Spine 1

 Just finishing a large sculpture inspired by the human spine, made from surplus 4x4 truck parts.  I got to thinking about bones and their shapes and the relation to the desert during my time in the Great Basin and have done several reclaimed wood pieces in the same series, Bone II & III.

Bike Collective sign progress

Welding's all done on the SLC Bike Collective's new marquee, now we just need a powdercoating and some lighting . . . .

Architectural Details: Windows & lights . . .

Just finished a few projects that have more of an architectural flavor to them.

A couple of window coverings, influenced by the Kanagawa Wave, surfing, and the sweet skiing out here in the Wasatch:

And a light using steel remnant cuttings from a crampon manufacturer.  After working with New Balance's fabric cuttings, I have been exploring some ideas using manufacturing remnants and was excited to try these out.  See if you can figure out what part of the crampon they're from . . .

The remnants before I started on them . . .

Remnant II completed

Remnant II  is the sculpture I just completed for New Balance Athletic Shoe Inc-- it was constructed during the Outdoor Retailer Show in Salt Lake at their booth in the convention center ('booth is a relative term -- NB had a two story space with in the convention center that spanned 50' x 60', and it wasn't even the largest there.  The OR show is nuts.)

In the beginning . . . 

Remnants

The challenge was to use remnants from the shoe manufacturing process (ie, the swiss-cheese-like leftovers of fabric and leather after the shoe parts were cut out) to make a sculpture that could be assembled during the convention as a visual and performance art piece. The visual language of the sculpture needed to reflect several values that drive their process: simplicity, craftsmanship, and performance.  The remnants were from the New Balance domestic manufacturing plant in Maine, and I used steel and fixtures that were milled and distributed in US.

Fixture detail

I welded together a structure that would support the remnants as they were stretched across it; primarily I was interested in how much material and in what configurations a surface would form.  Usually we think of surfaces and planes as solid spans of material like a sheet of plywood or concrete sidewalk, but I was curious to see how little material could be used to imply a continuous surface.  Many of these planes were three-dimensional as well; not a single piece of the welded metal beams was straight and as a result the spans of fabric were twisted and bent from two dimensions into three.  It was interesting to find out through talking with several shoe designers that the same process applies when they are fabricating footwear -- it begins with a planar, flat piece of material that is then stretched and coaxed into the decidedly three-dimensional form of a foot-like object.

The remnants needed to be guarded from over zealous garbage collectors . . .

New Balance Excellent Makers

Osian Batyka-Williams, another nutty Maker

I'm working with New Balance to design and make a sculpture incorporating remnants from the shoe manufacturing process (think swiss cheese-like pieces of cloth, leather, and the synthetics used when manufacturing shoes) as part of their Excellent Makers campaign.

New Balance is working to emphasize the craft in their products and that many of their shoes are actually made in the US, a respectable claim given that much of the competition favors sending those jobs overseas.  

Initial tack-welding of metal framework over which I'll stretch the remnants

An example of the types of remnants I'll be using from NB's manufacturing facilities in Maine and Mass.

Here are a couple of the other artists involved in the Excellent Makers project:

Osian Batyka-Williams, sculptor & designer:
http://www.osianbw.com/Product.html

Kate Gibb, printmaker
http://kategibb.blogspot.com/

Swing on by the Outdoor Retailers show in SLC this week and take a look at the sculpture-in-progress -- I'll be constructing it over the course of several days; it will be auctioned off at the end and the proceeds donated to a local non-profit.

2011 SLC Bike Collective

Every year I give 1% of my sales back to the community in some way -- I call it the 1% For The People campaign, based loosely on the 1% for the Planet championed by companies such as Patagonia.

In past years the recipients have been KRCL (2010) and Tim DeChristopher (2009), and this year I'm donating the money and time to the Salt Lake Bicycle Collective in the form of a new marquee sign.

From the SLC Bike Collective's web site:

"The mission of the Bicycle Collective is to promote cycling as an effective and sustainable form of transportation and as a cornerstone of a cleaner, healthier, and safer society. The Collective provides refurbished bicycles and educational programs to the community, focusing on children and lower income households."

Check them out at 2312 S. West Temple in SLC; they also have locations in Ogden and Provo.

Mock up of the sign-to-be

Gear Sphere installed

The Gear Sphere has a new home at the Salt Lake Bicycle Company -- go check them out at 2nd & 2nd in downtown Salt Lake.  Every year the SLC Bicycle Co. hosts the Gallery Roll, an art show specifically about bikes and cycling culture.  The next one will be May 2012, keep tabs on the Gallery Roll site for details.

See more about my gear series of sculpture here:
http://blueboathomedesign.com/Gear_Series.html



http://www.galleryroll.com/

http://slcbike.com/

Wheel Trellis, completed

Just finished installing the most recent work, a trellis fabricated from bicycle wheels.

I had the good fortune to work with CJR Homes in Ft. Collins, CO for the installation; as it was a new exterior wall we could mount the anchor points directly to the framing for maximum support before the exterior and interior finish treatments were applied.  See their progress here.

My main artistic concerns were to not visually distract from the circular and organic shapes with mounting and attachment hardware, as well as use recycled (ha, ha!) materials with a finish that wouldn't look old and crumbly when matched with the new stucco finish on the home exterior.

The construction and design of the home itself I had nothing to do with, but was impressed with the re-used materials in its construction and the energy efficient details.  For example, it uses radiant heating which takes advantage of the floor's thermal mass to maintain a comfortable temperature and has siding fabricated from beetle kill wood which has some fantastic natural orange and blue coloration.

The Wheel Trellis, Part 1

 As much as I would love to claim credit for this fantastic design, the original idea started with a friend who is both a homebrewer (who needed a trellis on which to grow hops) and a cycling fiend.  My job is to actually fabricate it.

I've got stacks of wheels in my studio -- the current challenge is to figure out how to attach them to each other, allowing for more wheels to be added/removed easily and secure them to the outside of the house.  Many different clamp designs will work functionally, but are visually distracting from the circular theme.  Welding is an option, but doesn't allow as much flexibility in modifying the structure after it is installed (and different wheels are made from different metals which complicates things).  Currently I am working on a custom clamp design that is hidden within the rims and should be able to be installed with having to drill only a couple of holes.

In addition, there are brackets that will secure the entire structure to the side of the house -- each of which will have adjustments to position the individual wheels for optimal visual and structural integrity.

Ritual Acts of Salvage

The author William Fox uses a particularly apt phrase to describe the (re)use of found objects: he calls it 'ritual acts of salvage'. I like thinking about it as a ritual because it implies something both habitual and unsuperficial. The salvage of found materials denotes that they are being employed in a purpose that is more useful or important than their previous incarnations.

Well-done graffiti murals and open pit copper strip mines both fall into this interpretation; both activities re-purpose materials for a use that is more important to a particular group. In one case it is to reclaim soul-less urban landscapes, and in another it is to convert the land into jobs and a standard of living. I think the important discussions occur when we disagree about to whom the reincarnated work is more useful; and this hinges largely on context.

I've spent a large amount of time in the Basin and Range of the western U.S., and have wondered how an artist that works primarily in recycled materials could make sculpture there, given that some of the best parts of it are protected in National Parks, National Forests, and Wilderness areas where collecting rocks and wood and such are prohibited. Here is where painters and photographers have the artistic upper hand; the landscape is the same for them having been there.

Fortunately for me, people litter. Especially by roads. Stuff falls off trucks, gets tossed out the window, etc . . . Hayduke, Ed Abbey's militant environmentalist, even tosses crushed beers cans out his truck window. I'm not looking to be a trash collector, though. It's not littering if I pick up stuff, change it, and return it to where I found it, right?

I found some wood scraps by the side of a road and carved them into tiny hubs, which I then used to create big tumbleweeds. I then put the mega-tumbleweeds out where i found the wood scraps and donor tumbleweeds and let the wind eventually carry them off to their next adventures. It seemed appropriate to use the symbol of traveling in the desert (a tumbleweed) to ritually salvage found scrap wood into something that would travel across the desert on its own.

If the original materials more useful in their reincarnated form, or if they will ever be seen by people again, I'm not sure.

The Ambiguous Family, completed

This sculpture represents a family.

               

The idea for this sculpture started with my involvement with the gay rights movement here in Utah and the legislation that attempted to define what a ‘family’ was and was not.  Specifically, I wanted to represent a group with ambiguous genders in a defensive posture.  What better way to demonstrate a family under siege than to use a material that has been battered, worn, and discarded . . . like hoods from wrecked trucks?

The fascinating thing about this project is that the more I talked to people about it, the more I saw how everyone on both sides of this issue felt like their concept of family was being attacked.  How interesting is it that we’re all at each others’ throats even when we have the same basic joys and fears?


To see the process of creating this sculpture, look here:


Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7






This sculpture is part of the Lawn Gnomes Eat Your Hearts Out exhibit through the Salt Lake Art Center.  See more information about bus, bike, and walking tours here:


http://www.slartcenter.org/?page_id=249

 . . . and a Google map of all the sculptures across SLC here:

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?hl=en&ie=UTF8&msa=0&msid=202526600326316503418.0004a13b990f61e4bf3c8&ll=40.665535,-111.868286&spn=0.250003,0.439453&z=11&source=embed

To hear the artists talk about their work, call 801-349-3498 and enter the number of the sculpture (the Ambiguous Family is 212).  Each sculpture has a sign by it explaining this process.

The Ambiguous Family, part 7

The Ambiguous Family, made from wrecked truck hoods, in the works . . .