The Blue Bird Book Bus paint job (almost there).

The Blue Bird Books bus in its almost complete painted finish (still some minor touch up to do). You can view the Blue Bird Books blog at http://bluebirdbookbus.blogspot.com/

and i suggest you do!

Nix Stix

come to debbie

	Ergo Phizmiz - Come to Debbie .mp3
	Found at bee mp3 search engine

Long Island City reprise

Some months ago I blogged about my trip to Long Island City for work. Here i will show the complete project that i assisted artist Keith Edmier to create. This work of public art was fabricated at the studio of Matthew Barney. Because of Keith Edmier's long standing friendship and work relationship with Matthew Barney he was given access to the dockside part of the studio which was required because of the scale of Edmier's work.

The entire process started with a lifeboat from a great lakes freighter. The first job i had was to strip the lifeboat of all seating, hardware and anything else that would interfere visually with Keith's new sculpture.
Next was the long process of stripping away as much of safety orange lead based paint as we could on the interior and exterior of the shell.
Here is an image of all the hardware and rotted wood stripped from the boat. Including some very cool metal floatation seats (stacked in the background) and a bunch of nifty hardware.
All holes in the bottom of the structure were then patched and the wood structure shored up with new pieces.
The floor planks were then replaced and the new finish began. The entire inner surface was to be coated with taconite. Taconite is a low grade iron ore that resembles large rust colored marbles. The work that Keith Edmier had conceived of is a meditation on the Edmund Fitzgerald disaster in the Great Lakes crossed with Viking ship burials. The Edmund Fitzgerald was carrying a cargo of taconite when it went down in Lake Superior in 1975. The final destination for the work was to be Pilan, Sweden where Keith had researched many aspects of Viking burial ritual and metal forging techniques.
Gravity was our friend during this process so the shell was rocked from side to side with a fork lift while we worked on the coating process.

Below is Andy who is an expert rigging man among other numerous talents. We worked together for about 8 days or so. Andy is very involved in Dietl International which is the most professional and well established art shipping company in the world. Suffice to say that Andy is used to problem solving on a grand scale.
The taconite creates a strange and beautiful surface with varied surface color.
One of the final parts of the sculpture was a stripped down anchor which was to be placed in the shell resting on the newly shored up platform.
Below are images of the final install in Sweden including the burial aspect and mound that is part of the work. The work titled "You gotta go out, you don't have to come back," is meant to change over time in its environment- grass will grow over the mounds, the anchor and shell will oxidize and finally the entire sculpture will be covered with a man made lake.


Here are a few links with more info on this great work of art.

http://www.explorewestsweden.com/?p=1032

http://www.visitsweden.com/sweden/PressRoom/Local-press-rooms/US/Press-releases/Press-releases-2011/Sculpture-at-Pilane/

192LEGO

I have been living next to the largest orange in the world or "The World's Largest Orange" for the last few months and have been working on various parts of Legoland, a theme park to open in Winter Haven, Fl. this month. I feel it is important to introduce the "scenic" art side into this blog because it is the commercial art that has allowed me to survive through the last 17 years or so. I have worked on reproductions of Egyptian temples to scale in foam and stucco, faux finished towers 46 stories up on the Atlantis Casino in The Bahamas, worked on Universal Studios Wizarding World of Harry Potter, touched up experiential machines at the Scientology Flagship in Clearwater FL, sculpted, painted and cast stuff for more clients than i can mention here all over the world. This post is dedicated to some of the most recent projects i have been involved with working for Nassal Co. in Orlando Fl

Below are some of the parts of Legoland, Winter Haven's entry way and large fiberglass fish for Pixar.

These are the turrets for Legoland's entrance before they are skinned out and finished.

Huge fiberglass flags adorn the tops of the turrets in its complete state.

Metal armature for the Legoland entrance arch.

Progress on the Legoland pieces can be seen in the below images.

It is worth mentioning that the hotel that i stayed at on SR 192 is between the "Largest Orange in The World" and this gift shop shaped like a wizard.
Next are images of scenic treatments and sculptures for Universal Studios. The first image is a before and after of an outhouse that needed to be aged. Using paint treatments to achieve this look is one of the many things done in the scenic industry with regularity. So common. in fact, that it becomes second nature to execute this kind of work.

Here is a sculpture of a comical swamp beast. Sculpted from urethane foam and prepped to be molded and cast with plumbing included- the head is meant to spit water on people.

More scenic adventures both past and present will be posted as part of the Cryptovisual Blog in the future.

Elf ring and geomancy in Ybor City Tampa

Several Sundays ago I encountered several strange things at once in my neighborhood.

about a month before this odd Sunday a home burned down on 21st Ave. catty-corner to our studio. This home had been a favorite target for arson, having caught fire some 4 times(or more). This was the final fire for that structure- the City of Tampa quickly razed the remains of the structure leaving an empty lot.

Then several Sundays past I passed the lot driving and noticed several people digging in the lot.

I turned to swing around the block thinking to ask what they were doing ( there are lots of abandoned properties in my neighborhood and often people dig the lots for treasure in the form of antique glass and other trinkets that are now of value). In changing my coarse i came upon another uncanny sight, In the field next to an old nursing home a perfect ring of mushrooms. I knew the legends of Elves Rings on a very superficial level but it was enough for me to reverse myself again and go to this sight.

After documenting the Faerie Ring i moved along to my original quest- the digging lot. Once i arrived at this location the two gentlemen digging had been joined by a third and they had put up umbrellas for shade.
I spoke to the gentlemen about their activity and was informed that the block that i live on was once a dump where trenches were filled with trash- trash that is now vintage glass, antique crystal, embossed jars, old chamber-pots- the stuff that occupies antique store shelf space.

I asked if they had ever found a bottle of Pluto Water ( an artifact i have been after for quite some time) and one of them replied that they find them all the time. My interest had been stirred. Pluto Water was "cure water" for constipation that my grandfather would always mention to me because it had an embossed devil image on the bottom of the bottle (Pluto=Satan) so i got their contact info, took a bunch of discarded glass in two 5 gallon buckets and went on my way.

I then started to research "Elf Rings" and found an incredible amount of folk lore on the subject, most of it cautionary in nature. It seems that these fungal patterns are a gate-way to the spirit world, perilous in nature and most dangerous on a full moon (which it was). 

So i resolved to go back- i had read that to circle the ring 9 times would make it safe to enter the ring. Strangely i had not walked inside the ring on my first visit but i did walk all the way around it. I also drove around it once completely. So i figured 7 more circles should do the trick.

I convinced Kym to join me (although she did not want anything to do with entering the ring) with our dog for a little walk. Once we arrived ( i had Rici on the leash ) i began my first circle.

1/4 or less around the "Elf Ring" the dog stopped,would not go further even if tugged and bent her head down and started eating grass. I took the hint. I like to say that i am not supersticious but.....

When it Rains it Pours.... Or a function that is not a function.

Last month was a very busy one for me. I began working in Orlando Fl on the parts for Legoland in Winter Haven Fl, produced a multiple for PYT Tampa, painted the bus for Blue Bird Books and continued to work on the "Sugar Shanks" for Current Space Baltimore. 

Young Philanthropic Tampa, founded by Anneliza Musoke Taylor and Hampton Dorhman ( pictured below at a meeting we had at The Bricks in Ybor City Tampa), is always looking for ways to connect people with the arts in Tampa. We came up with a membership premium that would also be a multiple art object as a strategy to boost memberships. This idea eventially became the Tampa Nazar.


The work i produced is part charm part trinket and part sculptural object. Based on the Nazar amulets popular around the world to "protect against the evil eye" this work has the  latin words- "sedem tueatur a malis artibus" embedded in it which translates to "protect this place from bad art". This phrase is has a double meaning that can be taken in the original function of these amulets, protect this place from evil magic (black art) or protect this place from bad art (which is subject to the tastes of the owner of the amulet). This brings up an interesting argument in that even though the member owners of these amulets are all part of the same organization they will all have their own take on what is "bad art". Perhaps the Nazar itself could be considered "bad art" by some which means its function would be to negate itself.

I kind of like that possibility.
The first 10 Nazars (pictured above) are translucent resin with the central eye tinted the color of the PYT member that owns it.
5 gift Nazars were also made for PYT and are solid copper cold cast with aluminum iris.

For the last month or so i have been also painting a bus. This is not just any bus though- It is the Blue Bird Books Bus. The blog connencted with this project can be viewed at http://bluebirdbookbus.blogspot.com/- The idea is to create a mobile project space that focuses on artist books, rare books and book-like objects. Blue Bird Books is the creation of Mitzi Gordon and she has been working hard to make her dream come to fruition. I look forward to working with Mitzi and BBB on future projects after the completion of the bus's

transformation.

Above the bus is taped off with its original orange and black school bus color.
Here the bus has received a caot of epoxy primer after much prep work (sanding, degreasing, taping......)
And the base blue for the bus.