LAFS: November 2008

so last night we had our first annual danksgiving. it was pretty awesome to say the least and i was thoroughly impressed with the meal we pulled off. i mean turkey, veggies, stuffing, mashed potatoes, green beans, corn, cranberry sauce, gravy, the works. um but thats not really want i want to talk about.

- it rained for the first time since i can even remember.
_________last year maybe?__________________
i loved it.
some dogs had to be cancelled but some still got walked. the sky has been incredible lately . here are some photos from my campus and driving around. gotta love the cell. oh and sandy is a dog that i walk. took him to the beach today. oh and guido is the greyhound i walked today. i apologize if i am all over the place because i am just super tired and scatterbrained

redid that simple black one and here is a second attempt at a self-portrait. just one days work. great start id say though. roughly 3' x 7'

so i have about a million favorite artists right now when it comes to sculpture. but. id say anish kapoor tops the list
Anish Kapoor does something with his work that most would call impossible. Within his pieces, he is able to create nothing out of something. He breathes life and spirit to the inanimate. Throughout the span of Kapoor’s life, his work has tried to bridge the earthly and heavenly. Through space, light, volume, and mass, he is able to create voids that are not there. He is able to materialize infinity. He gives shape and form to things that lie in the spiritual realm. He transports man to a place where senses are tricked as if in a dream. He evokes both fear and awe.
Born in Bombay, and working out of London, Kapoor uses simple abstract forms which are representational in so far as these forms represent something present inside us all that we can all relate to when viewing his work. He creates a space for the viewer, a shrine, in which the viewer can become lost in, whether it be the space in between the small forms of bright pigment scattered against different horizons in 1000 Names, or his mammoth pieces or buildings that dive actually into deep voids, or that give the illusion of such space with mirrors and lighting as in Untitled 1996, Turning the World Upside Down, or Descent into Limbo. Sometimes this space or void may be subtle. The viewer may see only a black spot on the surface of a stone or pillar as in those in Void Field, but as they approach they see that this spot is an opening to a cavity of darkness.
Kapoor relates much of his work and these voids and spaces of infinity and darkness to what he calls a “matriarchal view of creativity, of energy”. He states, “it seems to me that that is towards darkness, perhaps towards the womb . . . darkness is formless”. The essential issue of his work is that the scale always relates to the body. In his early pigment works, a sense of place was generated between the objects (1000 Names). This place has now moved inside the object so it has been necessary to change the scale. The pace within is a mind/body space, a shrine for one person. In pieces such as Untitled 1996 or Madonna the concave and convex shapes distort the senses and draw your eyes and at times the whole body in. Where Untitled is an actual void, where the steps in creating such an experience seem almost impossible and approaching seems dangerous, the deep blue hue of Madonna invites the viewer in. Once close enough, the shape envelops the viewer and fear is replaced with awe, and discomfort is replaced with comfort. Perspective and distance are lost in a void that is not there. Comfort is found in the round womb-like shape.
For Kapoor, the passage from emptiness to fullness must be actualized in the materials used. “At the same time, if this material is to convey emptiness, it must be dematerialized.” To maintain the presence of this dematerialized material, Kapoor uses substances not airy and light, but dense and heavy, hard. Stone, concrete, metals and plastics are used in large amounts. These heavy materials are able to create a contrast to the nothing, a home for the darkness, a space for us. We can understand how dense such materials are and at the same time cannot comprehend how such cavities were created in such dense materials. To experience a sculpture of such sort, viewers must lose themselves completely. They must volunteer themselves to “sensual uncertainty”. The viewer can relate the uncertainty in these forms to the uncertainty in themselves, and thus life and a soul is breathed into these inanimate objects. We are able to branch out into the metaphysical, the spiritual realm, for as long as we decide to let ourselves experience the sculpture. In this sense, these completely abstract forms are also extremely representational of something that cannot be represented.
I have experienced the void, or the illusion of such myself. My first experience with Kapoor came at the Tate modern in London with his piece, Ishi’s Light. “An egg-like structure opens to reveal a dark red interior. Kapoor has related this work to Barnett Newman’s paintings, in which a vertical stripe represents the creation of the universe. In Kapoor’s sculpture, a column of light appears at the centre, produced by reflections from the curved interior. ‘The column of light is like a virtual object’ he has said. ‘It isn’t simply on the surface’. The work is named after Kapoor’s young son Ishan.” (From the display caption September 2006). Kapoor is extremely successful in his goals. I was immediately drawn to this piece based on the inviting round shape alone. From the side the viewer sees just a sliver of, if possible, bright, shiny, darkness. As the viewer turns to view the piece frontally and enters, the darkness envelops you. Finished with lacquer, reflections can be seen all around, dark and distorted. The opening at the end creates a powerful band of light, and sounds echo in the small chamber that contrasts greatly to the quiet atmosphere of the gallery and whisperers discussing paintings across the hall. I was immediately moved by the piece and it did take some time to step away.
He is able to reach a place inside the viewer that very few things can, in any medium. With Kapoor, less is so much more. In fact, his pieces achieve such a great sense of simplicity, of “lessness”, that the ratio of less to more is infinite. With very little he creates very much. And even with such giant pieces as Cloud Gate or Marsyas, the simplicity in color and form and light, make these mammoth pieces so approachable that a same sense of infinite comfort and fear is evoked.
Kapoor is currently working on multiple projects and is based out of London. He is a visionary and pioneer today in not only sculpture but also art and new aesthetics as a whole. His pieces speak every language and no knowledge is needed of any kind to experience what he wants people to experience within his works.

yeah its a mouthfull.
check it:

i just discovered some radiohead videos that i either have not seen before or it has been a long time since seeing them.
its funny for being my favorite band of all time... i dont really listen to them that much. its almost as if i save them for that special occasion, comparable to say a best friend who has moved away.... still your best friend, you just dont hang out with them ever. they might even be better friends than the friends you do hang out with every single day. kind of a cool way of illustrating my relationship to radiohead. relationship. ha. well anything can be a relationship if you call it that. um so yeah here are some videos plus a painting that austin wanted me to do for him. oh and i just downloaded this program that turns any photo from your computer into a polaroid, its pretty sick and super fun and easy to do. AND jogli is this new internet radio/music database thingy... i dont know i am just trying it out but it has over 500 million songs and categorizes all artists by album and even includes accompanying videos for songs AND it saves what you have looked at before in a playlist on the side. AND song lyrics!

here is what happens when i type in radiohead and then clicked on amnesiac and then clicked on pyramid song

POLaroid PROGRAM

here are some videos :
reckoner

Find more videos like this on w.a.s.t.e. central

2+2=5

kn ives out/

py r/amid song

there there (when i first saw this video... this is what really made me a huge fan)

wolf at the door

the next 2 are fan made and use scenes from the films kingdom of heaven AND romeo and juliet beautifully done.

you and whose army

exit music (for a film)

i found this in the mix

the stranglers - strange little girl

and this now finally

just simple. not too much thikning involved for me when creating or for the viewer. and it was refreshing. sometimes i get stressed at myself when painting because i think way too much about it and always just want to push a painting further and further.... i never will think a painting is done until someone tells me. otherwise i will work on it for nearly ever i feel like. less is more sometimes. and i forget that.
i should have remembered that for this post.
oh yeah next sculpture is going to be even sicker than my last.... if i can pull it off.... i think i can. k bye

PS .. join W.A.S.T.E._CENTRAL .COM ITS SICK! you can videos like this...