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.

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!

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.

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.

"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.)

Parachute Soldier

Here is a small sculpture I finished just before Christmas. It is about 10" tall, 6" wide, and 3" deep. The parachute soldier was cast in bronze from a real plastic toy and is draped over the nail-studded board.