Flight - May 12, 2010

My first journal entry from the trip:

The flight alone has already been pretty incredible. Our flight from Detroit to Amsterdam was rerouted due to the volcanic eruptions in Iceland. Our flight plans actually took us above 66 degrees north, into the arctic circle, around Iceland. I was secretly hoping to pass over the northern part of the country just to get a glimpse of the amazing landscape I visited three summers ago. We never caught a glimpse of Iceland, but we did get a chance to see the eastern edge of Greenland. I opened the shade on the airplane window and I found myself looking down at black rugged mountains, layered in snow. The mountains appeared to be just peeking through the unimaginably deep snow banks, as if they were drowning.

I am writing this as we fly over a completely different, yet eerily similar landscape... the Sahara. I see nothing but sand and complex rippling patterns caused by the wind. The mountainous formations that appear every so often look like black islands in a sea of glowing beige. The differences between the two environments are immediately apparent to me. I can imagine myself struggling through the frozen landscape or the suffocating heat of the desert. The temperatures may be polar opposites, but the sense of isolation is frighteningly similar. Black peaks pear out beneath expanses of snow or sand, and both landscapes spread out before me until the horizon. There are no manmade interruptions like the orderly rectangular squares of cultivated earth outside the Amsterdam airport. These places are untamed and explored by so few. In many ways I feel like I have explored a significant part of the globe in the past 16 hours. From the arctic circle, and on past the equator, we have already begun our exploration even as we happily enjoy our inflight movies, vegetarian pasta meal trays, and beverages.

Here is an overlay of the two photos above... just for fun.

Madagascar [underwater]

I just returned from my 6 week long trip to Madagascar! I will have lots to write about this summer until I switch over to the new blog/website that I am working on. I will begin posting to both blogs :)

I have started editing the 1600+ photos I took during the trip. I am really excited about them, but it may take me a little while because I am also editing wedding photographs from this past weekend.

Here are a few underwater images... most have been converted to black & white... and of course I am into the patterns.

the finished (?) product.

I am happy to report that the opening reception on April 16th went very well. There was a great turn out and it was really exciting to see everyone, so to those of you who could stop by, thank you!!!

The show runs until May 1st if you would still like to see my work.

Here are a couple of images from the final exhibition space:

24

Today I saved 24 milk jugs from the garbage of Starbucks. It turns out that the Starbucks in Arborland mall does not recycle. I was pretty shocked and actually horrified once I realized just how much recyclable material ends up in landfills (or who knows where) as a result. The employee who collected the milk jugs for me handed me two large bags and said that he was giving me what the store probably throws away in 4 - 5 hours.

Then I asked him if every store just throws away their recyclables. He told me that he used to work at the Starbucks downtown and they recycled everything. He seemed to think that the store's location had a lot to do with the recycling situation and he wasn't sure why recycling was less accessible at this location.

So now I am very intrigued to know who is really at fault... Ann Arbor or Starbucks? Or are they equally at fault? I need to find out more details... I know that the city doesn't pick up recyclables everywhere, but does that mean recycling services are completely unavailable? In general Ann Arbor has a reputation of having a very good recycling system, so if an Ann Arbor Starbucks is not recycling what does that mean for other Starbucks locations across the country? I am also interested to look into the corporate policy of Starbucks... Starbucks advertises fair trade coffee, some brands are supposed to be "good for the planet", the store sells reusable travel mugs (my travel mug is, in fact, from Starbucks), and they also offer a discount for using your own mug. So I found it very ironic to be looking at a new mug product which was advertised as being created from sustainable/reused materials as I waited for my 24 milk jugs to be rescued from the trash....

Here they are laid out on the studio floor after cleaning them and cutting them in half.

3.26

Did: Gathering milk jugs, cutting, stringing (7+ hrs)
Hanging material in extra studio (2 hrs)
Working on new website (3 hrs)
Group Crit (20 min)
Meeting w/ Mark Nielsen (1 hr)

Discovered: I am very excited about the installation possibilities for my work after putting it up in a second studio space... but I am also very nervous about my final show being a complete success due to space. After talking to Mark, I realized I really might not have enough room to make both a projection and sculptural installation possible... I am going to bring a projector down to the gallery next week to play around with a few things, but I think I won't know exactly what I will be showing until I start setting things up in the gallery....

I was also really grateful for the critique on Thursday with our visiting artists. I think they really had a new perspective to share and they also provided me with a list of other artists to look at so I am excited to check that out.

Other than that I am work work working... cutting plastic, stringing it together and trying to figure things out...

Do: My last pool photo shoot is tonight, so I am going to photograph some of the milk jug handles and un-cut milk jugs. Then I need to get serious about the loop of images that I will hopefully be able to project and I also need to collect plastic exponentially from now until my final installation. At this point I feel like the more material I have to work with, the better my installation will be.

3.19

Did: Editing new photos (some are shown in my last post) (1.5 hrs)
Gathering milk jugs, cutting, restringing, organizing (8+ hrs)
Chatting with a number of people about installation options (2 hrs)

Discovered: I am now pretty set on pushing forward with an installation and projection in the gallery. Now I just need to figure out how to combine the two. I have thought about a couple different scenarios:

I would like the projection and the plastic materials to occupy some sort of space together without competing with each other. I want people to be able to examine the plastic objects closely without getting in the way of the projection. And the projection and the sculpture feel to me as if they are two separate works (although they are obviously closely related) so I would like them to have enough room so that there feels like there is that small distinction...

I have spent a ton of time this week collecting milk jugs because I am going to need a large amount of material to pull off a successful installation... I also restrung a lot of the previous strands that I had made because they were strung on thread and I wanted everything to be consistently strung on thin fishing line. I feel like I am getting into a pretty productive working mode.

Do: I now have a new second studio space to start working on possible installation scenarios. I am really excited about this and in critique an idea came up to install the material above the viewers head so that people can walk under the installation of my materials. Then I could have pieces of the installation hanging down at a better viewing level, and maybe even trail some of the material onto the floor.... lots to start doing. I am hoping to have a mini installation to show next week.

new photographs