will be up until April 30th, so everyone should take a look!

Artist's Block?

I've been bogged down under a stiff case of artist's block. Like for the last two months. The other day, my sculpture professor and friend, Brian Christensen, gave a presentation about creativity and basically how to access creativity and avoid stagnation (timely, I know). He suggested cranking work out as fast as you can to overcome the stagnant bog of artistic apathy. As such, I took him up on it and made some little video pieces that I would now like to share with y'alls:

This one is untitled as of yet, but I'm thinking of calling it "Treadmill" or something like that.

This one needs to be reshot, but I'm definitely going to call it "Sisyphus." Maybe if I'm in a punny sort of mood I'll call it "Slinkyphus"

Neither one is totally finished, but you get the idea. Both videos are meant to loop continuously, so they essentially will not stop. Anyway, that's the preliminary cut, so let me know what you think.

Apparatus of Play Show Announcement

Just an announcement that I will be having a solo show entitled "Apparatus of Play" in Gallery 303 at BYU this summer. The show will be the first two weeks in July. Look for more updates about opening reception, pieces, and other tidbits.

Vera Hinckley Mayhew Contest

Every year at Brigham Young University, there is a creative arts contest named after Vera Hinckley Mayhew. There are many categories, including visual arts. I entered my sculpture "Hell" in the show and the jurors chose it to be displayed! Go figure.

Play

So, in researching play, I came across this video by Dr. Stuart Brown of the National Institute for Play. He talks about play as a vital function of humanity and something necessary to our survival. I thought it was pretty interesting and worth checking out. Here's a link to the video on TED.com:

Stuart Brown says play is more than fun

Thanks

I just wanted to give a warm thank you to all those who came to see my sculpture over the last two weeks. Hopefully I will be able to have a whole show together this summer with more of my work. Until then, thanks again and pay heed to your mother.

"Slinky Self Portrait" Update

A good evening to my loyal, devoted friends, fans, and family. This is just a note to update the previous post about the Slinky Machine (which, by the way, is now entitled "Slinky Self Portrait.") It is currently on display at BYU's Harris Fine Arts Center on the south 5th floor landing. It will be up from now til February 13th. During that time it will run every other hour for an hour on the hour. Come see it! Let me know what you think. Check out the other awesome exhibits there at the HFAC. While you're in town, go see what's happening at the Museum of Art, just next door to the HFAC. But mostly, come see Slinky Self Portrait while it is still in town.

Heaven & Hell

This is another retroactive post. I finished these two works about five months ago. They are meant to be a diptych of Heaven and Hell. Enjoy.

Slinky Machine-- Working Title

This is a sculpture I finished a few months ago. I don't have a title for it yet, but it is going to be shown at the Harris Fine Arts Center at BYU. It will be on the north fifth floor landing from Tuesday, 25 January 2009 for about a month, so come take a look. There is a little preview video at the bottom of the post (sorry if it takes a while to load.)

Human Trap

This is a piece I made for a group show in the Central Utah Arts Center sculpture garden. The show was entitled "Enclosure" and all the works kind of fit that theme. Mine was a 6' tall, 4' wide, 2' deep box trap (like the kind they use in the cartoons). It is propped up on a stick with a "crisp, clean, (false) $100 bill" dangling from the inside. I wanted it to be funny, but also give people second thoughts about going in and snagging the $100.