Monday, January 08, 2007
Back from the BrakeOk took some time off and will be back at the keyboard on a more regular bases, I hope. (^_^)
I have been spending some of my time this holiday season surfing the backpacker forums and i came across the nice little rant that I kind of Identify with. I forget who wrote it but I hope that you guys can enjoy it as much as I do. So here it is.
There are people who....
Don't want a condominium.Don't care about the new IKEA catalogue. Don't want a fancy car. Don't need stability. Don't want to have familiar things around them. Can't stand monotony. Hate the question "How Are You?" Hate the idea of seeing the same thing every day. Know that they are not meant to stay in one place. Do not desire a secure job. Never toe the company line. Realize that there is more world out there than they can ever see. Want to see every bit of that unattainable world. Chafe under any bit of harness that their lifestyle puts upon them. Knows that they can be more. Knows that they can be more TODAY!!! Feels squashed by the people around them who say that there is no other way. Know that there is another way, but can't seem to find it. Can see the other way, but can't seem to get there. Strive to get to another world, but cannot let go of the old one. Say what they mean. Like to listen to a confusing story. Never back down. Know there is ALWAYS ANOTHER ROAD. Think money is a means and not the end. Hate the idea of uninformed affluence. Can decide that they need a big change. Can accept that they were wrong. Can be right and STILL be wrong. Can realize that they are going the WRONG way. Throw everything to the wind, not afraid of how things will shake out. Have had things shake out bad, and STILL think that this is the right thing to do. Have taken a retarded risk. Have embraced a retarded risk without backpedaling. Welcomed a thrown punch as a Rite Of Passage. Entered into a situation, smelling a con, but trying to work it. Can go the RIGHT way, and then decide to go another way. Stood up, when every fibre of your being said "Sit Down". Said "NO!! when they wanted you to say "Yes." Looked down a rough looking street and saw experience and not a knife in your kidneys. Love their backpack. passed up on the fucking museum. Were not wishy washy to the tout. took a guy up on a possibly shifty proposition. Had a backup plan if things went south. Hung their ass out there, and got ready to fight. spent too much money on a local kid, and never got the thing they wanted because of it. Knew they got worked.....and took every bit of it in stride. Never thought that settling down was the right thing to do. Decided that they were a traveller, and that was all there was to it. Shouted "I am A Traveller" to their friends. and then shouldered their pack and took off.
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Untill later. The Todd (^_~)
Friday, December 01, 2006
Bizzaro PotatoYou are always your most tiresome critic is your self. I am sure that this is true I know no one holds me up to a level as high as I do personally. As for my "Bat-man bang" the title was not what constrained me to the project. That particular piece was never really meant to copy the Bat-man bang in the true sense. I being in Art school, means that alot of what I do in art are exercises. What I was exploring with this piece was how to create and object that "contains space" with only using line. On retrospect the bat-man bang was a very ambitious idea (I have a tendency to do this with most of the projects this year, I will talk about them later. ). Therefore in the terms of the exercise I am not very happy with the result. If it were smaller I would hold the space better. But I am very happy with the end piece on its own.
The second project that I worked on was the faceted potato. In this exercise I was instructed to create an object (go figure, be a sculpture class) that contained space using flat plains. I think the was the point where I genuinely entered a real artistic phase. I call it my "bizzaro world" phase. For those of you that do not know or remember, Bizzaro World first came about in the original Superman comics. In Bizzaro world every this was boxy or faceted, they had now curves. To start with I decided to make a potato with no round edges or curves.
This is something difficult when you are working with a material that has a depth. 1.4 inch plywood has this depth. This depth double the amount of angles that I have to put into each piece. Needless to say I was not satisfied with the result or the process of making this (I broke two belt sanders in a week) project in any way.
In Spite of that I love the idea of the potato, so I reworked it with the material of my choice in my third piece. I till get into that on sunday.
Thursday, November 30, 2006
On and OnArt School, who would have thought that it could possibly been such work. For the past 3 or 4 weeks i have been putting in longer the full-time hours in the sculpture studio. I don think that I was prepared for this kind of work, however; I am taking pleasure in this experience.
Last time I left you guys I was working on 'The Batman Bang." It has been finished but I am afraid I was not satisfied with it. It ended up being too big and thus lost alot of its "banginess." if I ever get the chance to do this over I will definitely bring the scale down, and increase the amount of lines. I am confidant that this will really accentuate the "banginess" of the piece.
Time and my classes are soldering on. There is no room fro rest in this school, so I have done two more piece since the last update. Working on these has in fact been fun, but not in the way one might expect. For these two sculpture I choose to make a potato, but not and potato but a faceted potato. Now this allowed me to say, "Well if you excuse me, but I have t go work on my potato." and then receive very puzzled looks from all those in attendance. Sensing their confusion I explain, "It's for art, I am sculpting a faceted potato." and nothing more. Leaving my audience with still a puzzled look on there face with a hint of dissatisfaction of my explanation. Now the truth of the matter is that my explanation is true through its' entirety, with no omissions. The sculpture is merrily an exploration of form. It seemed that alot of people can not except this, they want something deeper. But there is nothing, it is as shallow as can be, and I am happy with it.
Monday, October 09, 2006
More of The BangSpent some more time working on the sculpture. I guess the reason my instructors don't tell me important metallurgy things is because it is supposed to help in the development of art, or they are just lackadaisical towards the technics. Be that as it may, I learnt that you can only heat up a piece of metal until it becomes brittle and breaks. Then you are only left with one course of action, heat it up again, braze it together, and hope no one hits it very hard. I believe that there are no more then 3 joints like that on my sculpture so if you ever get to touch it, please, please don't touch it very hard.
In an other note, I finally broke down bought a pre-amp and got my father's record player working. It truly is the premier decision of my weekend owing to the fact that along with the record player came a large number of records. Most of which are from around the 60s and 70s. a large part of them falling in to the blue or blue/country genre.
In all probability this has made my hate for radio even more immense. As I sit here writing the blog i am listening to "The Butterfield Blues Band" which is a superb blue band that thanks to the 60s and 70s radio that I have listened to in the past, had no idea existed (excuse me while i flip it onto the "B" side). I am positive that many people before me have come out on the internet and declared their distaste for radio, and how it does not matter what station, genre, and even decade of music you are listing to it just that specific top 40.
I reckon that as long as the RIAA does not screw with out digital music anymore that the internet will make it far more effortless to discover new music (That is if the stuff I want to hear is in the digital format). And there are compilation CD swapping site out there. Lots of ways for people to get exposed. But for now I am going about it in a different way.
To quote Timothy Leary, I have now "turned on, tuned in, and dropped out." My new music is coming to me in the form of pressed plastics from my father and many other fathers' past (those record from the thrift stores). That is the way it is for now and I am enjoying it. Not to mention, the records do sound better.
Long live analog!
Wednesday, October 04, 2006
Brazing, Oh the Fun, and This year is looking upI mentioned before that I am working in the metal shop on my sculpture. But what I think I neglected to convey was that I am not using the conventional wedding instruments, and by this I mean I am not doing TIG, MIG, Arc, or what not. What I am doing is Brazing. Well I guess that is the conventional welding, I do believe that it did come first.
To process of brazing is a lot like soldering, yet on a bigger scale. What you do is heat up the pieces of metal that you want to join. Once you get it to the right temperature you take a brass rod and the heat from the metal should melt a bit of brass off and suck it up into the joint, thus forming a fairly strong join. Bicycles have been made this way for a very long time, from what I have been told.
To tell the truth I am really having a good time with this. There are little ins and outs that people seem to forget to tell you when they are teach it to you. For example it help to keep the brass rod close to the torch when you are heating up the metal. If you don't do this when you place the rod on the metal it take to long to melt the rod and you do not get a good joint.
Enough about the metal work believe it or not there is more to my life then that right now. I got things like "drinking" to do (surprise surprise (^_^). Not really, but for my third year in the International Student Association I am accually doing things. I have to say it good. I have already found a few new drinking partners, and more importantly people with house where we can drink. No more paying those big bar bills for me this year. Yeap i shout have fun this year, and maybe I will learn a bit, you never know.