PROZAC

Required Reading: Moonwalking with Einstein

2012-01-26T20:55:00.002-05:00

For many years I have delighted in playing a simple associative memory game with my cousins and my uncle, in which twenty items are randomly picked by someone and myself and my cousins can recite the list backwards and forwards with ease. The last time I was at my uncles house he told me about a book he read called Moonwalking With Einstein by Joshua Foer (Jonathan Safron's brother) which talks about the very same technique that I was so fund of and goes further to truly delve into the creative skill of professional memorization. And to us memorization of inane things such as strings of 100's of numbers 0r pages of random names seems like a super-human task, not to mention a serious waste of time. But there is a lot more to the art of memory than simple games and exercises, and even more still than just being able to do well on your next art history exam or organic chemistry test. Rather the study of memorization and the ability attached there to, is a crucial element in information retention. And I leave Joshua Foer to explicitly tell you all about it, because you really should read it. The lost art is both creative and complex and has a wonderful history.

Now for my personal take on the whole thing. A lot of the book is filled with musings about the state of our current lives and how, recently, as human beings we've transitioned from relying upon memorized tales to transmit our histories to writing down basic texts to now relying on the complex external web of collected human intelligence for most of our memories. Now there is no saying that one is right and one is wrong. There is only what has been and what is. What is, is the slow dependence on machines to tell us the things we once memorized so easily. Just think how a photograph holds a single memory in time for us to look at externally whenever we like, that didn't exist 200 years ago (aside: I had to look up when photography was invented because I didn't remember if it was 1 or 2 hundred years ago). But now we have pruned away much of the skill of memory as a general necessity of life and though the likes of socrates would surely rue our fate, there is no saying what lengths this open expanse of mind can be put to.

I personally hope to dedicate all the waking energy of my mind to new episodes of Mob Wives and Jersey Shore.

Metalmations

2012-01-13T18:27:00.004-05:00

So (I think) I may have developed a new technique for stop motion animation.... I mean in some sense there is nothing new about it, because stop motion animation and welding steel have both been around for ages, but the standard technique for stop motion animation is generally clay or puppets, and for my material i've decided to weld together pieces steel. And I don't think it has been tried before with any degree of success.. It may be that it was never invented because of the impracticality of the medium for stop motion.... it really doesn't make much sense to make an unyielding material for motion when we already have things that exist that are drastically more pliable. But there is a character of motion in metal that can not be gotten with the other materials, for it requires it's own techniques and methods of manipulation which create beautiful and strikingly interesting results not just in what was intended, but merely as products of the medium.

For me the whole project was a week long experiment. Understanding the possibilities of the medium and how the characters move and how the world reacts to them. But understanding this world was no easy task, and expounding upon my ideas was even less easy. The first video was completed in around 8 hours start to finish, which really flew by; the second video was created in the following three days, working the night shift (starting at 2:30 pm and going as late as 2 am on the final night). It took almost 30 hours to get a minute and a half of footage which varies from 24 frames per second down to 12. On the final day I was so exhausted I could barely move. It's one thing to simply move pieces of metal around a table, or to have them connected intelligently with ball and socket joints or magnets... but in this case I had neither of those indulgences. Rather, in order to create any movement I had to either break the sculpture and re-weld it in a new position (my last resort), get out the torch and heat up/cut away the joint in order to move the piece, or use the flow of welding wire to create a pool of liquid hot metal at which stateI could move the pieces into their new position. Needless to say it was tiring.

The Aliens!

Sculptures I made this week.

2011-12-09T21:56:00.003-05:00

Florida get's scrapped and an updated website.

2011-11-28T23:11:00.005-05:00

So in my last post I was all geared up to go to florida, and I won't deny a fair amount of excitement for the journey. But on the very day upon which my father and I had every intention of loading up the truck with scrap metal and welding equipment and taking off, I made a brief stop at my local steel fabricators (Brakewell) to pick up a last couple pieces of scrap and bid adieu to a couple fellow steel workers and friends. However during my visit it was made clear to me that a corner of the fabrication facility could easily be converted into a small workspace to which I could have access. Now the warmth of florida is certainly tempting, but being around the machinery and scrap produced by Brakewell is quite frankly a much more enticing offer. So it looks like I'll be weathing the storm in the north east this year, though I'm sure I'll find my way out of it somehow.

Anyway, in other news, I just totally streamlined and updated my website, check it out and let me know what you think: www.zacmax.com

Moving to florida. And some new sculpturesc

2011-11-18T13:18:00.004-05:00

So, due to the bitter cold which is quickly curtailing my productive work time, I have decided to rent out a shop in sunny southern Florida for the bulk (all) of this coming winter to continue cranking out these little sculptures.

Here's two recent sculptures which deviate a little from the 6" minis which I've been producing so steadily for the last three or so months.

Some Sculptures you may not have seen.

2011-11-07T14:01:00.005-05:00

Seriously, October?

2011-11-01T11:27:00.002-04:00

My Backyard

The street show

2011-10-26T19:59:00.001-04:00

A couple more photos from the show.

2011-10-19T23:22:00.002-04:00

Show it goes.

2011-10-18T22:41:00.006-04:00

Okay, so I failed to take any really good photographs of the show... I know, I know, silly me. I was kinda busy just running around and.... stuff. So I'm putting out a request for anyone who was at the show and had a camera and happened to take any pictures to please send them to me! artbyzacmax@gmail.com

....

Otherwise the show was a wonderful success! I found it to be a much more enjoyable and refreshing experience than most shows which I have had in my life. Often times when I have a show there is an expectation and even a dependance on the show to be a monetary success. And when this is the case, there is a necessity for me to try and sell my work and a let down if no sales are made, and either way it's always anticlimactic. In this case it was far more enjoyable, the work which was being displayed was not for sale, and the people who came to pick up their sculptures were all excited and I had no expectations. It was an all around excellent experience. There certainly was no anti-climax, because as opposed to being something which is final and has a sense of something coming to an end (as shows often do) this felt more like a relaxing half-time break where I get to step out of my frenzied-secluded-work-mode, if only for a couple days, and indulge in some socializing.

I would have been right back into it, but I happened to get a little shard of metal in my eye a couple days before my show, and failing to remove the piece of metal caused a ring of rust to form on my eye. So the day after the show I went to the eye doctor who promptly cleaned the rust off my eye (I assure it has all been quite painless). The procedure left me with a patch on my eye for the rest of the day, so I was forced to take a by-day.. And so it'll have to suffice as my excuse for not having worked today as well....

But I must get back to the full swing of things, and added to my to-do-list is the epic task of sending out all these little sculptures to their proper locations around the globe... so, before I do, I figured I'd let them catch one more glimmer of attention, before they make the long journey to their new homes. I will be having an improvisational show somewhere(s) in the city this friday... It'll definitely be set up for a period of time in the Lower East Side and I may move it elsewhere at some point during the day.

More details soon.

6 days until the show ....

2011-10-10T20:12:00.002-04:00

The show is less than a week away! So come by, October 16th, at Benji and Jakes in Bethel, NY. Doors open around 2 pm and I'll be there all day. Art. Beer. Pizza. Music. presumably in that order.

Can yoooooou dig it?

And now for something... a little different.

2011-10-09T18:10:00.003-04:00

Zach Gross came by as part of the Eddie Adams workshop. He's got some sweet work on his website so I definitely recommend checkin it out.

When he left I decided instead of making something based off someones picture I would have a little fun and I made this little monster :

The whole is not always the sum of it's parts....

2011-10-07T17:18:00.003-04:00

Joy.

2011-10-06T18:57:00.003-04:00

Don't forget, my show is in 10 days [Woah!]. Hope to see you there!

This is Chris

2011-10-05T23:05:00.001-04:00

Hey look, it's me!

2011-10-04T20:18:00.002-04:00

A sneak preview!

2011-10-03T18:41:00.004-04:00

Well I've missed my one a day posting a couple times this week, so heres something like 80 sculptures.

Now come to the show.

The show!!

2011-09-30T22:10:00.003-04:00

First off, I'd like to apologize for my lack of updates over the last few days, I've been a bit under the weather so to make up for it, I will not miss one day of updating over the next two weeks.

This is steve. He used to work for the electric company.

On to the updates!

The show!

The show is getting close, two weeks away! And there is tons left to be done, a possible book (if there is enough interest to cover the production costs), maybe a T-shirt ( see previous parenthetical statement), an extremely large amount of stop motion footage to edit down (seriously it's a ridiculous amount of footage), postcards to send out and leave in high traffic areas, and of course like 30 (drastic underestimate) more sculptures to make.

So the show is open to anyone and everyone and it will take place at Benji and Jakes on Sunday October 16th (starts around 2pm and goes until around 10pm)

If you would like to have a postcard, ya know, just to have one, send an e-mail to artbyzacmax@gmail.com with your address in it.

Snake and Crane Martial Arts

2011-09-28T16:26:00.003-04:00

I know I said I was gonna write something, but I just finished working and I have to go shop and cook for a big meal tonight.

l'Shana Tova!

[Happy New Year!]

Not all monsters all evil.

2011-09-27T19:05:00.002-04:00

The sister of yesterday sculpture is here to prove that not every monster is an aberration of unspeakable horror.

Myah.

2011-09-26T18:35:00.002-04:00

[I apologize for the small diptych photo]

I've missed a couple days this past week...

2011-09-25T17:54:00.003-04:00

So here's a very angry child.

(fly swatter as requested)

A little (Metal) Bundle of Joy

2011-09-23T16:53:00.002-04:00

Back to what I was saying about the difficulty of the small sculptures, well nothing could illustrate that point more clearly than trying to sculpt a newborn baby... With these tiny heads I've come to learn that most of the fabrication process is skill, but there is definitely an element of luck mixed in and when I was sculpting this little guy I certainly felt like... It's a sculpture that truly made me proud.

Crazy Bat Woman and the return of Big Ed

2011-09-22T17:29:00.004-04:00

So I failed to upload one photo a day... not only did I fail to upload a sculpture to my blog, but I didn't even create a single one... well I'd have to say that's partly due to the fact that I drove down to westchester to pick up this massive beast of a sculpture who was still hanging around at Purchase College and has been longing to be driven down the thruway with his feet sticking out the back of my friends Ford F250 so that he could oxidize in the glorious country air.

A difficult task.

2011-09-20T18:19:00.004-04:00

So Yesterday turned out to be one of the most difficult days of the project so far. I was tasked with making a set of twins... a set of very small twins (as well as their parents). I was given a photo of the family together, but it was requested that all 4 sculptures be separate. So I added the challenge of getting them all to fit together as in the original photo and also be separate pieces. This task proved to be a moderate pain (getting the arms to match up), but nothing compared to trying to make the two little girls. On top of the fact that a child's face has a somewhat different anatomical structure than an adult face, I also had to make two that looked very alike, and do it on a small scale. You see the thing with metal is, as you may have learned through life experience, it's not very malleable; it's unforgiving. So to make these two faces on this tiny scale and working with tools that are more or less designed to work on bridges and building structures... well, it's difficult. In fact at one point I threw my hat on the ground and walked off shaking with aggravation for at that point I had rebuilt the faces nearly 10 times each. There was one instance where I had successfully built the nose and eyes of one of the faces and was welding on the upper lip, when a slight miscalculation in my welding led to complete ruination of the face and I had to grind it all off and start over again. So even though it seems like the smaller the project the quicker and easier it would go, often it's just the opposite. For me the greatest challenge truly is the smallest work, and that is partly why I took on this project, to challenge myself, to get good at doing the hardest project I could think of so that it will easily translate itself to the larger, slower, more deliberate work... and I must say I'm looking very forward to the next massive sculpture. Whew.

Ah yes.

2011-09-19T19:03:00.001-04:00

Oh man, today was exhausting. I'll explain why tomorrow.

Meet the Metalsmiths*

2011-09-18T17:01:00.004-04:00

I missed out on posting yesterday, so I figured I'd do a little extra today. Enjoy three new sculptures!

*Their last name is not actually Metalsmith, but it would have been really cool if it were.

Update: just so everyone knows the show is a month away! October 16th, mark your calendars! Also, if we arent friends already, add me on facebook ( Zac Shavrick ) to get the official event invite.

A Grizzly Bear with Chainsaws for arms

2011-09-16T19:10:00.002-04:00

So since I was getting all this attention on Reddit, I decided to have a little fun and let the people of the Reddit community come up with my next sculpture. The winning idea was, naturally, a Grizzly Bear with Chainsaws for Arms, which received well over 400 votes (suggested by Reddit user Viralence).

If you want to see the original thread where the voting took place go here

And if you want to read what people are saying about the sculpture you can go here

Also I added some paypal buttons for the simple commission sculptures on the Buy a Sculpture page on my website

This is my favorite photo of the project

2011-09-15T23:27:00.003-04:00

This girl, for at least a moment, truly believed she was a monster. So I hope I made that dream a reality.

Keep on Kickin

2011-09-14T13:02:00.007-04:00

A very big thank you to Nicole He for writing a truly excellent blog post on the Kickstarter blog

Another wonderful thing about her article was she put the sculpture in the proper diptych format without me having to mess around on photoshop myself! So thanks again Nicole.

"[Nicole], a solemn metal ukuleleist"

Alright, now I must get back to work!

Woah!

2011-09-13T17:21:00.007-04:00

Woah, so last night I was doing my usual round of (soulless) self promotion. Sending out a couple messages on facebook, twitter, and a quick Reddit post. When I notice that I'm getting a strange preponderance of messages and people asking for sculptures... all in a very short period of time. I thought maybe my Reddit post had taken off, as occasionally one is wont to do, but I noticed it had garnered like 1 comment and maybe 100 views (which seemed decent to me), not enough to cause a stir. Anyway a little while later I get a message from a friend on facebook, that I was on the front page of Reddit (a big deal). Turned out that he had compiled a bunch of the photos from the blogposts and thrown them up in the Imgur image hosting website and linked to it [ here ], with a much more adroit title, and it had already been receiving a ton of attention. So I spent most of last night trying to prove that I actually was the guy who made all those sculptures that the people were talking about, which felt a little like I was running around in my own art show yelling out "I'm the guy!" to a bunch of people who are like "who is this crazy person?"... which was an interesting dilemma, for the first couple hours. But eventually word spread that I was really me, and I was graced with a lot of new orders for sculptures, and it even caused me to rally my web-editing energy and build a new page on my website which gives simple instructions on how to purchase a sculpture [ here ].

I was notified today that some of the pictures in the album created by my friend received as many as 240,000 views... woah. That's pretty sweet! So I just wanted to shoot a big Thank You to my friend who posted my work on Reddit and to the whole Reddit community. That was really cool!

And here is a photo of a little monster I made 3 or 4 years ago, a sort of ancestor of the whole Kickstarter Project. Photo Courtesy of Alex Ogle

his name is Mojo.

Shark Boy

2011-09-12T16:50:00.002-04:00

And then there was Shark-Boy.

I'll write something tomorrow.

This guy.

2011-09-11T13:48:00.000-04:00

Jeremy, Andrew's Tricloptic Child

2011-09-09T10:31:00.001-04:00

Andrew the Ever ready demon.

2011-09-08T15:28:00.000-04:00

So I'm tryin out a new macro lens... still gettin the hang of it.

And just for fun here's a super close up of the maniacal giraffe I posted a couple days ago .:.

Sweet sweet detail .

Examiner and Re-Examiner.

2011-09-07T11:02:00.000-04:00

The very sassy Kerri ( @NYfolkexaminer ) has made her first appearance in metal. Check out her excellent column on NY area folk art Here.

As I'm cresting the halfway point of this project I believe it's time to give a little recap as to what it's all about:

The Toys Are Us project was actually something I had conceived of many years ago but never had a chance to do. I had always wanted to create a room that you walk into that is just filled with little people and monsters , to make something massive out of lots of tiny things. A little world. I don't (generally speaking) like things that are too sparse or simple, so when I conceived of the idea I always wanted it to have hundreds of characters, so that when someone stepped into this environment it becomes truly overwhelming. But it was one of those projects that I never got around to accomplishing and always kept in the back of my mind. It occurred to me that peopling the project with creatures purely from my imagination would be a lot of fun, but it would be even cooler if I could get people to send me pictures off of which the sculptures would be based. And since I was making them in somewhat of a bulk fashion I could do it a cheaper than average cost... like a Groupon. So I figured I'd send my idea over to kickstarter, since I had heard so much about the website, and see how it fared. If it didn't generate the activity necessary than it would be no sweat of my back, and if it did... well, here I am. The project far exceed my expectation and left me with a crazy crazy work load. My cup runneth over. So I'm working every day, hoping to crank out an average of 3 sculptures a day until the show on October 15th. Some days I succeed some days I fall short. But seeing as the masses of little sculptures are ever encroaching on my areas of personal space, the future looks bright for a seething mob of miniature humans and monsters.

And who knows, there may even be a companion book to go along with the project.....

Two for Tuesday: Zack Doyle and The Cycloptic Slugger

2011-09-06T17:35:00.000-04:00

This young fellow here has been depicted both as a human and a monster and he faces off against himself in a game of baseball.

It may be noted that though this battle seems epic, it is far from it. Due to the monocular nature of the monster he lacks any real depth perception and the chances of him actually connecting on even a moderate fastball is, well, highly unlikely.

The Monsterification of Michael and the Giraffifacation of a Camel

2011-09-05T12:20:00.001-04:00

As per request the camel pictured was transformed into a maniacal giraffe. Hence the Giraffifacation of the Camel.

Keith Vs Keith

2011-09-04T08:06:00.000-04:00

Okay. I missed out on posting a sculpture yesterday, so in order to get myself back on track I've uploaded two sculptures today.

The following dialogue was overheard:

Human: Oh my god a Monster!

Monster: Aaaah a Human!

Human: Please don't eat me!

Monster: Please don't expose me to reality television!

Human: You're not going to eat me are you?

Monster: What? No.

Human: Please, please don't eat me!

Monster: Stop saying that. Why would I eat you?

Human: I... I thought that's what monsters did...

Monster: No I just came over cause I saw you were wearing the same vest as me.

Human: Oh, I guess we are wearing the same vest.... Well, why did you scream than?

Monster: You screamed, so I screamed. I always scream when someone else screams....[quietly: for ice cream ]

Human: Oh. Okay than.

Monster: Hey is that a Nikon D-70...

Human: um... yeah.. is that a Nikon D-70?

Monster: Yeah! Wow! Crazy! I mean the same vest and the same camera!? What are the chances of that?!

Human: I dunno... I mean yeah, wow.

Monster: Oh hey, did you take my picture?

Human: Um... yeah, I did. Is that okay?

Monster: Yeah, no, not really. I mean I can't go around being caught on camera... It's just..

Human: Oh, okay. No problem I'll just delete it.

Monster: I dunno, I'm not sure if I can trust you... I mean we do have the same vest and the same camera, which is pretty sweet and all... but you still are human

Human: Here you can watch me delete it if you like.

Monster: I dunno, you humans are so cunning. If I let that picture get out, than I'll end up all over the news, and one thing leads to the next I'll have a book deal and I'll get offered boatloads of money be part of a reality TV show. It's easy to say I would turn it down now, but I mean the money isn't right in front me, I mean it's hard to say no to that kind of cash and I'll probably buckle and give in.... and so then I'll just be part of the problem. I really don't want that.

Human:Well..... Here. Take my camera.

Monster: ....You know, I am kinda hungry now that I think about it... I think I'm gonna have to eat you. You understand right? no hard feelings about this.

The more hands the merrier.

2011-09-02T18:09:00.000-04:00

The Handyman:

Bucket Headed

2011-09-01T18:15:00.000-04:00

One of today's creations. The inimitable Bucket Head. Ordered by, presumably, a fan of Bucket Head.

Prozac: One-a-day.

2011-08-31T20:12:00.001-04:00

So with about a month and a half left until the show and the completion of my kickstarter project, I've decided I will post one sculpture a day from the project, until the day of the show. Granted, I'm not always up on my blogging game, so I may lag behind or miss some days, but for the most part I will be posting a picture of a completed sculpture each day alongside the photo which the sculpture is based off of. I'll be taking pictures in strange and unusual settings, and even doing some creative editing to try and turn the pictures into interesting little diptychs [two-pictures-next-to-eachother] .

So I'm gonna start you off with two today, and then it'll be one a day for the next month and half.

This is the story of a Hurricane

2011-08-27T23:05:00.000-04:00

There is a strange feeling before a hurricane. Especially in a place that isn't accustomed to hurricanes. It feels as if I'm in some sort of an echo chamber, where the weather's tendencies are amplified, to the point where every whistle and whimper of the air is a cacophonous scream. It's not so much that each piece of weather on it's own is surprisingly jarring, it's that the build up around the entire weather system makes each drop of rain and gust of wind feel like the harbinger of a great whirling weather system; a consuming goliath slowly marching it's way up the coast line, taking note of the areas to our immediate south, but only as casual acquaintances on the way to it's ultimate destination: right here.

That's right. This storm has come to knock loose a branch upon the hood of my car while I drive briskly to safety on a country road and leave me paralyzed or dead. Of course this isn't what's going to happen. Nor is it the reality I live with in the moments leading up to this storm, but the pulse of the world around me is something to this effect. I can't say the storm won't do damage. Quite the contrary, I can say it's already done damage. Whatever fear and worry and foreshadowed notions of the storm to come, of subways flooding (causing rats to swarm the streets), of trees being plucked out of the moist soil like rotting weeds, of cars being blown off the grown like windswept umbrellas, is probably doing more damage to our nerves than the storm will to any of the surrounding area. I wish I was being facetious with my accounts of what people presume the oncoming storm to impend, but all of these things have been voiced to me by the people around me. Now certainly I don't know what's going to happen, and taking precautions seems like a good idea, but the air… there is something to the air before this storm, which feels like I am not watching the coming of a level 1 hurricane, but rather there is a tingling vibration like the nuclear pulse of an ever uncertain cold war.

Oh and updates on the show, new pictures of the latest kickstarter projects, a video, some t-shirt designs, stickers, postcards, and a glimpse into the next (massive) project I plan on undertaking, all coming very very soon. (seriously).

The Human Particle

2011-08-15T14:41:00.000-04:00

[Disclaimer: It is generally frowned upon to take the ideas of quantum physics and mathematics and use them philosophically. So instead I'm trying to work my way backwards and take standard philosophical concepts such as the self and ideas and thoughts and interpret them through quantum physics and mathematics.]

What if, hypothetically speaking, we are like the particles of quantum mechanics. We are corpuscular (that is to say, we are particles), which is easily stated, because we are single objects. Mathematically speaking we are topologically equivalent to a sphere or any other object of genus 0 (one could argue that our orifices would make us more akin to a torus or double torus, but this argument is fairly immaterial). But we don't need mathematics to see our particulate nature, we can do a much simpler exercise, we can zoom out. We can zoom out far enough that we still see people, but we see them as tiny little specs, dots, moving around chaotically like some confused liquid. So the idea that humanity is corpuscular is not extremely hard to wrap your brain around, it may be somewhat abstract but it's fairly easy to grasp. Now in order for me to make my supposition that we are like the particles of quantum mechanics, that is to say both wave and particle, I must now elucidate how we are like the wave.

The conscious mind is a very mysterious entity, the subject of thousands of years of debate, and I certainly don't attest to have solved any of those mysteries. But I would say that what arises from consciousness and the human mind are some very wave like qualities. For one thing, the activity of the mind is an ever fluctuating thing, a series of ons and offs, of peaks and crests. We have moments of inspiration, during which many areas of our mind our light up with neural (electrical) activity, and we have periods of sleep (specifically stage 3 and 4) during which our mind is quiet and restful. But this analogy to the wave form is fairly weak, for it is more of a two dimension comparison than it is an actual mapping. What I would like to attempt, is to successfully transpose the concept of a wave on to the concept of humanity (or vice versa) and even on to the individual person. First let's think about waves for a moment. Imagine the surface of the earth to be one single tranquil sheet of water. Just a perfect blue sphere floating in space, held together by gravity, and for the moment it is completely calm, not a single ripple on its surface. Now imagine a massive meteor crashes into the sphere and disrupts its perfect surface. We watch as a huge wave will form, emanating from that focal point of the meteor crash, growing in size as it heads towards it's peak. The wave is so massive that the ripple goes around the entirety of the earth until it meets itself on the other side of the planet, crashing with tremendous force and sending smaller waves that crest and crash and strike each other and send out more smaller waves. So we see from the initial impact, the entire system is now in a state of flux and activity, and the whole of the surface is disrupted with waves and ripples and motion, all of them rising and falling, cresting and crashing. This is the action of a wave in three dimensional spherical geometry. Now something similar to this is happening every day but the medium I'm speaking of is not simple water molecules, comprised of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom, rather it is a drastically more complex molecule which interacts in drastically more complex ways: The Human Molecule. The wave form is the idea; a development of the conscious mind. And the medium through which it travels is sight and sound (waves), and it is received by other human molecules, where it picks up steam and it grows and it crests and it crashes, and again subsequent ripples are formed. But this time there is a new dimension, the axis of time is added for the ideas exist not just in the present moment, but they linger on as wave cresting through our linear progression of time, rising and falling with the trends of humanity in what could conceptually be called an infinite number of times. Like a religion, or an economy, or a song or a social movement: like war and peace, like love and hate, they are dips and troughs on a wave rippling through the liquid surface of humanity.

And so at the same time as we are walking physical objects we are also ideas and waves which ripple through humanity: such is my conception of the dual wave-particle nature of man.

Hello again.

2011-08-11T19:23:00.000-04:00

So I've been an absentee blogger for quite some time now, I've had a strange couple months, to say the least. To put it simply I liked this girl and things didn't work out. You know how that goes. Anyway, as is common of that situation I've been at low ebb, and so blogging goes by the way side. But this is no time to be at low ebb! I have 148 kickstarter orders (thank you all!) to fulfill, a garden full of cherry tomatoes and I've joined my first ever soccer league, though my team always loses... So yeah! I will be updating the website in the next few days, adding a whole bunch of writings, possibly streamlining the site a bit (if you guys have any suggestions, I'm welcome to them). I also have some announcements! The world has continued to turn ceaselessly (that's not the announcement) and things are certainly happening, certainly. The kickstarter project, as I've already mentioned, demands 148 sculptures (ranging from 3 to 10 inches), which I will be building over the course of the next two months, and when I'm finished there will be an epic show (if I may say so myself). The exact date and location of the show will be announced at the beginning of next week (it'll probably be somewhere around mid October). Also new apparel coming soon! And stickers! And I while I'm at it I could use some help. So I'm planning a camp out at the end of this month, and you're all invited, so if you want to escape the urban jungle and get your hands dirty, you may be in luck.

More soon. Here's some food for thought.

Current Kickstarter!

2011-06-27T09:53:00.000-04:00

So at this point there are 17 days remaining for my kickstarter project and so far I've got around 30 orders. My goal is to hit 80! So I need to up my efforts. I need the help of all my friends and family in order to get this project moving. This project is not specifically about each sculpture (though each piece is integral to the whole), but rather about the accumulation of all the sculptures into one giant mass of figures, humans and monsters, interacting with each other. A swirling microcosm of the madness of humanity. So please (and I must apologize for I hate agonizing over solicitation, but it is a necessary evil sometimes) every bit of help counts, even if it's only a 1 dollar backing or you just post this on your facebook wall, whatever you can do is greatly valued. Thanks again.

Kickstarter update/rant.

2011-06-16T13:19:00.000-04:00

The Kickstarter Project

Okay so the project is now 12 days in, with over 1600 dollars towards the goal raised. But now I need to step it up. With only 28 days left to complete the goal of 8000 I will need everyones help. At this point many people may be wondering why such a high number. Well granted the undertaking of making the 80 some odd pieces will be staggering and ridiculous. But that is really the point. I'm tired of art not being staggering and ridiculous. In fact that's what truly irks me about art in this day and age. I was flipping through Art in America today, and every other page was some sparse soulless work ( for more examples of sparse and soulless see Richard Sera's retrospective at The Met), and it's really tiring and a little upsetting (although it's not nearly as upsetting as this or this but I'll save that angst for another day). So my goal here is not to just make something vapid and simple and easy. But to sweat and toil and work my ass off and make something truly and utterly incredible. That is why I want to create 80 or more little figures, all interacting and doing crazy things. So that when you enter the space which I have created for these characters, you are truly blown away, the detail will draw you in and on top of that you, the audience, are helping me create the project itself. I will post a new video of me making one of these sculptures. Also new options are available such as pets, family packages, one person requested they be riding on a giraffe. So even if you can't buy a sculpture, just the general support and letting people know will be a great help to make this project a success. I appreciate it.

Keep on Kickin

Toys Are Us. The video

2011-06-03T19:59:00.000-04:00

The kickstarter project will be up and running by the end of the weekend.

Toys Are Us. A sneak preview.

2011-06-02T22:51:00.000-04:00

So I was hoping to have the video done today, but I still have a few kinks to work out so I'm putting it off until tomorrow. But the first installment of the Toys Are Us project was completed today. The sculpture (which I've dubbed "GET TO THE CHOPPA!") is of my good friend Adam Soffer. He didn't care whether the sculpture was a human or a monster, so I decided to make it a little bit of both. So here's a sneak preview...

Moving the project forward.

2011-05-31T18:02:00.000-04:00

Okay! In light of the fact that 5 people liked the idea on facebook and it's so far garnered one comment here on this illustrious blog, I've decided to commence with the program! So I will be offering multiple options ranging from 120 dollars down to 20 dollars. All options come with the choice of Human or Monster. For the 120 dollar option you get a sculpture of yourself with a prop (i.e. a chair, a book, a guitar, a machete, whatever). For 100 dollars you get a sculpture of yourself without props. For 60 dollars you get a half sized version (3-5 inches) . And for 20 bucks I will offer a little human or monster, you decide, based on your pose. Also the first person who sends me his picture in their desired pose will get their sculpture for free and I will use that sculpture as the launch video for the project (but only send me a picture if you're committed). The 50th and the 100th sculptures will also be free.

Toys Are Us

2011-05-30T15:58:00.000-04:00

So I'm bout to set up a kickstarter project and before I do I want to know how many people are actually interested. So here's my plan:

I want to create a small population of miniature metal people, based on pictures sent to me by You.

In other words I want people to send me pictures of themselves in various poses (serious or silly, with or without props) and I will recreate them as a small (8-10 inch) sculpture. You will have the option to choose either a relative-likeness (perfect portraiture would not be possible on this scale in welded in steel) or monster-ization of the picture. Each sculpture will be around 100-200 dollars (I haven't figured everything out yet exactly). I want this to be massive, so that each little sculpture can interact with the other ones, which means I'll need to make somewhere around 100 sculptures for this to work. The whole project will culminate in a weekend long event on my property where people are invited to camp out and spend some time in the rural upstate-NY. Lemme' know what you guys think and I'll move the project forward accordingly.

Art: a three sided coin

2011-05-15T00:17:00.000-04:00

Artistry, like a coin, is three sided. There are the two faces that everyone is very aware of, and then there is the edge, which is a side in and of itself. The front face of the coin is the image of the successful artist; the lavish character who shows in manhattan galleries and is bid on by wealthy collectors. The back side of the coin is the craftsman, who still falls into the realm of art, but makes products of a salable nature. The edge of the coin is the art, the passion.

The front side: When people first think about art they think about the four living artists who's names they know and the 50-some-odd dead ones who are etched into history. Living artists that have reached the tips of the public tongue are Banksy, Jeff Koons, Damien Hurst and.... Richard Sera (?)... and out of those most people probably just know Banksy (and everyone knows the dead guys). But when people think of art, there is a glamour, a shirking of societal norms, a panache, something intangible. This is the face of art. What this group actually represents, however, are not really artists, but very smart business men. This image represents the top .01 percentile (a microcosm of the american dream).

The Back Side: If you're an artist and you care to survive in society and you don't belong to that .01 percentile (or happen to be in possession of an incredible fortune), you probably belong to this category. You make salable items that can be bought or sold for a moderately sized audience. You make a modest living, selling a particular product, and doing fairly monotonous work, while occasionally doing what you love to do on the side. Often the product which sustains you in this realm overtakes the joy and it simply becomes a job, and the idea of doing the work we enjoy (after we spent all day doing the work we don't enjoy) is just too daunting to consider. And to the same effect there is also the artist who works at the whims of his client. His or her personal vision is merely an additive spice to the sauce the of the customers directives. Subjugation to the passenger seat. Not pleasant. But it pays the bills.

The Edge: Ah to reside on the edge. What a precipice it truly is. Those names you know, of the long since dead, have all certainly ridden this edge (go watch Lust for Life or Rembrandt and you'll see what I mean). To be on the edge is to be guided by our passions, to ignore the customer and ignore the world and it's demands. To exist for the art for the sake of the art. Of course the potential to turn the corner exists; to go from nothing to being on top of the world... but that isn't the focus. The focus is the art itself and furthering the field of creative expression. It is to realize that you are part of something much greater than yourself and to strive to make progress in that realm. It is to show that art is not just here to become wallpaper, but that humanity benefits from it, that what we represent in our art is a powerful representation of what we are as a society, and the better the art, the better we can represent that. That is the edge.

Re:Thinker

2011-04-29T20:11:00.000-04:00

So what if I don't write all that much in this post....

2011-04-17T22:08:00.001-04:00

Blogging: The Non-Addiction

2011-04-05T12:23:00.000-04:00

Fuck. I do this way to often. I say I'm going to start blogging again and then I go two months without a post.... It's ludicrous. It's like the guy who says he's gonna start working out and he goes hard for the first five days and then is done for the next 6 months. I gotta stop doing that. I gotta hit the gym hard (where gym refers to blogspot.com). It seems I've amassed a huge following (all 6 of you), who occasionally tell me they've read my blog and are keeping track. So I mustn't leave everyone in the lurch all the time, because certainly things are going on. But the very idea of a blog s always so conflicting to me. You see I want to say some very interesting stuff, but then I worry, will some family member be reading this who will be offended, or is it too strange to expose certainty quirks and qualities to people I don't know all that well... isn't that stuff better saved for the intimacy of human contact? Well the answer is yes and no. Yes, there are certainly things that don't belong on blog posts, but I should probably be a little more open.

So let me begin by explaining some new happenings in my life... One reason that I haven't been blogging often is that I'm writing a lot these days (counterintuitive isn't it), I find if I am writing so much, it becomes hard to split up my writing time between so many different things and I need to focus on the task at hand. The particular task which has been nagging at me is writing a speech. I was accepted to speak at the TEDxFlushingmeadows event (april 22nd), this speech has really been consuming much of my focus for a long time, I've been writing it, and editing it, discarding it and rewriting it, sending it out having it critiqued, rewriting it, trying to fine tune it so that it's just right, it's an ongoing process... also I've never spoken in public before... so aside from the speech itself I'm quite nervous about delivering it. But it's no excuse for not blogging.

What else is up you ask... well when I got home, the conditions were less than ideal for living and working, so I took care of a few odds and ends, and packed off to florida for about a month, where I built a Bobcat for a customer who lives down there (as well as a bunch of other stuff too, like a piece about how difficult math can be.)

And, to reference my parenthetical statement above, that is another thing which is truly occupying my time: Math! (By golly!) It really has been quite consuming lately. Not to say I have a knack for it, because I certainly don't, grasping ideas is quite a struggle, especially when I'm trying to relearn everything from algebra on up, so it's quite a venture... but I just finished reading Godel, Escher, Bach by Douglas Hofstadter, and I must say I haven't been as entranced by a book in ages. They way it combines self referential material, with comical dialogues, mathematical statements, zen buddhism, physics, logic, the human mind, computer programming, number theory, macro-biology, music, and art, all in one seamless.. to use the author's own words.. "Endlessly rising canon"... it was truly a wonderful experience (which took me over two months). So now I'm excited to move on to the next scientific journey.. And on to gardening... and a seriously busy season of work... and soccer... and building some new structures on my property.... and keeping You (whomever you are), posted... whew.

Here's some pictures of stuff you probably haven't seen before:

Rusty the Goat and Friends. A pictographic adventure!

2011-02-17T08:14:00.000-05:00

Easy Come, Easy Goat

2011-02-14T17:36:00.000-05:00

So over the last several weeks I have spent my time laboring over an eight and half foot tall Humanoid-Goat sculpture, aptly named Rusty (name courtesy of Adi). The last week I was rushed to finish the sculpture before packin' up and heading off so I had to work long hours and do some serious improvisation with my slim pick of rusty (and very difficult to weld) scrap. Nonetheless I managed to finish the piece in time and we had a nice little party to celebrate it's completion and my departure.

My time at Keyma Farms was nothing short of wonderful. Here's a quick photo log of some of the stuff I made there and some of the people I met.

A bench made by my father and I

The Laughing Tomatoe

Rusty the Goat

Bunchoo, the most incredibly skilled and talented man I have ever met in my life, and I.

Better shots of Rusty coming soon.

About Time

2011-01-27T00:43:00.000-05:00

Well aside from a brief rundown of a events and a small musing on the nature of the Israeli Coffee habit, there really hasn't been too much information on what my experience here is like. So I will dedicate this post to some more introspective notions on my time here and what it's all about.

Israel is an interesting place. The city areas are as jam-packed... are more jam-packed, than any place I've ever been. Driving is like an extreme sport, coffee is the life the blood, and if you walk into a gas station with 200 dollars in your pocket you're lucky to leave with 10 shekels. It's also imbued with the feeling of conflict, you know something is astir around you. That these people are one side and these are on another and everyone has a different perspective as to why exactly. Kids (18-22 ish) walk around with powerful hi-tech weaponry (m16's being the weapon of choice) at all times and it's very common and casual. But that is not the life I'm living.

Where I am it is a whole different world. Only an hour or two south is the rural farming area where I have planted myself. The days start early but move quickly. Time has taken on that liquid quality where everything moves by faster than you would like. Where the events of the day pass by before you can take into account all that happened, and you find yourself hoping for an extra couple hours to squeeze in. The diet is almost entirely vegetable, for lunch it's usually a salad, a stir fry, and another type of stir fry, and maybe Thai sticky-rice, but it's still great. The vegetables are fresh and delicious and ever-present (yellow peppers are the new apple). Some days are spent working harder at preparing and consuming meals than much else, although that is rapidly changing. The development of my small outdoor shop is a cause for me to try and get in some serious work hours so that I make the most of my small window of time, and leave behind me a decent footprint of work.

Is reality

2011-01-22T08:31:00.000-05:00

So I didn't know what exactly I was getting into with this trip, I just figured after so many years I'm due to visit Israel (and my father had the same sentiments, only more so). Upon our arrival we rented a car, visited my mother (who happens to live in Israel), visited my aunt and some cousins, had a wonderful time with them, and then we proceeded on a little quest. We set out to find a way to make sculpture and (in my case) learn a little bit about agriculture. We went to the north to a beautiful Kibbutz and stayed a couple nights; we were treated to incredible meals and wonderful hospitality. Due to some complex litigations and insurance policies, we weren't able to stay there. So we journeyed down south to see some other places.. Anyway, through a little research and the help of a friends WWOOF account password I was able to pinpoint a nice little farm in the south of Israel that grew tomatoes and had goats and stuff like that. So I called them up, told them I was a welder, told them I was about an hour away, and they, in turn, told me how to get there.

The place is called Keyma farms and it's really a very wonderful and laid back environment. They accept volunteers through the WWOOFing website, who they employ to pick tomatoes and rake leaves and such. Now my situation is a little different than the average volunteer. You see instead of doing stuff in the greenhouse, I have been given the job, alongside my father, of.. well... making sculpture. Over the last couple days we have built a small metal shop in the area where they family usually parks their cars. We've gotten scrap and a welding machine, a torch, grinders, the whole shebang. So I'll be making some sculptures for the farm, fixing farm equipment, and teaching people how to weld during my stay here. I also have taken to a game called Taco, which is played by the migrant Thai farmers, that is essentially playing volleyball with your feet (and head) over a badminton net (on a basketball court). Anyway there is much more to tell, but I'll leave it at that and tell more later.

Oh and here's some pictures.

This guy is weed-wacking the desert.....

Caffei-Nation

2011-01-19T05:15:00.000-05:00

(The first brief update on my journey)

Israel: the land of Milk and Honey…. I feel the need to rephrase that, to modernize that saying, lets call it…. the land of Sand of Coffee. I find that every nation has it's drug of choice, the Irish like to drink, the Scottish like to drink, the Russians like to drink, people in the Netherlands smoke pot, people at Phish concerts like LSD, the Israeli's drink coffee. Now sure, people everywhere like to wake up and have a cup of coffee, maybe two, maybe three! But in israel it's different. There is a steady diet of Coffee interspersed with the occasional meal. At the sides of highways you see small shacks that sell nothing but coffee, the bars are Bar/Restaurants/Coffee, during lunch it's coffee, after dinner it's coffee. When you decline coffee you are an unfamiliar entity. And it's extra strong coffee no less! Now let's assess the implications of these drugs of choice, in northern california where the drug of choice is Marijuana we find a laid back mentality, a sort of carefree laissez-faire attitude, in Ireland it's drink and sing and fight, at Grateful Dead Reunion tours we see tye-dye and bead-making, in israel you have aggressive salesmanship and tailgating.

(More to come soon)

Before and After

2011-01-10T16:22:00.000-05:00

So I am about to embark on an extended journey to Israel (surprise!) and hopefully I will be diligent enough to get in some nice Mediterranean posts up on this blog. Until than I will bid adieu' with a little before an after. A farewell to the winter wonderland and an homage to the life it teemed with beforehand.

Of Physics and Florida

2010-12-27T23:02:00.000-05:00

I started my trip out lost in the middle of Miami Beach far away from where I needed to be. Where I needed to be was in Miami proper (where I arrived an hour earlier and took a bus away from), but I was able to route myself and meet up with my friend Yibai at his amazing display in at the Mike Weiss booth at Art Basel. I was going to stay at a hostel but Yibai offered me a couch at the Fountainbleu and so I was invited in to a circumstance of unexpected luxury (quite a nice deal). Yibai busied himself with meetings and deliveries and various orders of business while I took it easy and watched youtube videos of Richard Feynman while sitting in a bubble bath. Now before I continue my story about florida let me talk about Mr. Feynman, who sparked a whole new and interesting chapter of my life (the physics one). Richard Feynman is a physicist from brooklyn who has an incredible talent with relating the complex ideas of science into layman terms. So I went out and read a couple of his books which were not scientific, just him reminiscing about events in his life, and often they would touch upon the scientific. And the more I read the more interested I became. So I went out and got a book of his science lectures, and I devoured it! So I went out and got the next on, but after only a single chapter I found that the mathematics were too complicated for me to grasp... so I've since hit the books and have been studying math voraciously in hopes to get to a level where feynman's basic physics lectures are not too complicated.

Anyway, back to Miami: So at night my friend who happened to live in Miami would take me out to clubs and get me into VIP areas where expensive alcohol was poured freely. A very interesting experience, mind you. You see I did not know what to expect coming in to this whole trip, and what I was introduced to was stranger yet. After weaving through a dimly lit and densely packed club, I am taken to a private table with seven to eight guys sitting around, most of them are exhausted from repeatedly going out and drinking the previous nights, each ogling the closest and most attractive girl. And everywhere I turned there was an extremely attractive girl, it was as if they only let attractive people in, which, as my friend informed me moments later, was actually the truth. Okay thats nothing special to Miami, that's all over the world. Indeed. But this sort of event would become synonymous with my time spent in Miami, and each place I would see the same faces repeatedly, all of them regularly staying out at these clubs until 3 or 4 AM. It was a strange strange place, and (sadly) I cannot make claims that I was above the pale, despite my sitting around and attempting to objectively observe the situation. There is something about these club scenes where it seems to absorb you into this process of de-evolution, where the primal urges of mankind become the sort of common language and actual verbal interaction is completely superfluous. It's like our way of maintaining the animal instincts which got us to this stage of evolution; it's as if Miami is a great petri dish where survival of the fittest is applied to aesthetics.

I might make a very large sculpture incorporating some of the strangeness of this experience, more on that in the months to come.

As for the rest of my florida trip, it was spent relaxing at my grandparents house, watching more videos about physics and science, as well as reading some Richard Dawkins and watching atheism debates (blasphemy!).

Physics.

2010-12-13T22:41:00.000-05:00

"Imagine spending seven years at MIT and research laboratories, only to find out you're a performance artist" said Golan Levit as he introduced his 2004 TED talk .

So now: Imagine spending 23 years of your life dedicated solely and only to being an artist, only to find out that you want to be a physicist.

(Don't worry I'm still gonna keep making sculpture, I just need to figure out how to combine the two.)

Anyway, I have been enjoying relaxing in florida immensely and will give good account of as many of the interesting things I can reasonably fit into one blog entry as possible.

Business Card and a Basel Expedition*.

2010-11-30T15:27:00.000-05:00

In order to escape the cold, visit my grandparents, and catch up on current trends in the art world, I'm heading to Florida. I will be catching the tail end of Art Basel and spending a few days in Miami, hopefully meeting with my friend and esteemed sculptor Liao Ybai, as well as a good friend from college.

One issue that I had to address before making this trip was that I have finally finished the massive supply of business cards I printed out some two or three years ago. The last batch of cards was a standard black card with white text, and quite frankly I've grown tired of it, so I decided to do something a bit different. I actually fabricated all the different elements of the business card and placed them on sheet of steel ten times the size of an actual business card, I then had my photographer friend (and talented welding student) Mike Bloom come over and capture the whole thing on his high powered camera. And Voila!

*I wonder if anyone caught that Austin Powers reference.

The Engine Room.

2010-11-27T19:07:00.000-05:00

Despite my complaints about the rough dues paid in the art world it doesn't mean I'm left unequipped to deal with said burdens of the real world. We all succumb to the stresses and pressures of reality here and there, but what keeps us in the race is the ability to dust ourselves off and keep going. Keep on keepin' on. So I've been doing some small commissions and practicing my portraiture sculpting, a realm of work which truly hones my skills. I've also take to studying the literature of brilliant physicist Richard Feynman and thus sparked a new found interest in all things physics (not mention trying to learn the math involved!). It keeps me busy.

I know, I know, it's been a while.

2010-11-27T00:49:00.000-05:00

Well let me start by apologizing for the month and a half of downtime. It's these transitional months which truly pry at the tethers of being an artist. It's when sales are slow and bills come fast. It's when we look to our friends slaving away soulessly at a day to day job (some do it soulfully), and it seems so glorious and stress free.

So I have been less productive than my usual output rate, maybe I had a little artistic block, maybe I just didn't want to transition into working in the cold in my unheated shop. In any event I neglected this blog. And I constantly make promises to rigorously update it and post here all the time and yadda yadda yadda, and then I go and ignore it for a month and half. So I'll make no promises. But because it's been so long I'll make this a very well rounded entry, I'll post some pictures, rant a little, talk about art, the state of the union, the Why.

....

Lets start with the state of the union. The artworld is much larger entity than I am, and as much as we artists think we are entrenched in it, we are all (except maybe Damien Hirst) objective observers, watching the circus go on without us, and it's usually the dead guys that win big. But we living artists are merely allowed our small window of access into the artworld, we see it only from our own perspective, the struggles and the bounty, the dips and the dives, and we paint the landscape of our perceived artworld as it pertains only to ourselves. Of course we can follow economic trends and observe industrial averages of art prices and things like that, but we're artists, so we generally don't. But we can take into consideration the ruminations of our colleagues and that helps us paint the picture of our current artworld, if it concurs with ours it just proves our point, and if it's drastically different well that just proves the chaotic nature of the beast. For the most part the artist life is a struggle, so we generally twitch unhappily at the mention of our spectral "artworld" mistress. But then... what is the artworld? I mean I explained it as a very personal thing, but that doesn't mean anything to someone who isn't an artist... so let me (try to) explain a little. My artworld is a series of attempts at selling art (a bold statement, I know). I make sculpture as much as a can, because that is what I do, and when I'm not making it I'm trying to devise ways of selling it. This often places me in the position of a hustler, hawking his goods on an unwilling mark. But I don't like selling myself, it just doesn't seem right, I end up feeling like a pariah (not to mention one must maintain the cool air that the sale is completely superfluous, so as to give the potential client the vibe that you are an artist for arts sake). Not my thing. So I put my work out there, I make it available for people to see as best I can, and I hope people come to me. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't (it works better when NY is warm). Of course one will say, why don't you get gallery representation? Well the gallery is a dying breed, struggling to sustain itself, and unless you're in the most renowned of galleries, you're likely not to sell much; and if you do sell, the owner gets 50% of the profits and 75% of your soul. No bueno. So sell on the internet you say! Hah! Don't get me started on that one!

So this brings me to Why. Why go through the rigors of a process that is not only labor intensive physically, but also mentally and emotionally. Well I never felt there was a day where I made the conscious decision to be an artist. I was born, and I made little sketches, and I fooled around in my dads shop, and it was just part of life. Now that has grown to be a part of me, and if I go too long without it I seem to lose my equilibrium. So maybe it's an opiate of sorts or maybe it's just all know.... Maybe I do it because I feel like I have something to say that cannot be articulated in words and, because I am possessing a skill which I honed over the course of my whole life, I am now capable of making that known in a much more direct way. Like transmitting a thought. But I don't want to get carried away in heady notions, this isn't an artist statement to placed pompously next to a glossy resume near at the entrance to a white-washed show. I do it because

Dominic Frances

2010-10-16T17:07:00.000-04:00

This World War 2 vet and skilled carpenter took me over a month of mind wrenching work, including around 100 hours of physical labor. Dominic Francis is currently 90 years.

Sculpture photography by MichaelBloomPhoto.com

Sir Dominic's Preview

2010-10-06T20:20:00.000-04:00

Well sir is not actually appropriate, but it's better than saint. I've been working on a portrait of Dominic Francis for nearly a month now (it's starting to wear away at me) and I've finally come to the home stretch. With only about two to three more days worth of work here is a sneak preview of Dominic Francis (who is currently 90 years old).

Art Market Conundrums

2010-09-20T19:23:00.000-04:00

I am not writing this blog because I'm fiscally hurting, in fact I may be doing better than ever, rather I am writing this because there is a trend which irks me greatly in the vast overarching Art World. You see these days it seems artists fall into one of two categories, post collegiate brooklynites or elite highbrow conceptualists. Of course there are plenty of exceptions, but those are always key in proving a rule.

The post college art students living crammed into small brooklyn lofts working meager jobs as waiters or movers or selling shoes, whatever. They are working hard to survive so that they may pursue something they truly love, a noble venture, one which I embark upon from my own direction, and salute those who sail these stormy seas parallel to my own voyage (did I jump too quickly into that metaphor?). However the second group, the high-art cognoscenti (as Juxtapoz Magazine founder Robert Williams would call them) are playing a very different game. The art being produced at the Chelsea-gallery level is generally so devoid of craft and so interwoven with complex symbolism and meaning and metaphors and conceptualism that the lay person finds it to be almost a mockery (and I will reiterate that many exceptions exist). It seems that the only people who understand the complexities of this post-modern art, are the ultra sophisticated and highly pretentious art critics . These critics, as well as the gallery owners themselves, directly inform the very aged community of art collectors as to which artist they should be buying. So essentially, art is being broken.

Craft is so downplayed that they try and train it out of us in school ( I know, I went to one), consist with drivel you see being produced at the highest level in our current backwards Art World ( I like that, the Backwards Art World, it has a nice ring to it). It used to be the best artist was the best craftsman. He was held as nobility and spoke to kings and popes on an intimate basis. And he didn't just stumble upon his position, it wasn't some windfall because his uncle wrote a column for Art in America, he went through a rigorous training process, apprenticed for many years until he finally could break out on his own and show how talented he (it was fairly male dominated back in the day) was, and then he could make his mark. Now its almost a stigma to try and break out as an artist. It's as if the positions are stagnant, and though the younger generations is teeming with talent, for the most part it goes unnoticed. I think the only way that art markets will be fixed is some grand global collective eye-opening...

Dripping Shirt

2010-09-13T18:05:00.000-04:00

Support the arts: buy a shirt.

20 bucks, limited availability.

If you want one, e-mail me. zac@zacmax.com

Coat Rack.

2010-09-08T20:51:00.000-04:00

Well I've got some computer troubles, so photoshopping isn't in the cards at this exact moment (so the photos are a little sub-par), hopefully digital photo-editing will be back soon. Until then enjoy not knowing the difference.

Stay tuned for a few interesting things which I may eventually have to say and , most importantly, new T-shirts!

A Beautiful Bitter Pill

2010-08-31T20:58:00.000-04:00

The world is currently riddled with problems, where exactly they stem from I can't say for sure. Some have posited that they are results of the industrial revolution, some say the technological revolution is to blame, some say the revolution of capitalism, maybe it was just all the revolutions combined, maybe it's because there wasn't enough revolution... whatever it is: the World's got issues. Though I am not alone in my thinking this way, mine has been a very low-profile sentiment. Maybe everyone feels it to some extent but only a rare few want to whole-heartedly admit to the facts; for the most part the blind eye is faithfully turned, ignorance is bliss and all that. But the only way to start affecting change is to be open to it, you can't change something which you are pretending does not exist. Step one of any Anonymous step-based program is always admitting to the problem. Well humanity it's time some eyes start opening, it's time for step one on the proverbial 12-step. You see maybe I have the "answer" or, more likely, maybe you have the answer, the only problem is: not enough people are listening. However, a wonderful thing is starting to happen, a new trend is forming, slowly but surely: Awareness is getting popular. It's developing a following, groups are forming, like-minded people are getting together and saying "lets expose some problems!" The real wonderful thing about the internet and this trend is that, not only are they doing it in a well researched and eloquent way, but they are also making it really interesting and enjoyable to watch. The people behind RSA Animate are doing some fantastic things and though no real solutions or answers are being posed (nor do I think the timing is right for that) but truths are being unveiled through online speeches in a slow-drip fashion which is gradually building up to a potentially water-fall like pressure in it's exposition of well... "where we've gone wrong".

Though this video is not the best the site has to offer it does give a nice baseline and explains what the goal of this little think-tank currently is, so check it out: 21st Century Enlightenment

or check out all the brilliant thoughtful RSA Animate short lecture series.

And if you haven't already been exposed to TED Talks, well add that to your agenda:

I only have one real problem when I watch these videos:

the fact that they don't have 100 million views, that they aren't the most viral thing on the web!

So go! Spread the word, tell your friends! Awareness is that new shit, get on it!

Trophies and more.

2010-08-25T09:45:00.000-04:00

So, I had a very busy yesterday: creating four trophies for the 2010 Skylands Classic Disc Golf Tournament. I usually spend about a day per trophy like this, but for a very special client, with a very tight deadline, I was able to bust out all four in one day.

Included in the shots below is a nice working shot with some cool stuff lying around on the table, the completed trophies, as well as a picture of the Dressage Horse I did at the end of 2007 which took all of my ability at the time and was made over the course of two weeks (and to think, if that took me more than 5 days now I'd be ashamed!)

Also: Igby.

Enraptured by Spiders

2010-08-18T22:44:00.000-04:00

I've recently been reading a book called Life of the Spider by John Crompton and it's really quite an enthralling read. You see we look down upon these tiny creatures in our oh-so-human way, but really they are cunning and capable beyond anything we can imagine. The author has a whimsical (albeit old-school misogynistic) tone which is quite funny and delightful. The most truly amazing thing about this book (spiders aside) is the amount of time and energy that went into making it. You see in our current day and age we are so hyper-connected that all research has already been done for us, and the multitude of experiments that are going on are going on in thousands of places simultaneously and have all been done before, new ground is seldom tread. However, when this book was written (1950) there was still so much to learn from hands on research. So what do you have: a small community of dudes who love to sit around look at spiders in jars for hours on end. In one particularly case the author sites another author who had his son stay up all night watching one particular spider to finally figure out its late-night eating habits. Thats what makes the book so interesting, it's intrinsically tied to a world which barely exists anymore. A world which necessitated hands-on experimentation, where people as individuals still made meaningful discoveries and contributions.

Besides the interesting dichotomy that one can draw between that era and our present times, the spiders themselves prove to be inspiring beyond all measure. The things they do to survive and procreate are simply astounding. One character in particular who I was fond of was the Tube spider who burrows into the ground and lives inside a small tunnel which he covers over. The end of the tunnel protrudes above the ground and is a cause for much curiosity amongst other local insects and when they start to snoop around he bursts out of the ground, snatches the insect, and runs back inside to feast. Thats it, thats pretty much the entire life of this spider, sitting in wait at the bottom of a quarter inch wide tube. And to think, he doesn't even have a cellphone down there.

Igby! Go down!

2010-08-13T09:49:00.000-04:00

So I had my little festival not too long ago now, and with that festival came the arrival of my very rambunctious new companion, Igby. You see we (my father and I) had not intended upon getting this dog, he merely happened to us. What was the following: I was outside in the courtyard where my festival was held, cleaning up beer cans and husks of corn when my dad yells to me from the window that "Something just ran through your garden.... I think it was a dog!" So I run out of the courtyard to the vast expanse of field directly behind it. Lo and behold, I see something black and white and extremely doglike careening through my fields, so I start running myself. After I ran about half the length of the field (maybe 200 yards) I was able to glimpse the dog again, at the farthest reaches of my property, about to enter into the dense forestland. So I start clapping and calling and much to my surprise he responds! He comes running back in my direction and follows me back into the courtyard and proceeds to help me clean up by eating as many corn husks as he can handle. So I take him down towards the house, I give him a little food and a little water, but I had some friends who I was meeting for breakfast that morning, so we decide it's probably best if we just leave the dog and maybe he'll wander instinctively back in the proper direction (who knows...). After spending a good long time eating breakfast we return home without any expectation of seeing a dog on our property, and indeed he is not there, but not more than 20 minutes later he shows up at the front door and well, he's been ours ever since. Igby, named after the somber movie which sat on my shelf, had a collar but no tags when we found him. We tried to locate an owner, but to no avail. He's been somewhat well behaved with a tendency towards being really hyper, but I think thats largely due to the fact that he's just a puppy....

So yeah, I got dog.

Tread lightly, tread nicely.

2010-08-09T22:05:00.000-04:00

For now I proceed with caution as my fingers graze their desired keys... I've left this most wonderful template solitary for quite some time now and I almost fear as if entering into it once more I will find a woe begotten mistress or an old woman with a shotgun (or something equally terrifying)... But alas, it's just good old blank-slate-blog-entry format, and so to hit the ground running (and when I have due momentum I'll post some rather delectable rants) I'll upload some nice new photos of a nice new sculpture, a nice little mural I painted on the front of my house, and some nice old photos of the wonderful event which I had not too long ago (oh and the nice new dog whose backstory will be blogged about shortly)... So without further ado:

Nice new sculpture.

Nice new dog (Igby).

Nice new mural (Severe Thunderstorm Warning) .

Nice people.

Nice little setting for my nice little event.

Nice.

ODB as you can see (video)

2010-07-19T16:23:00.001-04:00

Maitre' Duo

2010-07-16T23:05:00.001-04:00

Here's some pix of my latest creation, a two headed chef (one of the pictures is set to a background of my blossoming Nasturtium flowers), and also me looking silly playing soccer.

The Flashburn Festival

2010-07-15T19:25:00.000-04:00

Come one, come all!

Also I've had some sweet press recently

Inclusion in issue number four of the online based Sodium Magazine

And this nice little interview at the New York Folk Arts Examiner

ODB is for the children (complete)

2010-07-08T21:37:00.000-04:00

Here's a nice array of photos of the newly completed ODB memorial sculpture. The head stands about two feet high and is made entirely of steel. The teeth are coated with brass and the hair has been blackened with a hot oil technique. The word "Wu Tang Clan is for the Children" followed by "RIP ODB" adorn the outer edge of the base and "1968 - 2004" is inscribed in weld on the bases surface. A video of the sculpture's production coming soon.

ODB is for the children

2010-07-07T10:28:00.001-04:00

First look at the new ODB sculpture: still not entirely-complete.

More pix coming soon.

ODB is for the children (sneak peak)

2010-07-02T00:20:00.000-04:00

Wheres (Ralph) Waldo (Emerson)

2010-06-25T16:39:00.000-04:00

You see there is something irksome about the current mindset of our populace (and do forgive me for constantly ranting about the current state of this fine world we live in, but, well, it's my blog), and that is the relative lack of a mindset. Or maybe more appropriately it is the zoned out narrow mindset which stops people from developing their own creative composite mindsets. I mean why don't we have any more Mozart's? Where are all the Einstein, the Tchaikovskys, the the Henry David Theraeus, the Emersons, the Shakespears. I mean where are the fuckin Beatles? What happened to individuals with powerful ideas making startling differences? What if Freud was born 30 years ago, and after finally making his way out of jail (likely for molesting a minor or cocaine possession) decided he would dedicate his life to something, but first he has to catch the first four seasons of Lost? Or what if modern day Michaelangelo was around, and could only fit stone carving in between episodes of Desperate Housewives? Granted we can rationalize that the resolve of these epic characters was such that they were able to ignore distraction and focus on their goals and aspirations... but they didn't have all that much else to do when you think about it. There was no glowing box which you could stare it inanimately for hours to suck up your personal productive time. Necessity is the mother of all invention, but what happened to necessity? All that time where people used to sit around with only the company of their thoughts and the potential of their hands is gone. We want for so very little and we're so very occupied that nothing actually happens anymore. (Harumph.)

And here we are again.

2010-06-21T00:57:00.000-04:00

I know I said I was gonna blog with increased regularly... and I didn't at all. I've been busy. But I'll give a quick visual update. So as a quick week in review: Most of my time has been taken up by a sculpture for Buona Fortuna Pizzeria in Monticello, NY (Cafe Victor).

Also a lot of soccer games, tending to the garden, trying to get more commissions, potentially hiring a marketing assistant/PR agent, working on a bust of ODB, gathering photos for a different portrait, fixing up/finishing bernie, NBA Finals, World cup, building a fence around the garden. Hence : less-than-usual contact with the outside world. But big Bernie is getting plenty of attention. Here's a roll of shots taken (over the course of an hour) by my dad sitting outside of Benji and Jake's in Bethel, N.Y.

My favorite was the guy with guitar who was singing a nice drunken version of John Prine's - Fish and Whistle.

State of the union: Oy vey.

2010-06-04T22:20:00.000-04:00

Bernie, my 10 foot sculpture, has somehow managed to continue to squeeze out my time. You see I thought I was pretty much finished on sunday when I installed him lakeside in Bethel, NY, but boy was I wrong. After an exhausting weekend I allowed myself one day of collapse and then a half day comprised of drilling holes in concrete and hammering metal rods down into said holes and then welding said rods to the base of aforementioned sculpture (thus firmly securing said sculpture [please forgive over indulgent past tense]). The following day was spent grinding, sanding, wire brushing and painting Bernie until my hands were discolored and had a strange painful itchy feeling (the results of excessive vibration). The next day (today) I spent making a sculpture to fit in his mouth (give him a little more pizazz), and lo and behold the sculpture is too big for his mouth and just looks silly! Not to mention there is still a full more day of painting! The gift that keeps on giving! But this weekend my motto is the following : Fuck Bernie, I'm going to the city.

A couple more of Bernie.

2010-06-01T18:44:00.000-04:00

Still not completely finished he needs to be wire brushed, get his tie painted, get a first layer of protective coating, weather for a couple weeks and then get coated again. A sculptors work is never done.

Big Bernie.

2010-05-31T15:01:00.000-04:00

Here's some pictures of the finally completed Bernie, standing in at 9' 10" tall and weighing an easy 850 lb.

Here's an earlier picture of Kenny and myself maneuvering the head into place (also note: the day before install he had no eyes, no hands, no feet and no neck.)

All finished up, Bernie lays down for a nice trip over to the Bethel where he was soon to be installed.

My excellently efficient work crew who helped lift and carry and transport this massive sculpture (from right to left: Michael Ponce, Brandon Huebsch, myself, Dan Green and Josh Green).

Here's a picture of Bernie being fawned by some local ladies.

And here he is in hall is glory:

An old poem

2010-05-27T09:08:00.000-04:00

Careful Complacency

Please place complacency carefully in the place adjacent to where your sub basement used to be.

Usually the used look that ensues civility in so serene in its own placidity that the dim witted seem geniuses who've been struck dumb accidentally.

I have a reason to believe that there's reason to leave,

the legion of lesions that you are yet to receive,

are seasoned in the easements of the next lines reprieve.

We're all so quick to deceive but you'd be quick to perceive

that through disbelief you'll quickly achieve

that very much needed sigh of relief

so long as you recite all the words that the righteous repeat

and yes, you maintain the right to retreat.

Just be aware;

that there are people out there, who will eat your soul like a treat

cause we're all sides of beef who've just recently learned how to speak,

and we've yet to outgrow that mammalian wont of eating the weak.

So to speak, so it goes

it's all part of show

that we star in for reasons god only knows

Gridlock

2010-05-21T15:18:00.000-04:00

So I've been, ostensibly, off the grid for about a week now. That turn of phrase however, doesn't hold the weight it used to. Way back in the day (1998?) when someone said they are going "off the grid" it generally meant they were leaving their house for an extended period of time, possibly to some remote-ish location, where the mere thought of connectivity with the outside world was a complete joke. Now it doesn't matter where you go; the entire united states is pretty close to one big wifi hot-spot; everyone has a cell phone; most people have cell phones that have the entire internet on them; everyone has a laptop that's wifi capable... so if your off the grid you have to be making a serious concerted effort. And if you're someone who has a blog, a twitter account, a facebook account, a digg feed, subscriptions to multiple RSS feeds, a Tumblr profile, etc, etc, (you get the idea) and all of a sudden you stop posting, or even slow down your posting pace, than you are making a bold statement about your distaste for the social medias as a whole; because we all know that it's probably easier to stay connected to all of these things than it is to escape them... even for a couple days. So when I said I was, ostensibly, off the grid, I meant more that I was only writing/checking on my blog/twitter/facebook one to three times per day.

I think the main issue for me is the fear that these social networks are each chipping away at our sense of reality. The more we immerse ourselves in them the easier it is to become dependent on them. The opiate of over-connectivity. We develop connections and create relationships which are based entirely on the exchange of digital typefaces viewed on liquid crystal displays. What happened to steadfast, three dimensional, reality?

....

Well despite the overarching hypocrisy I'll be posting with renewed vigor once again (including daily updates on the state of Mr. Glove).

Photo Shoot

2010-05-12T07:59:00.000-04:00

Man do I love messing around with Macro Lenses.

The work table.

2010-05-10T17:24:00.000-04:00

Here's a quick look of just some random old and new sculptures I have lying around on the shop table... It's a bit messy at the moment...

Glove and Death

2010-05-10T08:55:00.001-04:00

Oh that foolish and terrible "zac" (and do not deign that my lack of capitalization is an accident) thinks I am incapable of autonomous movement! I am capable of such and much more. Allow me, dear reader, to relate my harrowing tale and the sad state of affairs which has brought me mysteriously back to the place I started:

You see, dear reader, my fanciful journey began along the humble roadway known as Route 17 in the north western quadrant of southern New York (two hours north of Manhattan). I was being ferried carelessly from my home on "zac's" shop table to some sort of outing, some field work or what have you, I'm not really sure where we were going but I'd heard it involved bagels and large steel mailbox and I will say no more (the mere thought is unnerving). Whilst on this journey, sitting in the back of that horrid pickup truck I decided to make my daring escape. You see I noticed a large passenger van just behind us with Colorado plates and with that in my sights I caught a slip stream with just enough gust to carry me into the open side window of the van. From there I remained hidden inside the van until our arrival in Boulder Colorado.

While In Boulder Colorado I managed to spend a little time at UC Boulder, eventually meandering my way through the sea of litigations which buffer the admissions process and became a full matriculated student. During the time spent there I received my undergraduate in literature and quickly was invited to become an adjunct teacher for a semester. During which time I taught a class entitled "Life's a bitch and then you die" which actually focused on the pains of the afterlife (Dante's Inferno was the course's foundation).

Eventually, mid semester to be exact, I was accidentally placed in the briefcase of a traveling Evangelical who preached the Gospel of Trebufette the Blind Ox-boy to Carni and Circus folk at various locales along the Mississippi river. I found the mans sermons to be ridiculously abstruse and riddled with holes but the tenants upon which it was founded were imbued with rich moral fiber of which I heartily approved.

However I could no longer stand the man's countenance and was forced to again derail my path. I managed to get caught up with a group of New York bound Hop-heads who were intent on stopping at every rave and music venue they could find. Eventually these bewildered maniacs made it the state of Ohio where they were (rightfully/thankfully) arrested for possession of narcotics. The state trooper in charge realizing that I was a helpless captive took me into his own possession. He was going to, I assumed, restore me back onto my journey in a manner befitting a man of the law... I, of course, assumed incorrectly. You see instead of sending me off somewhere he simply placed me atop a beer bottle which sat on the rail of wooden fence at the edge of a vast field and began to slowly walk away from me. I simply thought that this was some strange way of releasing me into the wild. When he reached about 200 paces, however, he stopped walking and turned around and drew a large police issue Magnum revolver and began to slowly set up for the shot. It was at this moment that I realized that this man was not a member of the standard American police-force, but rather a symbolic figure of death brought down to restore the cycle of my torment and misery. He fired the trigger and everything went black.

You see, dear reader, I assumed that was the end, just as you likely did. Much to my dismay I was not greeted by a host of scantily clad angels or a divine garden or pearly gates atop a sea of clouds or anything of the sort. In fact I was treated to what felt like a single nights restful sleep and upon re-entering the world, I was back hanging on the wall at that very same welding supply store where my naive eyes first looked upon my hated captor, that awful "zac". And whom do you think the first face I would see is... none other than he. And I tell you, I had never before believed in the Law of Infinite Returns, nor understood it's precepts, I tell you that now it as clear as day to me. And this is my cycle of infinite returns, this is my 7th circle of Dante's inferno, my recurring nightmare, my terrible fate.

-Glove

It's better to have a glove thats lost, than to never have gloves at all.

2010-05-05T21:23:00.001-04:00

It's been three days now and my glove has not turned up. I was fairly confident that the glove itself was incapable of autonomous movement, however I am thoroughly mystified as to how it could have disappeared. You see I may toss him errantly around in the shop leaving him on Clifford (my welding machine) or on the floor or on a chair, but he always turns up. I really am at a loss here people... I've been using one of the multitude of other disheveled gloves lying around, but it's just not the same. I still cling to the hope that he will return, and until he does I will leave a candle burning in the window of my blog.

Here's a picture of what I made today for my buddy Larry:

The Playlist

2010-05-04T14:33:00.000-04:00

While I'm listing things I might as well get into music, because music is a quintessential part of everything I do. It's hard to be in a bad mood when listening to light bubbly reggae and it's hard to be unproductive while listening to some base-heavy old punk song. So in tandem with my recent list of books, I will now issue a list of my top six songs/artists/albums and their associated work mode/mood altering tendency.

1. Mozart - Well I gotta start this list off with the classic of classics. Inspirational, productive, whatever he's always a good choice.

2. Offspring (Smash) - Now I've been a fan of Offspring since I was like 10 years old and I still really thoroughly enjoy them. I'm not talking about anything they've done post 1996, the old stuff is what does it for me. If I have to weld or grind or do some single task for a long time, I blast some old offspring and power right through it.

3. Tom Waits - If I need some deep intellectual inner thinking I'll turn to this moody bastard. Of course he can be depressing and dower but damn if he doesn't bring out the rawest and most human qualities in his music. Good for the figuring out process.

4. The Amelie soundtrack by Yann Tierson - Okay so if I'm ever getting on a roll and stuff is starting to flow I'll throw this on. It makes everything feel so epic and climactic and beautiful that working to it makes me feel like a conductor in a scrap-metal orchestra (see also my entire dumpster divers sculpture which was built primarily to this soundtrack).

5. Steel Pulse or Black Uhuru - These are just two of my recent favorites, but if I want good vibes and a relaxed atmosphere to get through the tedium of difficult work, I'll put on either one of these guys or just one extensive reggae mix to zone-out to (but not too zoned out, just enough to get the job done in a calm and easy way).

6. Heart it Races as played by Dr. Dog - This song, originally by Architecture in Helsinki (not personally too familiar with them) has grown to be my current favorite and I often find myself starting or ending (or both) my day with this track. The pure energy that pulses through this song makes it a great track to get the ball rolling.

Thats all for now.

Mr. Glove will be on to complain shortly

-Z

Ten most influential books

2010-05-01T09:58:00.000-04:00

Alright you've all gotten well acquainted with Mr.Glove , and I have a feeling he'll be making his presence known regularly throughout the summer, but that doesn't mean that I am not going to post anymore... so without further ado:

A couple months ago I read about a popular trend amongst bloggers to post their 10 most influential books in chronological gut-feeling based order... So I will do just that.

1. Where the Wild things are - Well I don't remember my exact reactions to the book, but I do remember that this was my favorite book read to me as a child and definitely plots a course that I've maintained (both in the books I've read and in the work I've created). So here's my earliest nod to the world of monsters and fantasy.

2. Grunts - Maybe I'm jumping ahead here and skipping over like 8 years or so of constant fantasy novel reading, but I gotta be somewhat discerning about this list. Grunts, written by Mary Gentle (a purposely ironic pen-name I'm guessing), is the tale of a group of inherently evil Orcs who stumble upon a cache of Guns and Ammunition and begin to wreak havoc on elves and sprites and other fairytale creatures. It's replete with gore, violence and sarcasm; I loved it.

3. Brave New World - (Written by Aldous Huxley) Another couple year jump ahead in time, my first dance with the Distopia genre; a genre which I would grow to love and devour. Maybe it wasn't my single favorite distopic story, but it was damn close and it set the pace.

4. Discworld novels and a Hitchhikers guide to the Galaxy - okay so I'm condensing and combining a lot in this one. Discworld novels by Terry Pratchette are fantastically well written comedic stories which take place in a phantasmagorical world which rests on the back of four elephants who stand atop a turtle who is floating through outer-space; I must have read ten or fifteen of these. Similarly Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy is probably one of the funniest and most brilliant takes on a futuristic sci-fi ever written, and I doubt anyone will argue that point.

5. Choke - Chuck Palanhiuk's book about Sexaholism is sick, disturbing, grotesque, strange, stylish, funny and brilliant all rolled into one. It was also my real first non-sci-fi/fantasy novel that I read for something other than a school assignment. I went on to read most everything he wrote and enjoyed a good 80-90% of it.

6. Stranger in a Strange Land - This tale of a superhuman born on mars with the ability to see and in hear in a completely different and transcendent way, felt more like a book of beautiful philosophy than it did like a futuristic sci-fi. But I enjoyed both aspects immensely.

7. Atlas Shrugged - Well, yeah, I did the Ayn Rand thing and I read em both (Fountainhead first) and I'm not gonna lie, I really enjoyed them. Opinions of the late Mrs. Rand aside, the book is a stellar read and when you look at objectivism in very simplistic terms and ignore the inhumanity of it, well then you have very driving and motivational concept.

8. Blue Beard - I really have a lot of trouble picking one Kurt Vonnegut novel, but Blue Beard does still reign as my favorite. Kurt Vonnegut waxing, well... Vonnegut, about the Art Expressionists movement is right up my ally. But I can't dwell on that novel; Vonnegut's humanist conceptions and curmudgeonly ramblings have grown to be a great treasures which I store somewhere in the depths of my brain or, as he would call it: my two and a half pounds of dog-food.

9. The Wild Sheep Chase - Picking my favorite Haruki Murakami novel is even harder than picking my favorite Vonnegut. His inimitable style is so spiritual and ephemeral that all of his books have sort of melted together to create a strange surreal fabric... it's hard to explain, sort of like any one of the novel's he's written. The Wild Sheep Chase, though not as in depth as Kafka on the Shore or The Wind Up Bird Chronicles was my introduction to his poetic nature and I have been a huge fan ever since.

10. Infinite Jest - What can I say about this epic novel by David Foster Wallace... I dunno. It's unquantifiable. It's like life.... only.... with a (useful) appendix. Undoubtedly the greatest novel I ever read, but I still will not recommend it to anyone.

11th runner up : Voltaire's Candide because he's right "We must cultivate our gardens"

notable mentions: Dostoyevsky's The Brothers Karamazov, Milan Kundera's Unbearable Lightness of being, Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian, Dave Eggar's Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, Cervantes' Don Quixote (I really should have figured out how to get this one in there), Goerge Orwell's 1984

I'm sure I'm forgetting stuff

-Zac

Glove me tender.

2010-04-30T21:46:00.000-04:00

Okay so I was blessed with a brief respite because "Zac" had a "shoulder injury". Oh the poor guy hurt himself doing one too many push-ups or something (like I give a shit, nobody cares about how I'm feeling) so he took a nice and easy couple days off (pussy). But today, he started up again, same deal: putting me on all types of hot pieces of metal and watching as my seams fray and my leather blackens (I think he gets some sort of sick pleasure out of this). At one point he took his hand out because it was burning inside... okay lets analyze this: if his hand is burning on the inside than imagine how it is for me on the outside. It's ridiculous! Look at me! Two days of work and I'm barely holding together. I don't know how much more of this I have in me.

Oh what a cruel destiny fate has chosen for me.

-G

Glove Hurts

2010-04-27T22:04:00.001-04:00

Okay, let me make clear a change of tone from yesterday; that post was written by a glove who knew not what was coming. You see I was all excited, I thought "Hey! I'm getting out of this boring old store" and believe me I figured anything was better than hanging around on a wall all day and night, boy was I wrong.

I finished my first day working on the hands of this "Zac" person and I'm going to say right now, right off the bat, I don't like him. Don't get me wrong, he might make some real nice artwork... but he has no regard for his gloves (not just me either, there was veritable graveyard of incapacitated gloves lying around ). He treated me as if I have no feelings at all. Yesterday was my first day on the job, you'd think he'd go easy, gimme a pep talk or something. But no, he just starts welding away. And at first I'm like "hey this isn't so bad" I could see there being a Zen to this.... but then it just keeps going and going. And the heat! My goodness. I mean it ripped a hole in my chest simply from proximity! And thats another thing about this "Zac" fellow he constantly puts me directly on the hot steel! He doesn't even have the regard to dip his work in water or at least wait for it too cool down!! He just keeps it hot and just uses me as shield against the heat, can you believe that?! He just holds me in front of the hot weld flame, so the heat doesn't get to his ungloved right hand! I mean look at me; I'm coming apart at the seems and thats only after day one!

Maybe that was all just some cruel initiation and tomorrow will be an ice cream party...

.... I Hope.

-G

Glove stories.

2010-04-27T21:55:00.000-04:00

Hello everybody I'm Zac's glove and I'm happy to say I'll be joining Zac both here on this blog as well as in the shop. So this is me just kinda signing in and saying hi and getting myself acquainted with blog format. I also just want to say that I'm real excited to be working with Zac on all of his exciting endeavors and doing whatever I can to help. I really don't know too much about metal work to be honest but I'm always up to learn new things!

Alright well, you'll be hearing regular updates from me soon.

-G

Mother Nature has a temper.

2010-04-25T09:54:00.000-04:00

I think it's time we as human's take stock. That's right count all your ducks and set them in a row, because the earth, well, in my estimation, she aint' too happy these days. We've been on a tear for way too long, destroying and destroying and destroying our precious terra-firma. And surprise surprise, this entity thats billions of years older than us is starting get really fed up with these little mites on it's surface who keep trying their damnedest to chew up everything good she's got to offer. So maybe the volcano in Iceland wasn't the worst disaster of all time, maybe it's just a warning shot, a little wake up call or what have you. She's just letting us know, that the earths got weaponry that no nuclear bombs can fight, it's armed to the gills with some serious firepower, it's got fire, it's got ice, it's got lightning, it's got earthquakes, tidal waves, winds, you name it she can fuck you up with it. I mean we've all seen the day after tomorrow, despite being a pretty boring movie, it does depict some truly pressing and terrifying imagery (if you haven't, it's about what happens when the earth recedes into another ice age), and what it depicts is not pure fantasy, rather just a possible variant of what this world could lapse into if we don't treat it properly. So take stock.

New work

2010-04-23T19:33:00.000-04:00