day thirty 1.30.2010

years ago i heard a quote by drew barrymore on the radio about how she was really into ice lately, and i thought, "what a spacy thing to say...you're really into ice lately?? come on!" well, ummm, i've really been into ice lately myself. here's a photo of some of the ice on the rocks near my home. i love how it terraces and looks soft-

day twentynine 1.29.2010

it's not every day you get to give a seven year old his first martian popping thing-

day twentyeight 1.28.2010

my studio at VSC; right before i packed it all up. biggest studio i've ever had with the best view of constantly falling snow ever!

day twentyseven 1.27.2010

In a bit of an homage to Otto Kunzli, I made a rubber necklace intended to be worn by two people are the same time. Lia and Carrie both went to school together in texas and had no idea the other would be at VSC. The fact that they are both wearing fake facial hair is also a coincidence.

day twentysix 1.26.2010

So technically I didn't take this picture, Marin did. This is what I look like setting up my first welded piece. It's a neckpiece, based off different sections of the shadow drawings I made earlier in the month.

day twentyfive 1.25.2010

I had to go to the doctor, and Carrie, Margaret and Marin came along for moral support. Notice their choices of literature.

day twentyfour 1.24.2010

For some reason, the snow has been hanging off the roof of the sculpture studio in long curly strips over my windows (and no one else's). little mary said it feels like being in a big eyeball with the snow as eyelashes.

day twentythree 1.23.2010

Peter Schumann, the founder of Bread and Puppet Theater, has been the visiting artist at VSC this week. He is a personal hero of mine and I was thrilled to meet him and have a studio visit with him. this photo is from the rehearsal for a benefit performance for the people of Haiti that bread and puppet was a part of on this day. there was a full orchestra, choir and an amazing soprano that performed Brahms Requiem, and a bunch of us from VSC got to perform as part of bread and puppet, and it was all organized in less than a week. all told, there were around 200 performers in the piece. there wasn't much time to prepare, so we only had half a rehearsal. it was humbling, tiring, stressful, exciting and an honor to be part of this event. the puppets were made by haitians that came up to vermont for a workshop with peter a year ago.

day twentytwo 1.22.2010

Did I mention it's beautiful here in Johnson? This is what I get to see while I am doing my breakfast shift for work study.

day twentyone 1.21.2010

Peter Schumann, the founder of Bread and Puppet Theater, has been visiting VSC this week. He did a performance about the B type of Puppetry, (which is what he does) and it was wonderful and silly and political and inspiring. He wore a clown nose and played songs on the violin that sounded a lot like the songs my 4 year old nephew writes. In his epilogue, there was a "computer" that looked a lot like this. This is a postcard that Carrie and I made. We felt that some of our friends here weren't getting much mail, so we made some postcards for them and mailed them from the post office in town. This one was for J.C. Sidenote- oil sticks might not be the best material choice when making postcards. they were still smudging when the gang got them in the mail.

day twenty 1.20.2010

My first weld-

My friend J.C. taught me how to TIG weld. This is the result of my first attempt at it. I might need to start looking into using steel more...

day nineteen 1.19.2010

One of the great things about being at an artist residency is that there are all these other artists around making amazing stuff. Marin Abell's studio is down the hall, and he has been working on a piece made out of his jeans and denim jacket. It all started when he found a hole in the back of his jeans, so he patched with part of the inside of one of the pockets. Then his pocket had a hole in it, so he patched that with some of the edge of his jacket. Next the jacket needed a patch, etc etc. Here is how it is looking 2 weeks later-

day eighteen 1.18.10

My daily drawing from yesterday- gray oil pastel on sketch vellum

day seventeen 1.17.10

After going to the movies last night, a few of us ended up at an irish bar and had an impromptu dance party featuring lots of hip hop and eighties music. This is Marin from Utah and Carrie from Texas busting some moves with some faces. They didn't know I was taking a picture, they just dance like that.

day sixteen 1.16.10

the wonderful view from J.C.'s studio

day fifteen 1.15.10

tonight was Christian's last night at VSC, so after the open studio visits he took a hatchet and whacked his piece out of the ground (he had frozen it to the spot), moved it to the firepit, filled it with wood, and took a weed burner to it. since it was covered in ice, you could touch it while it burned. we huddled around in the cold watching it burn in the night-

day fourteen 1.14.10

i've been making a drawing each morning first thing in the studio using some sort of repetitive motion. they are all on a roll of sketch vellum, and i unroll and reroll it a bit every couple of days. it helps me get myself in a good mindset for the day and for the studio. here you can see the last five days of drawings-

day thirteen 1.13.10

one of the other residents here built this sculpture out of thin strips of wood, installed it outside, and froze a heck of a lot of layers of ice on top of it. it looks beautiful in the morning sun and at night he lights it from inside and it glows. when he leaves at the end of the week, there's talk that he might set it on fire.

day twelve 1.12.10

strange circular condensation on the window at the dining hall-

day eleven 1.11.01

a river runs through it-

there is a small river that winds its way around the vermont studio center, and every day it is a bit more frozen than the day before. this is taken from the temporary bridge on pearl street; i expect i won't be able to see the flowing water at all by the time i leave at the end of the month!

day ten 1.10.10

i've been making these drawings where i light these loops i've made out of roofing wire from above and draw the cast shadows. i tape the paper to the floor and lie on my stomach to draw them. one of the other artists told me i look like a little child coloring on the floor.

day nine 1.9.10

last night the other residents in the sculpture building and i had a bonfire outside in the snow. it was the coldest night so far, going below zero degrees.

day eight 1.8.10

there are vertical banners (Tibetan I think) like these scattered about the studio center. these ones are white, but there are also blue, green, red and yellow ones. there is a river that winds thru the place, and this is the view from one of the windows in the dining hall. it's really wonderful to sit there, looking out the window at this, sipping coffee while talking to other artists and writers after a fantastic meal made by the Mark, the chef. this was taken at lunch after i ate curry lentil soup, macaroni and cheese, and leftover duck from dinner last night.

day seven 1.7.10

I found this piece of cardboard in the trash- i think it had capguns attached to it originally. i love objects that have unintentional faces!

day six 1.6.10

I was working in my studio this afternoon, and outside my window I see 3 kids coming from the direction of the elementary school. it seems they decided to take a shortcut and wade through the deep snow, only to come to an embankment taller than they were. after heaving their backpacks over first, they climbed, tumbled, rolled and helped each other over. afterwards, they were completely covered in snow and grinning ear to ear.

day five 1.5.10

some of the signs in lovely downtown Johnson, VT

day four 1.4.2010

frost on the window of my room in Kowalsky House at VSC. might make some stuff based off it

day three 1.3.10

Drove from home in Cold Spring, NY to Vermont Studio Center in Johnson, VT in almost constant snow. I took this photo of one of my favorite vermont rest stops with my iphone moments before i accidentally sprayed someone who had just gotten out of the car next to me with windshield fluid. He took it surprisingly well.

day two 1.2.10

detail of a pillow my mom made many moons ago and was passed down to me this christmas

day one 1.1.10

In The Sound of Music, there's a song that begins, "Let's start at the very beginning, it's a very good place to start". I spent New Year's Eve with a photographer friend, Jennifer Konig. Along with a few other people, we sat around, took heaps of polaroids, and wrote captions on the bottom that made me laugh until my face hurt. after midnight, i grabbed a polaroid camera shaped like the tazmanian devil (complete with teeth inside when you flip it open) and took this photo of some of the many vintage cameras in her collection.