one million chunks of asphalt

!Viva Andy Goldsworthy!

this is to prove that i did artwork during my six week utah holiday

it's called "Gateway to Art City"
'Art City' is the nickname of Springville, the city that you would be driving to if you were to pass this Bild driving south. Springville has boasted an art museum since the early days of Utah development so I'm sure it's nickname was well-earned. But when you start to think of Salt Lake City as a burgeoning art scene on the cusp of innovation in comparison, well...its cute.
if you were driving north you would soon be in Provo and also the neighborhood where i lived in four houses during the last three years.

i decided to make this soon after arriving to Utah when Gian and i went to a post-apocalypticalesqe site of swampy ruins we know as "Devil's Land". it was also a symbolic closing adventure - a sort of goodbye to the cult of youth and freedom - as Gian was about to be married. as seductive as Devil's Land can be on the sensibilities of a visual artist, i opted for the dumping grounds between the road and the wooded area leading to Devil's Land.

this is how it might catch your eye driving south

and this is how you might see it driving north.

there were some computers in among the detritus. and i used a couple of coolers and a lego...and a penzoil bottle. besides that it's pure asphalt.

there are a couple of stories involved in the making of this Bild.

one of them is that i had to build it three different times.

the other has to do with three different sherrifs. (here are three shots of the back)

after about five hours of work the first stack collapsed when i got about five feet high. i waited for another beautiful spring december day and built it stronger, this time in four hours. but by this time i had lost my camera and didn't have proof. this second attempt was either shoved or decimated by nature. so the third time took me a little over three hours and i found my camera!

sherrifs were confused by my activity. they all drove s.u.v.s. the first one sort of patrolled me. drove down the dirt road to the junk pile and watched me for a while. finally drove back and rolled down his window - the signal, i assumed, for me to approach. apparently i was lucky to be in some sort of free zone which was neither public nor private so he was good natured about not understanding the point of my labors.
sheriff number two looked just like sherrif number one and so i treated him as a return customer until i realized the difference: number two was unafraid to voice his opinion, "you're kind of a strange guy, arentya?" "i guess so" "well, can't hold anything against ya for being weird...carry on!"
sherrif number three had noticed the previous unsuccessful stacks and was probably even more perplexed by my tenacity in rebuilding. i like to think that the only critique of this piece happened around the watercooler of the local sherrif's office. mabye it will even become a sort of story they remember when all that is left is those two trees - a part of policeman lore of the bizzarre.

for all i know this is still standing (although unlikely)...maybe one of you utahns can scope out the situation for me and report on it's longevity/demise.

p.s. i thought it was cool that people would add things to my creation - someone stuck that compact disc in there. those things really catch the light.
p.p.s speaking of demise r.i.p. most of the clothes i was wearing in this photo

one million heads crafted of cardboard

Scott Fife
click the title for more heads


i was reminded of these cardboard heads i saw in chicago a-year-and-a-half ago (http://www.amishrobot.com/joe/2004/07/mr_clark_goes_to_chicago.html) and i still think they're rad.

one million paintings by mfas...again

on the heels of ROYGBIV yet another show of the seven first year painters here at VCU. this comes as a great opportunity from our critical theory teacher, Paul Ryan, who is professor and gallery director at Mary Baldwin College in Staunton, Virginia. Maybe when i go back for the reception i'll take some photos of this campus on the hill because it is GORGEOUS.


Heather

this close-up shows how this is plaster directly on the wall

Andy

somehow a walkman that i lent to andy expressly for the purpose of listening to a mix tape i made him found its way wired into these pots and pans. there's artistic licence for ya.


Mike
i'm not much of a title checker but this one is something about mike and donald rumsfield crying on each other's shoulders. and i like it a lot


Jason

i thought it appropriate that our car ride conversation included 'Moon Unit Zappa' before we saw these paitings.

Lauren

i have to apologize about my apathy toward un-yellowizing photos before blogging because these are YELLOW. the moon that night was also un-naturally yellow so i guess its appropriate.







Marian

i also should apologizing for taking bad snap shots throughout this entire blog. they don't do these delicate paintings justice.




Me

i forgot to let kevin and ashley in on the secret that these aren't real cutting boards. so, yeah, they were shocked! i even let them touch the art to feel paper instead of the wood you would expect

kevin and ashley were visiting from boston and were so awesome to
A. drive me to staunton and
B. actually want to see the art show

afterward we stopped at a gas station for the simple fact that it was called Wilco. kevin is also the man who got me the wilco documentary dvd for my birthday. i think its safe to say that we harbor love for each other - no threat to ashley of course.

one million paintings before getting all my stuff stolen on the chinatown bus

its nice to see that the west village loves arthur killer kane almost as much as utah does


jeffrey lives right near wall street

i couldn't help falling for their 'christmas lights wrapped around pillars becoming a flat american flag concept. later the next evening i dropped a bottle of Yoo-Hoo near this corner as all the business types were getting off work. beverage and glass all over the place while i struggled with my luggage. it was embarrasing

the trinity church off wall street hosts this bronze cast of tree roots painted red. for me it tells me that i'm almost to jeffrey's. to others it is suppossed to commemorate september 11th. there is an ad in Art and America of this piece.


here is a boring show not unlike the concept of our ROYGBIV...but ours wasn't boring


they had this richard tuttle and i include it in memory of all the photos i wanted to take at the whitney of the richard tuttle retrospective. i have often thought that if i ever saw more of his work that i would like it. my prediction was true and i came away from the whitney in a fog of jealousy and inspiration.


this monochrome was really neat - image only through texture


i think it's hard to make collage interesting these days so i began looking at these with a skeptical eye, but i've got to admit that Lamar Peterson amused and impressed me with these. Mike Erickson saw these too and loved them.

it's hard to tell, but the cartoony parts are painted on a collaged piece of paper so that he also matched the backgrounds in his painting





i was also surprised to be impressed by these paintings by Kyle Staver. they strike me as a great mix between marian's and mike's paintings (both their websites linked on this blog) marian's situations and light with mike's cartoonishness and unedited immediacy. http://kyle.staver.home.att.net/index.htm







the eighties! Julian Schnabel

Kenny Scharff

Donald Baechler. kind of ridiculous show, but i have a guilty pleasure for Donald Baechler.

Basquiat

Keith Haring