Work 28: Splatter Art Cookies*

We made a big batch a cookies to bring home to our respective families for Thanksgiving. I made two different colors of frosting and what happened next only seemed natural.




I laid out my art upon the desert table, where it was quickly devoured and the pies made for plentiful leftovers. never has my family been so receptive to my art.


*Egg Free!

Work 27: Solstice Advent Calendar

I remember quite fondly all the spirit that came along with this season. It placed an excitement in my stomach that would last a whole month. I can still muster some, but its different. It came in all the details, never one big thing. The music, the food, the snow, the decorations, the gifts... And while the entire month was fun, it was always about anticipation. Leading up to the big day. What better way to harvest anticipation than giving someone a calendar. My grandparents used to send me advent calendars. Some years they were the kind with candy, other years, just pictures. But it was always fun each day to see what was behind the new door.

I am older now, and I see the season differently. Certain things that I went along with as a child, I do not go along with now. Yet it is still a special time. I do not want to lose that. So instead I change it to something that I can feel good about. It is a slow process to hijack a holiday, but every year I try to do a little more.

The day after Thanksgiving, an idea popped into mind, and the next morning I set to work at it. Three days later I completed my Solstice Advent Calendar. It was a lot of work, but I am quite happy with it. A significant part of having an advent calendar is the surprise, so it wouldn't be well utilized by me. I presented it to my roommate for her seasonal enjoyment.

Work 26: Porch Pumpkins

I had intended to apply blade to these pumpkins. It is mid-November and they remain safely unblemished atop the porch railing. Pumpkin carving is fun stuff, but I don't think it is happening this time around. I like looking at them just as they are. And they will last all the more long without the holes. I enjoy the whole pumpkin. This morning's fog gave an extra charming backdrop for gourd gazing.

Work 25: Sometimes I get up/You always get up.

Sometimes I sleep in. Most times, really. Sometimes I get up to make coffee for someone who can not sleep in. This is when I see you. You always get up. Usually first. Always up.

Work 24: Sad Tie

This is a tablet doodle that was doodled while I was trying to draw something else. It is nothing like what ever I was intending to draw and is very much its own thing. I named the file "Sad Tie" and saved it. I open it on occasion to see what it is. Then I think about posting it, but don't. Well, here it is, Sad Tie.

Work 23: Saturday Night by Lamplight

Tonight in the quiet house I write. It is one of the few things I can do. I can always write. The words spilling out of my ever-dying pen. It is like talking to a friend. I can say anything that I know how to say. I may not have a friend in one hundred miles but I can write. Doing so is something for my hands and my mind. It gives purpose to a listless body and grabs hold of a scattered head. On the page I have a place and in the ink a presence. If I am not here for somebody else, then at least for something else. I am surrounded by words and their permanence finds companionship in time while space is empty and lonely.


I see now that I need a new word. Nothing I already know will do. I need a word that once it is begun it will not end. The space between words leads my thoughts away. But if I were to have a big enough word I could just go on writing it and not stopping. It would say everything and leave room for nothing.

Work 22: Wasted Words

I am in a thoughtful mood today, and it has me paging through recent journal entries. Its good that memories both remembered and forgotten can be made tangible in pen and paper. I forgot about this entry, but I recall the sentiment.

Explicitly it is now a matter of confidence. Perhaps it has always been, only now it is so apparent. My voice is not as immediate nor loud as it should be. Therefore I speak in suggestions and speculations, not plans and beliefs. The words are far between and lame by qualification. In letting others speak first I swallow that which sits ready on my lips. A sober tongue is a stagnant tongue. I say all this, and still I am mostly talk. For what little I say, I am more word than action. I get excited about something and I talk it to death. I literally continue to bring it up until it fizzles out. Never happens. An idea put to waste. I am where good ideas go to die.

Work 21: Dolphin Hunting

(I finished this piece a few months back, but its just now going up)

The killing of dolphins is both a source of pride and contention for Japan. Pride because it makes use of the sea and and is considered to be a traditional activity. Contention because most of the world denounces the practice of killing sea mammals. With the increasing influence of the western world upon Japan, the island nation struggles to hold on to its traditions, regardless of legitimacy. This image is simple. It swaps the role of hunter and hunted. If one is to accept the food chain (and most omnivores do), than one must accept the role of prey just as predator. There is no malice in the dolphins attack. It kills just as it is killed.

In communicating this message I tapped into another Japanese tradition, that of woodcutting. The majority of my work is digital, so instead of making a relief image in wood, I used my tablet and erased relief into a solid black layer in Photoshop.

Work 20: Sunsetsink

This is a rough stitch of where I do my dishes.

Work 19: Calendar Slide to Desk Plant

I may not have a skateboard these days, but I do have paper clips! And why not live vicariously through office supplies. If I can imagine a better life for my paper clips, then by all means, they should have it.

Work 18: Cloud Scene

At the moment I am technically as well as inspirationally tied up in a project of mixed media. Right now I am fighting through a spell of soured ambition. As part of this project I am learning Apple Motion, a video editing program that creates a 3D environment. This clip is my first effort at the program. As it is only a rough draft, it may not make it to the final project. The clouds are made of paper towels.

Work 17: Drinking of You

I made a cup of coffee as soon as I arrived at the office this morning. I looked at it, smelled it, tasted it, and held it. Thought of coffees and coffee companions passed.

Work 16: 1/4096

There is a well known motif of a crazy person in a confined room tearing up sheets of paper. I am not crazy. But my job does give the feeling of confinement now and then. So today, like any sensible crazy person would do, I sat at my desk and tore paper. I started with a sheet of A3 paper, and kept tearing it in half until my fingers could fumble no further. I was fortunate that the teachers paid me little mind and didn't ask questions. It was not something I really wanted to explain, while sitting at my desk, at work. Assuming my math is correct, the smallest box should be 1/4096 of the original.

Work 15: Paper Players

This is a first, but it is something I have been thinking more about lately. Between Michel Gondry's crafty sets and Wes Anderson's recent animation, I have been wanting to make my own little worlds and snap them in a photo. For my first attempt I have grabbed a ready-made story line and cut out some images from popular news. Content-wise I am not likely to continue much further down this path, but process-wise, this is just the beginning. A very sloppy beginning. Here, I had an idea of what would be going on, but not a sound grasp of layout. I would like to think this out more for future builds. Its a start.

Work 14: Sameness

A new school year has just started and I am watching a fresh batch of kids getting accustomed to their new routine. They look buried in their oversized mandatory school outfit. I wrote this piece while sitting in the office watching a little one squirm and shuffle waiting for a teacher's help.

Work 13: Call to Worship

While looking through my digital photos for a separate project, the preview feature flashed a bunch of my orange images in rapid succession. I then paused my current project to make a video with my orange series instead. I took the whole file of 36 images, loaded them into my video editor, and let them repeat a number of times. The order seen is the order the photos were taken in. Every other cycle is shown in reverse. Some places are sped up and other slowed down. The only manipulation to the images, was in adjusting the contrast of the video as a whole. I edited the clip until it seemed right, then I dropped some music on top. Music borrowed from Architecture in Helsinki. Titles are hand drawn.

Work 12: Angkor Again

Last summer I traveled to Cambodia and visited the ruins of the Angkor Empire. A few days of temples and I left with hundreds of photographs. I felt as though I had experienced the ancient city through my viewfinder, and less with my eyes. Visiting Angkor truly is a once in a lifetime event, and a couple of weeks ago I returned for a second round. I wanted to see the temples differently so I decided to shoot Angkor only in black and white. It was a difficult call to make. I popped in a B&W Secure Digital memory card, and committed to a colorless journey. I have not embarked on such a path since graduating college, and thus, sadly, graduating from the darkroom. As soon as I returned home and loaded the images onto my computer, I knew the decision was solid. It has been some time since I have been so pleased with a photo series. Having seen both, I think Angkor has some fine subtle colors to show in the stone and dirt, but B&W is hands down the best for ruins. Here is one of the many passageways in Angkor Wat.

Work 11: 2 Drinks

In two consecutive weekends I went to two establishments. One was a Spanish restaurant near the sea. It is surrounded by strawberry fields, a source of local pride. The other was a brewpub near the fish docks. It has the best beer in Japan. Both images show local drinks as modeled by my friends. A microbrew that is brewed across the street from the bar and utilizes all the local ingredients it can. A sangria that is more of a sweet strawberry juice and gets its berries from the neighborhood.

I did very little to alter the images other than amplify the mood that is already present.

Work 10: officeSPACE

There are days toward the end of my contract where all I ask of my job is to sit at my desk and study the limits of staring into time and space. No matter how productive the staring may be, the limits are generally introduced by coworkers. It is possible that staring can be part of the job, but it is difficult to identify as such. In the afternoon I can occupy my desk but not the time. There are three hours between 2 and 5pm. I have a watch on my wrist, a phone in my pocket, and a clock on the wall. All of which I use to observe time. I check them on rotation in hopes of a different reading. I sit next to a sink with a metronome drip. Instead of keeping time it stretches the moment. My understanding of time goes only as far as I can hold my breath. Anything greater is abstract. With an acute absence of task I look around. I look at something near. I look at something far. I look at something near and focus far. I stare. My eyes open and unengaged. I retreat into my mind and call up something easier to dissect. Something with balance. A moment already passed. This one’s too tough.

This piece was written in my journal during the dreaded 2-5pm stretch, struggling to stay awake and sensible at my work desk. It does not help that I am constantly surrounded by busy people, but I myself am not given any work to do. My job is to be present and available, but unused. Often, journaling is the best I can do with it.

Work 9: Just a Look

I love children's books. I did as a child, and I do as the lesser-child I now am. The stories are simple and helpful, while the art can be original and quite engaging. Once I nail down the right idea, I would love to write one. In the meantime, thoughts come in snippets, like single pages. So here I have produced a single page from an as yet unmade children's book. It is neither the beginning nor the end. It is just a page. There is no greater context or thought than what you see before you.

Work 8: Speculation as to the cause of our recent economic collapse

The Federal Reserve has issued a statement of explanation for the current economic downturn. While only four words, the brief statement is rather concise in addressing the issue and acknowledging where fault rests. This candid disclosure is quite welcome, but less encouraging are the Federal Reserve's prospects for the future. At no point do they denounce or plan to shift away from the philosophy, seen here, that has brought about this crisis.

Work 7: SK, C vs BW

BW

C

South Korea is color and it is concrete. The buildings scale the mountains and the food stalls burrow into back alleys. Without intent I returned with an album full of color. Even in the dark, perhaps especially in the dark, the colors are vibrant. It seems a shame to strip the saturation from any of my photos, but I want the comparison. I find that the higher the rent a neighborhood pays, the more readily it can be stripped of color.

Work6: Superbowl Four Four (Haiku)

The Superbowl broadcast in Japan is a different experience.

Work 5: That Sweet Glow

By no set plan, every mikan that I peel ends up looking like a sun. Before eating it, I remark upon the similarity. The bare fruit still in sphere form, sitting on a peel of similar radiance bursting into each direction. It captures any natural light and claims it for its own, suggesting with a confident glow that it is the true source of light. Consciously or not, I see all this, and I eat it.

My first round of photos caught all of the detail and none of the warmth. While the Sun brings clarity to all we see, it itself is not clear to look upon. I began to mess with the focus, and the more I did, the more I liked the results. Here is a mikan (Japanese orange), sitting on the Wisconsin flag, captured with the last light of the day.

Work 4: Wish You Were Here...

Here is a take on the standard vacation postcard. The sunset silhouettes disappear to reveal the images of friends back home. At home we imagine the exotic. In the exotic we imagine home. Is it a grass is always greener mentality, or just wanting a little bit of everything, everywhere?

Work 3: My Knee

This is the knee of a body training for its first marathon. While most of the body is undergoing physical improvement, the knee is beginning to regress. I took a photograph for a better look. It did not capture the the feeling of the knee. So in desiring a more honest photograph, I digitally manipulated the image. Sometimes the camera falls short of the truth.

Work 2: I Want to be an Artist

This video is silly, and equally sincere. I love the moody introspective cinema of Europe. And here is my first effort at emulating it. While a film is generally presented in its maker's native language, my experience with foreign film has never been native. Here, the titles are in English, but the audio is adjusted to be universally foreign.

Work 1: The 52 Step

This is the year I become an artist.

Somewhere there is a conversation taking place concerned with what makes an artist, or art. I could pull up my scrap heap of ideas and maybe peer onto the table of such discourse. Or I could stack a realized body of work and engage the discussion. At present I do not have this stack. At one piece a week for fifty-two weeks, I intend to prove myself an artist. ...or a man with a stack of stuff.

Until now, artist as concept only. A mind without a body of work. This year I will grow a body, one piece at a time. Given the weekly deadline, the emphasis is on quantity over quality, though hopefully the two can overlap.

This site will work as my open sketchbook, gallery, or whatever forum seems most appropriate. Take a look, check back, share your thoughts. Both the52step and myself are a work in progress...