make a sculpture to be photographed

First Graders Respond to the Christine and Terry

2009-09-25T06:05:00.000-07:00

This Tuesday Terry and I were invited to speak to Nancye Hesaltine's 1st grade class about our project. She began by asking them "what do you see" and we were immediately bombarded by talk of tire tracks, rocks, garage doors, bushes, weeds, antenna, and a fierce debate between whether or not the building on the left was made with rocks or bricks- an interesting response to flattened photographic space!

Nancye sent along these images of small watercolors the kids are making that will be assembled on the floor into a larger grid. I think they completely relate and can't wait to talk to the Third Graders.

Bench

2009-07-24T12:25:00.000-07:00

This is the last piece of the collaboration for those of you following along. I adore the composition on this one. Since we were shooting against an approaching storm the sky is far more grey than blue- a happy accident if you ask me since it makes the pinks in the bench pop out against the green of the landscape.

This piece keeps growing on me, the wonky slats on the bench were a pain to work with when I was weaving but the picture just feels like a little bit of colorful fresh air like the knit graffiti that's been hitting the streets for the last decade and my neighborhood for the last year or so.

big print!

2009-07-23T14:42:00.000-07:00

2' x 3'!!! It's absolutely incredible! That's my sketchbook next to it for scale. At this scale you can see a little blue post it against the silver tarp that escaped the wall during the shoot-again- exactly the same kind of move I'd make while drawing.

10b/Green Building

2009-07-20T10:14:00.000-07:00

(click to enlarge)

Oh do I ever love the composition on this one. The two point perspective is so dramatic and the yellow flowers are just a little bit off center. This one is full of angles and big shapes and I feel like I build up drawings in much the same way.

Our super assistant Emma mentioned how much she likes all the little notes that have fallen down on the left side. I do too, it keeps the piece from being too perfect and brings movement into the expanse that otherwise feels almost diorama like.

Terry and I decided that for the exception of Niagara Falls each of the pieces would just use their locations as their title. This is the only one that I feel a little goofy about. I like saying 10b but it feels a little meaningless and random especially since we covered up the sign that said 10b with little yellow office-style post its. There's something to be said for keeping the title that we'd use in our conversations. Neither of us are big fans of titling.

Tractor Building

2009-07-20T09:56:00.000-07:00

(click to enlarge)

This piece really benefits from being viewed at a larger size. Seriously- click to see it bigger and then continue reading.

When I've been telling people about the results of this project I often find myself talking about Terry's compositing technique and how the image therefore contains far more information than one could see with just your eyes. This one does this both with the level of detail one can see within the image and in the composition. The location is so busy you simply can't take all this in at once when you're on site. We'll be printing this one at 2" x 3" I can't wait to see that. There's just so much information in this image I think that'll be spectacular.

I'm really happy with how the post-its worked to create the image, the vertical surface seems key for making this kind of work. Terry was particularly interested in how the floral pattern made out of little squares references how digital images are built- that they too are made from little pixels the handmade meets the digital (meets STAPLES).

Niagara Falls

2009-07-17T11:45:00.001-07:00

(click to enlarge)

YES! As I told the group yesterday in the presentation I feel very excited about this piece. I think it's the one that resonates with the rest of my work most clearly. The use of party supplies, the transformation of them into a faux-natural form, the way the man-made elements around the streamers mimic the rocks and river of a real waterfall.

This image also really showcases the range Terry was able to capture with the image. When you view the print from a distance you see the colored streamers right away, up close it's clear they're covered by another layer of silver. So far we've only printed it at about 8" x 10". I'd love to see it at least double since the image has such a play between the graphic composition and the detail and texture of the stone, Mylar, and foliage.

The Hill

2009-07-17T11:36:00.000-07:00

(click to enlarge)

Considering how I felt after the shoot I was really surprised at this image. The plaid is even more unreadable than I expected but I love the way the light dapples across the image and how that cloud just seems to pose for us between the trees!

The angle on this hill was much more difficult to work with than we predicted so the image ends up acting as an abstraction rather than a readable pattern, again a fairly lovely image but more decorative than true to it's intentions.

Paper Chain

2009-07-17T11:14:00.000-07:00

(click to enlarge)

This piece feels really goofy to me. It's nothing like I expected. I think it's because this image almost more than any other looks so different than it did during the shoot. During the shoot I could see the sculpture in the context of the entire site- the expanse of the metal, the sky, the gravel parking lot where my car was- and in this shot it becomes so dense with information and much more abstract that I imagined.

We've shown the images to a few dozen people now, and this one gets a really positive response, I find myself listening really intensely to what they have to say about it- I'm hoping they'll help me figure this one out.

I think I like it, it's just not at all how I imagined it would look. I think that's really the best part of collaborating- seeing things in an entirely new way- and making work that you wouldn't make otherwise. Since the sculptural set up on this one is so simple I wouldn't mind taking it to a few new sites.

Presentation Write-Up

2009-07-17T09:27:00.000-07:00

Yesterday morning Terry and I presented to the FACA Committee (for those reading who don't work with us that's the committee at our school who helped fund this project). Considering we spoke early in the morning in a remote location on campus we had a good turn out including Nancye's golden retriever!

We spoke about the impact of the project on us as artists and of course a little bit about impacts for our school community. Most importantly it was the first time people who aren't married to us saw the work and even in 30 minutes we got a great amount of feedback- it felt like a little condensed art opening with people sharing their insights and thoughts about the work.

Extra special thanks to Nancye Hesaltine for taking photos during the presentation.

Presentation Preview

2009-07-15T09:34:00.000-07:00

Today Terry and I met up to prepare for our presentation to the FACA Committee tomorrow morning. We hung prints of all 6 pieces in the Richman Gallery and talked about how we wanted to structure our talk. Of course this could only be done properly by moving our office chairs into the gallery.

Now that the blog's been sent all around school we'd love to have any Park people there to get a first look at our work! I won't be posting them here until after our presentation!

Christine's Studio-July 14th

2009-07-14T17:21:00.001-07:00

I did make some drawings based on the supplies from this project. This drawing is based on that image of the zip lock bag full of crepe paper streamers from yesterday's post.

Christine's Studio-July 13th

2009-07-13T07:37:00.000-07:00

At this point all the studio work is happening over at Terry's and I'm getting my studio back in order. I'll be posting drafts of our images later this week to get ready for our big presentation to the funding committee, but right now I'm spending my time tidying up and reflecting on this project while I tackle some other tasks for projects I've been neglecting.

I've left a few things around the studio from this project that seem inspirational for some new drawings.

The stack of post it's above are all the notes I'd used on the flowchart during the project. I like how they don't line up perfectly and look like blocky stripes. As much as I've been putting things away and recycling them I'm keeping this around.

I love the colored circles all squished together from the leftover streamers from the bench shoot. I think this'll show up on paper later this week.

Shoot Report- Tractor Building

2009-07-10T15:19:00.000-07:00

After we shot The Green Building/10b (man! do Terry and I ever need to talk titles! I hope he's better than I am) we took a break for lunch and headed back to Woodberry to shoot over at the Tractor Building at Clipper Mill.

From the beginning this was Terry's favorite location. All during the process I was looking forward to this piece especially the color combination but was always a little nervous that the wall would respond like the rusty metal did during the Paper Chain shoot. Lucky for us the post-its stick like a charm and we had to do very little reinforcing for durability although we did end up using balls of masking tape at the end to get that last flower to go faster.

The flowers in this pattern were borrowed from a William Morris design in a book my mom had sent me when I was starting on this project. Working from original needlework patterns ended up working quite well rather than designing my own like I usually do. I was a little worried that I'd feel less connected to the sculpture in this piece since I did a little less of the design, but I like that the piece has a connection to William Morris. He's on my imaginary Top Ten lists of designers and I look at his work a lot but have never Incorporated any of his designs directly into my work. I like that my little shout out to him ended up temporarily stuck to a building in my neighborhood.

Here's Terry taking 1 of about 95 photos he shot of this space. The finished image (which we'll post soon!) is horizontal and has so much more information in it. Also, his camera didn't capture the glare on the paper like mine did so the color is super vivid. You might notice Terry wears his Nikon baseball cap backwards when he shoots so it doesn't interfere with the camera.

Back when I was still brainstorming about this project I so badly wanted to work more dimensionally. I'm quite comfortable being a "very flat sculptor" in fact the phrase is in the first line of my artist statement. During the brainstorming phase I kept wrestling with the idea of dimensionality and wanted to use this project to push myself in that area since the end piece would be a photograph and therefore flat. Ironically, now that I've seen the images the I think flattest pieces are probably the strongest.

We've made a big effort to not only leave each site perfectly clean as if we had never been there but also to recycle or reuse everything from each shoot. Lucky for us the parking lot next to the Tractor Building had paper recycling. Here's the piles of post-its all mixed in with the office recycling.

A Visit To Terry's Studio

2009-07-09T12:34:00.000-07:00

Today I went to Terry's studio to see the images. I'm pretty stoked!

He's still working on them so dear readers will have to wait a bit for a big reveal. Each image is made of over 15 separate images and is taking roughly 20 hours to process since the file size is over 300M!

We'll be able to print them fairly big if we want!

Here's a sneak peak of the Niagara Falls piece. It's the first one to be printed and I'm super happy with it. The composition feels just like a photograph of a waterfall with the bike path acting as a river and the cinder blocks acting as the rocks surrounding the waterfall.

We'll be posting the final images by next week.

Shoot Report-10b/Green Building

2009-07-08T12:47:00.000-07:00

Right after we finished the paper chain shoot we took a short drive over to the Green Building/10b back behind Clipper Mill. It was clear that the clouds would move out of the way while we were working and we'd be able to get started.

The center of the design was meant to wrap around the corner of the building which also made for a good place for two people to be able to start working on the gridded flower pattern in the same space so we knew everything would line up.

The plans for the shoot involved about seven flowers but a good chunk of the space turned out to be in accessible due to the overgrowth making an uneven surface for our ladder to stand on. A little quick thinking (or at least as quick as one can think after an hour or so in the sun) and I eliminated two of the flowers and moved another down to a more accessible space.

My favorite part of the site has always been how morning sun impacts the light. One side of the building is super bright and the other much duller- I was excited about how the light was going impact the varying colors of paper on the sculptures.

The breeze ended up knocking a few of the post its over which added little bits of yellow along the edge of the building.

I try to take a "good picture" of each piece for my records even though I know Terry's will be far superior. My documentation for this piece is my favorite so far.

Just for fun, here's the back of my car for the day all filled with supplies for the three shots that day.

Shoot Report-Paper Chain

2009-07-07T14:19:00.000-07:00

Wednesday morning we planned on shooting at 10b and the Tractor Building but were worried that with the slight cloud cover in the morning we'd get all set up and then lose our light. After the way the bench shoot ended we were a little gun shy. We had one of our stellar assistants line up for the day to do the post it shoots so we decided that we should stall a little by shooting the paper chain.

This was hands down the easiest shot since all we had to do was attach my tiny paper chain to the rusty metal. Too bad that no adhesive would stick to the rusty metal that was still wet from the previous night's rainstorm. However I was able to drape the chain from weed to weed in all the overgrowth in front of the metal thing. Baltimore's urban overgrowth has become a recurring element in our series and I'm glad we were able to incorporate this into the shot a little more directly.

We took two shots. One from the right with a little more rust and one from the left with negative space and shadows. I haven't been looking through Terry's viewfinder at all I'm letting composition be solely up to him, which has been one of the unexpected challenges for me from this project. However I suspect that that last one shot with all the white space behind the chain will the the most like one of my drawings.

Since there was really nothing for our assistant to do in this shot except hang out and hope that the weather cleared up. Since I hadn't ever tested out out how post-its adhere to the surfaces we'd be working on I sent our trusty assistant over to see if we'd need reinforcements on brick and metal. We got pretty lucky.

Shoot Report-Druid Hill Bench

2009-07-06T14:21:00.000-07:00

About 10 minutes into the set up for this shoot I knew my plans were WAY WAY off. I had planned on attaching over a dozen crepe paper streamers from the tree to the bench so they would look like lasers shooting back into the space. Having never worked with steamers outside I realized why streamers weren't a major staple of backyard birthday parties while I was growing up. Wind.

The weather was hardly windy but the slight breeze quickly turned my straight line of streamers into a giant arc as I struggled to get masking tape to stick to the bark. This wasn't going to work. I couldn't get one streamer to stay straight much less over a dozen.

This is where collaboration can be kind of tricky but also really great. I had to change plans on the spot. It was too windy to drape streamers from point A to point B. To windy to drape them anywhere and still be able to control them, not to mention that Terry would have to be able to shoot those images and moving makes the shots much more complicated.

Having someone there at first was a little nerve racking- I didn't know what I was going to do and there Terry was asking questions and giving unsolicited advice. There was a minute there where I didn't want any of it. Then Terry reminded me that I had talked about weaving streamers into the bench. YES! That was my first idea, I had just wanted to use the space differently but I also love the idea of weaving on site and gave it a try. After the first row of purple I knew this was the right move. An hour later I still had my gradient still and was making stripes across the park bench.

It took about an hour to do the weaving, then Terry got a chance to shoot. The breezy weather that was bringing in Tuesday's afternoon showers was kicking into high gear so Terry needed a lot of time between shots since he had to wait for the wind to stop before taking each photo.

He began by shooting for the panoramic photo, since that will be a composite image that process took about 30 minutes before Terry was able to switch tripods to get the straight shot.

By that time clouds had rolled in completely changing the light between images.

Good thing Terry's quite the expert in shooting in overcast light.

Shoot Report- Plaid Hill

2009-07-03T06:13:00.000-07:00

Hands down, this was the hardest shoot. Sadly I don't think it was our best.

Two Saturdays ago when Terry and I were taking one last look at our locations before I got started in the studio we revisited this hill. Once I took out the tape measure I realized that this space was really big and that my plans had to work with such a big expanse. The plan was to make an enormous plaid pattern using copy paper secured with golf tees over a 80 x 70 foot expanse and photograph it repeating across the hill. In order to accomplish this we'd need several hours and several assistants. We had the perfect assistants, and the supplies but time was not on our side.

Each piece of copy had to be put down individually and secured with two golf tees into a hill full of roots and rocks while maintaining the plaid pattern. This was incredibly time consuming since many of the stripes were several pieces of paper wide. We moved down the hill very slowly, not because we were four slow people but because this simply took a long time.

Sadly after about an hour and a half we had just barely repeated the pattern once (the plan was two and a half repeats!) and we were losing our light. The piece wasn't close to done and we had to shoot anyway or we'd loose the light.

Here's Terry setting up the camera as the long evenings shadows creep across the plaid. The Iowa painter in me loves the shapes and colors interacting in an abstract way. The part of me that's really invested in the project was cringing at the fact that at this scale the plaid was probably unreadable. The biggest challenge in working on a hill and our biggest concern from the dandelion piece and the impetuous for continuing this project!

I wasn't sure. If I was alone in my studio I'd just erase it and start over. But I wasn't alone in the studio, I wasn't the only artist working here and the light in the trees WAS beautiful. I couldn't just erase and start over. We're working under the constrictions of time, of working on site, having a team of assistants and of course the number of hours of sunlight slipping away from us.

We ended up shooting from a much more extreme angle, letting the plaid go out of the frame of the composition like it would if I were drawing it. The location and light were perfect. I just hope the sculpture is readable.

I should give a shout out to our helpful assistants, all three of whom are recent alumni or students at the school where Terry and I teach. One of the main reasons Terry and are keeping this blog (outside of sharing it with the whole internet) is so we can share our process with the students we teach, so they can gain insight into how we both approach a project.

It's fun to be able to include a few of them in our process as well.

This week Terry will be in the think of compositing the photos, color correcting them and editing them. Since we don't share a studio and I'm headed to Chicago for a wedding I won't get my first look until next week. Fingers. Crossed.

Shoot Report- Niagara Falls

2009-07-02T06:20:00.001-07:00

We wanted strong sunny morning light for the Niagara Falls shoot and Monday morning gave us incredibly lovely and just a little warm summer sun.

What I didn't anticipate was that the mylar would be so reflective and hot. In hindsight I guess that NASA wants to use a kind mylar for solar sails so I shouldn't have been so surprised that the space I was working in would be SO shiny and reflective that it would also be about 10 degrees hotter. It also made all my process photographs filled with these little constellations of light flaring back at the camera. I imagine Terry's will be be too.

I decided the morning of the shoot that I should bring some of my colored 8 ft streamer curtains that I had in the studio so I could try to convey some of the illusion of the Niagara Falls lit up at night.

I used a grand total of 12 curtain panels, 4 of which I attached together to make a double layer with silver attached over a purple or gold panel. Luckily these curtains come with four grommets attached at the top for hanging. Once you tear the mylar a little it's really easy to rip the whole piece in half, the grommets are key to hanging them securely without tearing the whole curtain.

I had to work close to the edge of the 8 ft switchback, I only dropped something once during the whole process, a Ziploc bag while we were cleaning up.

Here's the 24 foot curtain expanse along the switchback.

Terry took roughly 75 photos of each sculpture- he'll use multiple images to come up with a more panoramic composite-it seems like a lot but he needs to bracketing the exposure and take photos from on point of view so he can get far more information into the shot.

It took Terry about 15-20 minutes to get all the photographs while waiting for everything to be still. A slight breeze was maddening because all the leaves behind the piece moved not to mention the lightweight sparkly streamers. I tried to capture that part in little videos on my camera.

Sitting back at watching Terry was my favorite part of the shoot. It was really my only chance to be with the sculpture sit back and watch it move and sparkle. Much like a giant moving waterfall it was almost impossible just to see because of the motion and the light flaring. When I designed this piece I had thought the streamers would resemble the Falls from shape and strong vertical lines more than anything else. The motion the light created with any slight movement was a really pleasant surprise.

Considering we were on the Jones Falls trail we had relatively few visitors to the shot. Three groups of dog walkers, and a biker, this family and their new puppy seemed entranced by the sparkle, as they rounded the switchback one of the boys was walking backwards away from it so he could keep looking at it.

Finally clean up was quick and easy, each curtain or set of curtains got put into their own Zip lock bag and are back in storage in my studio to be used in new weavings.

Plans - Green Building/10b

2009-06-30T17:30:00.000-07:00

Since our first site visit this was the location that I knew we had to do right away. I like the vertical surface, the green color, the overgrowth near the side of the building, and of course the view back to TV towers and the brick building.

It's a building that's a part of a larger industrial complex behind Clipper Mill. We later learned it was called building 10b and houses a custom cabinet maker. This piece will be done in much the same way as the Tractor Building- using post-it's to construct a large botanical image this one however is hand drawn and based on a photograph of plumaria in a vintage Hawaiian flower guide.

The hardest part of constructing the map drawing was choosing the color scheme before I had gone to Staples to find out what post-its were available. I had to go based on information online, and while I found the colors I needed (and more!) they came packaged differently than I expected.

In this drawing I was trying to decide whether to use post-its or cut down copy paper on a guillotine. The drawing includes measurements for both.

The colors from the book are extra vivid. "Nature has produced many colors."

Christine's Sketchbook-June 30, 2009

2009-06-30T06:56:00.000-07:00

Here's my to do list for the week. This is our week for shooting, so most of the little tasks actually involve big off site photo shoots. Expect indivigual posts on the shoots next week.

Just for good measure a little sketchbook collage that really has nothing to do with this project that I made yesterday in between shoots.

Plans-Tractor Building

2009-06-30T05:16:00.000-07:00

We knew right away that this building would be complicated to work on. Very little of it is accessible thanks to construction materials being stored on site and weeds that are growing along the edge of the building. However what all that stuff lacks in making the building accessible they make up for it in adding color to the site. The red of the brick is complimented nicely with the bright green of Baltimore's fast growing summer overgrowth and a few bits of random teal.

I'll only be able to access the part of the building that is near the staircase, which meant I needed to work small and bright. Since we'd be working vertically I decided to use post it notes- not that the stick-um will help much against brick and dirty glass. We'll be bringing adhesive reinforcements.

The space was so inaccessible that I needed to make the pattern flexible. I made 5 separate flowers that could go roughly into spaces I could estimate. There's room for give and take. This piece has two map drawings one that shows how to put the flowers together and another labeled photograph from the site.

Earlier this summer I had my mom send any old needlework books that featured botanical imagery, one of which had a terrific William Morris image that I was able to adapt the tiniest flowers for this piece.

Plans- Druid Hill Bench

2009-06-29T10:37:00.000-07:00

Back in April this was the last site we picked like all our sites it's so much greener now. Terry likes this tree (although I think the leaves will blow in the wind and drive him a little crazy on the shoot!) and I like that I can connect the tree to the bench. The fact that there's really just two things to work with with this site other than the grass is forcing me to work more three dimensionally- which was something I had wanted to do going into the project.

I knew I wanted to connect the bench to the tree and work with streamers but it wasn't till I was actually in the store looking at the streamers that I knew exactly how this was going to work.

I've always liked how at the party supply store everything is arranged by color. When you walk down the aisle you walk past row after row of endless stacks of cups, paper plates, curling ribbon, and paper streamers. I'm drawn to party supplies because I think that they rarely live up to the way they look at the store. They're supposed to bring such joy to a space but in reality white streamers can look just like skinny toilet paper.

I like how colors are arranged in the world of retail. Sweaters at the Gap, streamers at Party City, Fiestaware at Macy's- piles of little colors in order. I decided to use this color order that I think about and I'll be running a dense striped twisting gradient that tapers to a point from in the 30 feet from the bench to the tree. Below is my preparatory drawing even if it's missing the bench part.

Plans-Plaid Hill

2009-06-29T05:21:00.001-07:00

With this piece we're planning to revisit the idea of working directly on the ground with copy paper. I like the technique but I this time Instead of constructing an image I wanted to work with an easily recognizable repeatable pattern. We'll be putting a simple plaid pattern made from three colors of copy paper onto the top of the hill. I like that the plaid will echo the vertical lines of the trees.

The hill is HUGE (well over 80 feet at the top) and a part of the Disc Golf course in Druid Hill Park. Terry and I can't tackle this one alone, it's very big AND it's in a public place (people may very well want to play disc golf in the afternoon). We'll have three assistants joining us so we can cover more ground more quickly.

In order to secure the copy paper to the grass without it blowing away we'll be using thousands of golf tees. I like that when you're up close each sheet looks so warped and curvy but it's not something you can see from far away.

Here's the map drawing that shows one full repetition of the pattern. It's now laminated so it's more durable.

I pack all the supplies in durable reusable tote bags. When you do 6 shots in 4 days this is crucial. For this piece each bag holds a few reams of paper with pre-drilled holes, golf tees and big yogurt cups which we'll use so that all 5 of us putting this together can hold a bunch of golf tees at one.

Plaid isn't a completely random pattern for me I work with a lot of plaid patterns in my drawings and sculpture. For be it's both a formal device and a connection to my maternal grandmother her Duncan tartan pictured above. We used to get catalogs of all kinds of things you could get with your family tartan on them, kilts, shawls, coasters, ties, all kinds of stuff. It was odd that the catalogue could be so personal.

I'm teaching myself about how plaids interact I feel like people who really work with these things probably know more and I'm discovering how they work by working with them. There's probably some sort of book out there about how to weave plaids that I should look at. When you're drawing plaid layers of transparent color interact in certain ways but when you're actually weaving things are hidden and revealed, you have to account for the warp and the weft, it's much different than making a drawing.

When I was working out the pattern for the hill I had to think about how to show overlapping transparency without it really happening while using lots of the green grass as another colored element. This was a lot more challenging than I imagined in the first place and made this the hardest map drawing for me.

Christine's Studio- June 26th

2009-06-27T09:51:00.000-07:00

First and foremost- we're ready to shoot!

See all those little green post it notes on the flowchart? Those say ready. The hill doesn't have one yet because we're still trying to schedule assistants- otherwise-good to go. Expect more updates about our plans but also photos from the shoots next week! Everything has to be done on my end so I can head to Chicago for a good friend's wedding.

We're doing six shoots and in order to keep track of what stuff goes where I've been making lists in my sketchbook of the materials needed for each shoot and gathering them together ahead of time. In this picture I've just finished cutting lengths of string and making a Ziploc bag full of stuff to take to the Niagara Falls shoot first thing Monday morning. I'm all about organizing things in Ziploc freezer bags. I keep a big bag in my studio, especially when I'm working with mylar so my cats don't eat it.

I had to run to school to pick up this bag for one of the shoots. I bought it when I first came to Baltimore from some dollar store and it's super durable and has hauled supplies to almost every install I've been on since living here including this piece that started Terry and I's collaboration back in the day.

I had used it to take a bunch of things to school and left it in the supply closet when cleaning up my classroom for "camp".

I realized after yesterday's errands that I needed more golf tees to pull off the hill piece. Last time I was only working with 300 sheets of paper. This time it's well over 1000. That means I'll need at least 2000 golf tees. I'm about 3/4 of the way there at this point.

Finally my Studio assistant was being a big help today here he is organizing my schedule and making sure supplies are in order.

Plans- Paper Chain

2009-06-26T07:15:00.000-07:00

Back in April when Terry and I were location scouting we found this hunk of rusted metal with all these little pegs sprouting out of it. Both of us immediately wanted to work with it but realized that the interesting part was the rusty texture and in order to capture that we'd need to work on a scale that was radically different than our other more landscape based images.

In the mean time in the part of my artistic life that isn't about this collaboration I'd been working in the ceramics studio on a ceramic paper chain. A quick glance around my studio and I came across a package of quilling paper that I'd bought because it was packaged so nicely- paper stripes wrapped in plastic. I realized I could make a tiny paper chain from this and this would allow us to capture that rusted metal texture AND bring to that discarded piece of who knows what a little party.

Christine's Sketchbook-June 26, 2009

2009-06-26T06:31:00.001-07:00

Friday's end of week to-do list mostly little punch list stuff. I'm really wrapping up the stuff I can do without Terry. The drawing on the right was made on my porch relaxing with Mr. Tillman our new summer tradition.
This being the end of the first week and all I thought I'd post the to-do list all updated with it's little satisfying cross offs.

Christine's Studio- June 25th

2009-06-26T06:07:00.000-07:00

Thursday was spent doing studio work outside the studio. First a run to Staples and Party City for returns and new supplies. Then a trip to Park School to use the Laminator and Drill Press.

Here's the laminator in action. Laminating the map drawings is key it makes them far more durable on site. The plastic protects them from dewy grass and general dirtyness and since the maps use grids to show how the image is put together we can basically cross of what's been done so we can keep track of where we're at while still keeping the integrity of the map. I tried to make the maps really aesthetically beautiful while at the same time keeping them highly functional. Maybe we'd want to display these someday.

For the hill piece copy paper will be held on the grass in a plaid pattern with golf tees. Having holes ahead in the paper makes a big difference. Last time I did this by had because I only needed one ream of paper. This time I'm using 5 reams. Doing this by hand with a drill punch would probably not be wise for someone with tendonitis. Thanks to advice from my pal Kyle

I used the woodshop's drill press to drill 500 holes at a time.

Sadly, a good hour of my day was spent stuck on 83. My usual thirteen minute drive took sixty. There was an accident on my off ramp that cleared up right as I reached it.

Christine's Sketchbook-June 25, 2009

2009-06-25T05:44:00.000-07:00

Thursday's to-do list -lots of errands and little punch lists. Crossing each of these off is going to be very satisfying.

Christine's Studio- June 24th

2009-06-25T05:18:00.000-07:00

Wednesday was equally productive but exhausting. I tackled the drawing map for the hill which will be a repeatable plaid pattern. The hill is absolutely HUGE we're talking something like 60 x 70 feet and is going to be quite difficult to pull off in the middle of a functional disc golf course without permission. I've set up the pattern so that the grass will be the dominant color in the pattern but I'll still go through two reams of green and teal paper just to accomplish this.

I started by making a couple of different patterns thinking afterwards I'd look at them and decide what would be best. About noon I hit a wall and started thinking of who I could contact to help me work out the idea- having someone to bounce ideas off is invaluable. Unfortunately I was on my own and cats aren't that helpful in this regard.

Here's an image of my studio floor at about noon. I was throwing everything I didn't like on the floor. Ironically I ended up keeping the drawing on the left.

Here's a quick shot of the final pattern. The pattern covers two pieces of paper, and since this piece will be made like the Dandelion Landscape using 8.5" x 11" copy paper and golf tees I had to alter the graph paper to reflect rectangular proportions.

Here's all the maps sitting in the flat file. I'll be laminating them Thursday so they'll be usable on site.

I'm also making this tiny paper chain out of quilling paper for another piece. Everything exists on such a big scale except this one- we're trying something different.

The flowchart is changing like mad. On the left are all the post it's I don't need anymore and now the notes all reflect things that I still need to know about the shot or do, the notes say things like "afternoon shot", "waiting for permission", "need assistants" and one little green note says "ready".

Plans- Niagara Falls Switchback

2009-06-24T13:46:00.000-07:00

I hope it's obivious that Niagara Falls Switchback is simply the working title. This piece will be on the horseshoe shaped cinderblock wall at the top of the swichback on the Jones Falls Trail in Druid Hill Park.

Last summer Mr Tillman and I took a day trip to Niagara Falls while he was teaching at Chatauqua. The falls were spectacular but I was amazed at the idea that at night they light them up. We left before it got dark which means I only got to see the "natural wonder" in postcard form, which might be better.

Here's the switchback in question. The entire curve is about 70 feet long. We'll be turning about 30 feet of it into "Niagara Falls" using my favorite hard to photograph material- mylar streamers.

Christine's Sketchbook-June 24, 2009

2009-06-24T07:02:00.001-07:00

My Wednesday to-do list and all the colors of post-its that I have to work with.

Christine's Studio- June 23rd

2009-06-24T06:40:00.001-07:00

Tuesday was beyond productive. Terry and I met with Louise and Betsy in the morning and from there I did my first supply run and then hunkered down in the studio till dinnertime. The map drawing for the Tractor Building took a while to really figure out but the drawings I made in the meantime are beautiful and will probably end up in one of the new clusters that I'm going to work out once I get back from an old friend's wedding in Chicago.

The Green Building and Tractor building pieces will be made out of post-it notes. Too bad I couldn't JUST buy the colors I needed. They all come mixed up in theses little color schemes that 3M must have thought would look good in offices. Here's the assortment I left Staples with.
Here's the very beginning of the preparation for the Tractor Building. More info about our plans for that building to come soon.

Most importantly, Mr Tillman helped me put the air conditioner into the studio. My studio's on the 3rd floor of our house and it gets hot quickly. Seeing as how I'm putting in full days during the hottest hours of the day this was necessary.

Christine's Sketchbook-June 23, 2009

2009-06-23T06:00:00.000-07:00

My Tuesday to-do list and a page spread from yesterday.

Christine's Studio-June 22

2009-06-23T05:44:00.001-07:00

Monday was my first full day in the studio and I got a lot accomplished. Here's the map drawing for the green building shoot. Each little square represents a post it note- thanks to my friend the Internet I was able to see what colors 3M makes and plan accordingly without having to go to Staples yet! I'm thinking that I'll need a little more reinforcement on the adhesive for these. I'm using post-its more for the size than for the adhesive qualities.

Once I get a little more done for each piece I'll be able to blog about our exact plans.
Here's some of the plans that you need to make BEFORE making the map drawing. This one's for the Tractor Building at Clipper Mill.

Here I'm attaching selections from an image of the Tractor Building into my sketchbook to serve as a reminder of the dominant colors. While the building is all red brick surrounded by green overgrowth there's these really terrific teal barrels and window moldings. Color is going to have to play a big role in this piece.

Here's one of my studio assistants working hard. My mom knitted and cross stitched the afghan, I think it's related to this project.

Christine's Sketchbook-June 22, 2009

2009-06-22T07:37:00.000-07:00

Ever the one for to-do lists I needed to seperate out my work for the week into big tasks to be accomplished for the week and smaller to-do lists for each day.

Location Visits- Saturday June 20th

2009-06-22T07:12:00.000-07:00

On Saturday Terry and I took another site visit out to our 6 locations so I could take measurements and he could find the direction that she shot would face so we could determine the best time of day to do the shot.

While we technically didn't need to do this together (although without me Terry might have searched for a while to find that bench!) it gave us another opportunity to go on site together and talk about each shoot even though it was all misty and wet outside.

Here's another view of the switchback on the Jones Falls Trail. We'll be shooting from this angle instead as I turn the concrete arch into horseshoe falls. Also just like all our sites the foliage has really filled out since April.

I had to take another snapshot of the Tractor Building at Clipper Mill since we'll be working on a different part of the facade that we originally anticipated.

Most importantly after we finished taking measurements and confirming direction and time of day to shoot Terry came to the studio and we worked out all kinds of details for shooting. For about 30 minutes we sat facing my low tech flow chart talking about each of the six pieces, talking about materials, types of things we'd be doing in the series, time of day and how soon we could shoot, and which shots we'd need assistants for and which we wouldn't. I'll be posting about each individual shot later in the week describing our specific plans.

Research Outside the Studio

2009-06-22T06:28:00.000-07:00

Sometimes things fall into place at just the right time. On Thursday Mr Tillman and I went to Daedalus Books to kill a little time before heading to my in-laws for dinner. While digging around I came across this book Extreme Horticulture by John Pfahl. Not only was I thrilled at the topiary on the cover I realized that John Pfahl was the artist that brought Terry and I together for this collaboration. Needless to say I bought the book.

The book chronicles John Pfhal's images of particularly over the top landscaping and plants and runs the gamut from topiary, to enormous fig trees, prize winning pumpkins, and a new planting next to a highway in Tuscon.

Rebecca Solnit's essay chronicles gardening from Eden to landscaping and gardening trends through British and American history along with a little evolution of the circus and freak show thrown in for good measure. She makes a good case for the over the top landscaping that Pfhal chronicles and the essay is illustrated completely with Pfhal's collection of vintage postcards of horticultural wonders like faux giant apples.

Of course this inspired a Friday jaunt to the Ladew Topiary Gardens which is considered by the Garden Club of America to be "the most outstanding topiary garden in America." YES!

I've lived in Maryland for 7 years and only now gone to visit this?

I was kind of hoping for a wee bit more kitsch, but the football field length of hedge topped with topiary swans would have to do.

There was even topiary bunting draping casually across the hedges next to the mansion!

Finally, I've been meaning to take a picture of these streamers for months, they're at the Sunoco station that is also a used car dealership that I drive past on my way to school. This part of Falls Road has 3 competing gas stations and this is how the Sunoco sets itself apart.

Christine's Studio- June 18th

2009-06-18T10:12:00.000-07:00

Today I decided that I needed more space to organize my thinking about how I want to use each space. Small little spaces in my sketchbook weren't doing it anymore. So here's the new system. I've attached printouts of our location photos to my studio wall and have started adding little post it notes telling me what I had been thinking of doing. This feels far more organized to me and I add and take away notes as I change my thinking on them.

I also dug up the materials from our last collaboration. I want to find a way to re-use these in a new piece.

Here's my map drawing from 2007. I'm not likely to use it again but it's good to have around to remind me what worked in the past. I had to alter the grid so it would work with copy paper. I'm much more interested in working with a square shape. Good think I have access to a few guillotine paper cutters!

Seeing this piece again reminded me how important the lamination is on site. While hardly archival it lets you throw the drawing around, mark on it and work in damp spaces. I plan on switching to a tougher paper stock as well so the drawing can be another finished piece, not just an artifact from the process.

Christine's Sketchbook- June 16th

2009-06-17T13:40:00.000-07:00

Here are my notes from yesterdays phone call with Terry, after we hung up I took it on the porch and made it a better drawing.

Christine's Studio- Needlepoint Books

2009-06-17T13:24:00.000-07:00

I like that any image can be simplified down into just little blocks of color. That this low-tech almost medieval method of making images work is exactly the same as the way pixels function on the computer. Which is another reason why I think working in grid based imagery is sort of a witty way to make digital photographs at over 300 dpi.

I started making drawings this way when I hurt my wrist (which is in a brace right now thanks to comment writing, drawing, and end of year high fiving). I collect lots of pattern, botanical, and needlepoint books from Baltimore's own Book Thing.

I'm drawn to these found images but I think the imagery in the pieces we're about to make will probably be generated by me instead.

Christine's Studio- Flower Stamp

2009-06-15T07:26:00.000-07:00

On Saturday I made this little stamp with an x-acto knife and a sparkly pink pencil. I might use it for the preparatory drawings next week.

Christine's Sketchbook-June 11th

2009-06-12T05:46:00.000-07:00

I wrapped up my major school obligations yesterday-reports and preparing my room for the possibility that camp might decide to use it. It hit me when talking to Christine Broening about what Terry and I were going to do how much what I had to do for school was impacting my ability to think about some of the details of this project. Since I document practically everything I know I've been working hard and making progress but since there still some loose ends I've been feeling a little antsy about getting to work.

Since the earliest stages of the proposal Terry and I have been saying we'll work for two weeks each over a three week period. That I'd work alone making things the first week, we'd shoot together in the second and Terry would work digitally in the third week.

On a calender would look like this:

June 22-26th Christine works in studio

June 29th -July 3rd Christine and Terry shoot on location

July 6th-10th Terry works digitally

In reality might our shooting schedule be more dependent on weather and access to the site?Absolutely, but we're still a little far off for that part.

I think when talking about to people just learning about the project it I've been saying I'll be sculpting in the studio. I think that's thrown me off. While there will be lots of hands on construction I think it's going to look more like going to Party City, cutting flower shapes out of paper, punching holes, and making map drawings on big sheets of graph paper. It's not going to look like this kind of sculpting.

I've been a little anxious that I don't have an exact map for each piece yet at this point. Last night while working in my studio I came to the conclusion that that was just silly. Making the map drawings are one of the biggest things I have to do that week before we shoot. I don't know why I thought I needed to have that part done already. A full week in the studio is glorious, and a tremendous amount of time. I finally feel right on schedule.

Christine's Studio- Gathering Supplies

2009-06-09T13:37:00.000-07:00

Most of the pieces we're planning are large in scale with one exception. This quilling paper has been kicking around my studio for at least 3 years. I think I'll finally have the chance to put it to use in this project for a micro-sculpture.

Inspiration From Flickr

2009-06-09T11:50:00.001-07:00

For the last four and a half years I've used flickr a half social networking/half online photo album site. One of my favorite features is the ablility to add other people's photographs to your "favorites". I have a favorites list of hundreds of images and today I looked through them to see what might resonate with this project, that I might be able to share here.

Sometime's what I want to save is purely formal. I like the things like color, stripes or shapes and want to be able to look at them later.

I have lots of party and celebration imagery favorited. I like how photography can capture such temporary materials.

More Inspiration from School

2009-06-05T06:22:00.000-07:00

It's the last day of school so today seemed like the perfect time to post these images from my recent visit down to the Kindergarten.

Inspiration- Disneyland Landscaping

2009-05-31T17:32:00.000-07:00

I mentioned something about my fascination with pictures made out of flowers like they have at Disneyland. My grandmother spent most of her life in Fullerton California and we would visit often when I was little and always stopped at Disneyland in Anaheim.

I'm starting to link this experience to my fascination with artifice and whimsy, and want to find a way to work these into the project.

The original architectural model even contains the floral Mickey at the entrance.

Christine's Studio- Calendar

2009-05-31T17:25:00.000-07:00

Two summers ago during the Faculty Artists FACA I started keeping monthly calendars to keep myself organized, and in homage to my advisor in graduate school David Dunlap. I still do this- making one a month and keeping them in my studio. I just made my June calendar this weekend the FACA period is marked in teal (and half cropped out). No worries- I plan on posting process drawings because I continue to work on the calendar drawing all month long.

Graham Engineering Project

2009-05-28T17:28:00.000-07:00

spray booth, panorama, 2008

Last year I was a part of a project called Arts and Industry in with York Arts in York, PA. They paired artists with local industries to see what kind of work might get produced.

My interest in plastics led me to be partnered with Graham Engineering. A company who makes industrial blow molders. Needles to say I learned quickly that my work would have to be photographic because they made million dollar machines had little by products I could work with.

I ended up altering the space with projected light. Making handmade patterns by drawing and collaging with theatrical lighting gels and projecting them into various parts of the factory and office space to create temporary light sculptures that exist only in photographs.

We thought I should post these here since Terry will be contacting a few of our sites for permission, and it'll be good to have all our relevant imagery in one place.

conference room, panorama, 2008

Mr. Tillman shot this photo of me working.

research and development, panorama, 2008

Christine's Studio- Collage Drawer

2009-05-28T17:20:00.000-07:00

I keep a big drawer of collage supplies. I was digging through it for another project this evening and came across some things that might be relevant to this project.

1. Alphabets cross stitch book from The Book Thing.

2. Scrap of ski sweater themed wrapping paper

3. Embroidery pattern sent to me from Shannon Rankin.

Christine's Sketchbook- May 28th

2009-05-28T17:04:00.001-07:00

My new thing is to sit on the front porch after school watching the birds and the light on the houses across the street with Mr Tillman and working in my sketchbook. I got some good thinking done on Memorial Day.

Last week I saw these images of a giant patterned rug made from flowers in Belgium. Ever since my childhood trips to Disneyland I've always been fascinated by people making pictures from flowers just like cross stitch or pixels.

I've also scanned updated versions of how I'm working with the location images. It might not look like much but the notes on the bottom represent lots of that dreamy kind of brainstorming that Kirk was talking about in yesterday's faculty meeting.

This last image is my current list of materials I think I might be working with. I made the ridiculous alchemist drawing after a conversation I had with Peter King about my new ceramic bows.

Things I'm Thinking About- Making Something That Doesn't Last and Photography

2009-05-28T05:47:00.000-07:00

Last weekend I found myself attending the MICA BFA shows so we could send off some of my husband's students in style. This piece was outside of the station building and was hands down my favorite in the show. Sadly, my efforts to track down the artist have been unsuccessful.

Clever pun on our relationship to the natural world aside, there were two things I really loved about this piece. I've always been drawn to the marks that lawnmowers make. When I got to baseball games I don't care about the game, for me it's all about the hot dogs, lights, and argyle pattern drawn into the grass by the lawn mowers. Also, I love that this piece won't last. If my backyard is any indication I'm sure it's gone by now. Each day the grass will grow higher and the contrast between the letters and negative space will get slightly closer in tone and the edges will get less crisp.

Before I went to Memphis in March for my show at Material and lecture at Rhodes I gave a practice talk for Carolyn, Ann, and Susan A. here at Park. Afterwards Carolyn asked why I hadn't talked about how ephemeral my work is. That's why I love having another set of eyes o my work, it's one of the things I miss most about being in school. Mr Tillman and I have matching studios across the hall from one and other but it's not the same. Sometimes you just have to have someone spell stuff out for you.

That's one of the things I like about photography. It can capture things that don't last, a smile on the beach with the light just so, the basketball player almost flying in mid dunk, or the rainbow hovering just so over the city. In the classroom Terry is a big proponent of Henri Cartier-Bresson's decisive moment, and while I certainly see that I also think about photography's documentary potential. Photography can bring the viewer something that the viewer couldn't otherwise ever see, Abe Lincoln sitting with his family, my grandmother when she was my age, or what stars look like light years away. I like to think of this project as a little in between the two, the images will capture something ephemeral, but also make it portable and permanent.

Inspiration From School

2009-05-21T05:37:00.000-07:00

It's late May, that means the maypoles are up for the Lower School's May Day celebration. I'm thinking about working with more linear elements in space especially between trees and the benches.
I've always been inspired by the aesthetic of our Lower School, with it's wonky rows of rain boots and the colors and materials of the Lower School Art room. The maypoles are no exception.

things are getting greener

2009-05-17T13:30:00.000-07:00

My Baltimore neighborhood is a mix of tiny yards carefully landscaped and all- out invasive weed wonderlands. Our back yard is one of the latter. This dreamy hazy shot was my attempt to photograph the back yard from our third story window. We haven't had the time to mow/weedwhack when the yard is dry so far this season so the growth and leaves are really on my mind.

In the meantime Terry and I have narrowed down our locations from 7 to about 4.5. I think we're still on the fence with this one so I decided to take a picture of what it's looking like with leaves since the trees were bare 3 weeks ago when we were location scouting.

This is the same space as "hill with tree" in the post from Druid Hill Park. I took this photo quickly from my car so as not to disturb a disc golf game. I'm still interested but the leaves (and the overcast light) make the space radically different. I'm much more interested in the three trees on the right and their relationship to the hill and disc golf net.

I'm becoming much more interested in color and how it will impact the sculpture in such a green space.

Artists I'm Thinking About-Polly Apfelbaum

2009-05-14T11:29:00.000-07:00

I studied painting and drawing in school but I primarily consider myself a "very flat sculptor." I'm interested in sculpture for its materiality and objectness but most of my sculpture barely enters the third dimension. The piece below is a good example of that. It consists of three felt circles that lie flat on the floor acting like pools of wonky handmade stars that you could jump into.

As I tell my drawing and painting students, as soon as you photograph something you flatten the space. As I was thinking about working with Terry Ibegan looking at how I could work both flat and three dimensionally, allowing the photographic process to flatten the piece for me.

Christine Buckton Tillman - Constellations hand embroidery on wool felt 2007

I also wanted to share some of Polly Apfelbaum's work. I think her work jumps between painting and sculpture too she's been a big inspiration for me over the years. She works formally with shape and simple forms while the color just knocks you out. After seeing her work in grad school I felt like I had the permission to work flat and on the floor- although I didn't until I moved to Baltimore and started making contact paper pieces on the floor.

Polly Apfelbaum Pink Crush 2007

I adore that glow that the pink casts on the wall.

Polly Apfelbaum Today I Love Everybody 2007

Really big things made out of smaller things and held together by gravity.

Polly Apfelbaum Las Vegas Room 2009

The color in this piece is so strong. It's made from sequined fabric on the floor. I love the bright color against the neutral concrete and white walls.

Land's End

2009-05-06T12:32:00.000-07:00

When Christine and I began scouting locations we looked at some places that were industrial and others that were in Druid Hill Park (not rural but certainly not industrial). My usual working practice would be to select one type of location but in this case Christine felt that we should utilize both environments. After thinking about it I decided to go along with this idea. I have had experience making both kinds of landscapes and I am not really sure which is better for this type of collaborative project. It seems to me that a reasonable approach is to try both and then decide which works better.

These are some of my industrial landscapes. They were made a long time ago in the stone ages before there was such a thing as digital photography. In spite of their age I think the imagery holds up quite well.

The following images are from a series of photographs that I made in the summers of 2004 to 2008. They were shot in northern coastal environments on both the east and west coasts of the United States.

Christine's Sketchbook-May 5, 2009

2009-05-05T16:25:00.000-07:00

Yesterday Terry and I narrowed our location choices down to 7 "finalists" so to speak: three from behind Clipper Mill and four from Druid Hill Park. Now I need to think about each of them for a little while and think about materials and how I could build a form within the space. While that was something that was on my mind as we scouted for locations I was more interested in the possibilities each space had to offer rather than what I might ACTUALLY do in the space.

What's my next logical step? Start working in my sketchbook.

I take my sketchbook practice seriously. I fill about 4 each year with sketches plans and lists. A little bird told me today that to really do the sketchbook thing right you probably have to be pretty compulsive. I like to think of it as making my thought process another piece of art. I do a lot of my thinking in my sketchbook. In my studio I work in so many media and have lots of different projects going on at once- it's not unusual for me to draw for an hour then switch to weaving Mylar, or bending wood veneer, then go back to another drawing, or plans and research for something big.

My sketchbook keeps me organized and helps me keep track of the wide variety of ideas I have going on at any one time. In addition to writing down ideas and sketching out what I want something to look like, I also make lists and collect source imagery.

So after we narrowed it down to 7 locations the first thing I did was print out 3x 5's of each place so I could tape them into my sketchbook leaving enough space at the bottom to jot down ideas about the strengths and weaknesses of each space. My plan is to visit these pages a few times over the next week or so and start to think about how I could work sculpturally in each space. I want to work large and with color but I'd like the piece to have more depth and three dimensionality than the Dandelion piece- right now I'm thinking about depth in the image and how the sculpture could play with that. We'll see.

Location Scouting: Druid Hill Park

2009-04-28T13:51:00.001-07:00

You can enter into the back of Druid Hill Park from right next to the building with all the drapey power lines in that last photograph. Just like the industrial spaces this space feels both manicured and overgrown in different places. I like the combination of the isolated natural elements like trees with things that feel distinctly park-like, like benches and old stone steps. Terry talked a lot about "recycling" or reusing those elements by turning the physical infrastructure of the park into art- if only for just a little while.

bench at the disc golf course

stone steps

hill with tree

back view of bluff

bike path switchback

Location Scouting: Behind Clipper Mill

2009-04-28T09:40:00.000-07:00

The following images are from old industrial spaces currently housing light industry and artist studios. If we decide to work in these spaces we'll have to ask permission. I think getting the permission is fairly likely since we won't be doing anything permanent to the structures, but I'm not even sure where to begin tracking down whom to talk to for each location.

power lines

green building

bluff

bluff and landing

bluff and truck

concrete windows

rusted thing with pegs 1

It was at this spot that Terry first started talking about "recycling" the objects. Taking stuff that has been abandoned and turning it into art. This seems important and might help us make a decision about locations.

rusted thing with pegs 2

trailer

ramp

gray building

bridge

glass windows

view from clipper mill drive

old clipper mill

Christine's Sketchbook-April

2009-04-26T09:05:00.000-07:00

Terry and I decided that our next step should be to take a walk to scout locations. I use my sketchbook for lots of things; drawing, collecting images and gluing them in, brainstorming, taking notes, writing down thoughts, and getting organized. Here's my notes from a few nights before we went location scouting.

I saw these images of tulip fields in the Netherlands and I just love how color alters the landscape. My time in Iowa would have been even better if corn grew like this. The cat and hat drawings are from Mr. Tillman.

This is the big to do list that I made after the we went location scouting. I'm big into making lists while working on big projects. When you don't see the end product for months this reminds me that I'm making progress and keeps me motivated.

A Brief History Part Two

2009-03-24T14:08:00.001-07:00

At the time Terry and I were first talking about working together I was making drawings like the one above. They're botanical and natural forms drawn on a handmade grid pattern. I'm also really into knitting and embroidery, but am taking a break from that due to my high-five induced tendinitis.

Since Terry works with landscape we wanted to find a place that was extra perfect and that we could control for a couple of hours. What we hoped would be the Suburban Club a local golf course quickly had to become the hill leading to Boy's Varsity Field back at Park School.

Here's an image of me installing Dandelion Landscape. I wanted to work with something, flat, colorful, abundant, and very temporary- Astrobrite copy paper and golf tees. The image is based of a grid drawing. I had to make a map for the piece based on a rectangular grid not a square one and brought a laminated version of the drawing and overhead markers to install with so I would know where I was going and where I had been.

Terry made sure to show just a hint of the scoreboard in the background. Probably at my request. We included this piece in the Faculty Show at Park School in Fall 2007, it was even on the postcard. It was fun at the time fielding questions from students during gallery talks.

A Brief History Part One

2009-03-19T10:57:00.001-07:00

Back in 2006 when my website first launched Terry and I were talking about some of my work while hanging out in the Art Office. He was really interested in the documentation of the forest from the trees piece. He liked that because the piece was so temporary that the photograph became even more powerful and he suggested that we collaborate. I would make even more temporary sculptures that can only be seen in a photograph that Terry would shoot and edit.

Later that day I made this drawing in my sketchbook, on the a page opposite where woodgrain lamp from West Elm that Venuta put in my mailbox on the same day.

We're Funded!

2009-03-19T10:10:00.001-07:00

Thanks to Park School's generous F. Parvin Sharpless Faculty and Curricular Advancement Program (FACA). Our proposal focus on creating more collaborative "sculptures to be photographed". We'll do the actual sculpting, photographing, and printing in three weeks this coming summer. In the mean time we plan to use this blog to document the whole process from start to finish, not to mention share it with our students, colleagues, and the rest of the world.