Photos from Berlin

The weather was iffy throughout the majority of our stay in Berlin. There were a few moments of sun on the first day there, but those were overpowered by the heavy rains and the high humidity that made travel by foot/metro unpleasant. The highlight of our stay was Mustafa’s Donor Kebab, I really wish I snuck a photo of their stand. The people demand their Donor! Anyway, despite the weather I still managed to get some photos however, and to quote Die Antwoord - “I’m a NINJA!"









The snails! Germany and Austria have a magical forest quality about them, which is still evident even in the largest cities. These cute little guys do wreak havoc on vegetation, so don’t expect avid gardeners to take their presence lightly. I will tell this story at a later date...



...And

Color Studies

These are some small ink drawings that I’ve made in the past couple of days. I’m experimenting with my process by adding different uncontrolled variables.

Pittsburgh Double Exposures

Last winter I accidentally took some double exposures with my Minolta SRT-101 slr. I shot the roll, rewound the film, re-spooled it in the camera...and well, somehow I forgot about it. The archaic On-Off button and metering system make me not want to use the camera that often, so it sat in the drawer collecting dust. Months later I reckon I had a change of heart and took it out for a romp around Pittsburgh. when I got the film developed, I was surprised to see that there were multiple exposures... Oops! Anyhow, I get fond nostalgic feelings from these shots: Riding Pinky (my old bike) to school, sneaking photos at the Warhol museum, and leaving Frick late at night after doing work with friends.

Salzburg and Munich

The following photos are from the same roll of film. I’m psyched on how the car photos turned out!

Favorite Racing Laps Post 1

I loveeeeee auto racing... Seriously. Its an addiction. If you ask any of my previous roommates, they can attest to the fact that I willingly stayed up every weekend until 6am to watch the fly-away Formula One races. Shit, at four years old I drew the Monaco circuit on 3 sheets of 24 x 48 inch foam board, and I pushed my Hot Wheels cars to the limit on that track. I remember TV footage of the drivers going one handed while up-shifting out of the chicane and through the swimming pool section in Monaco, spurring my insane devotion to this carbon fibre religion. Being one of the coolest tracks, this first edition of favorite laps is going to feature a couple memorable Monaco GP videos.


This video is an onboard pole position lap from my favorite driver Jenson Button. He was incredibly quick in 2009 with a car that no one had expected to be successful, especially after his 2008 campaign was horrendous. Button went on the win the grand prix the following day, his first win in Monaco!





Ayrton Senna was hands down the King of Monaco. This footage from 1990 shows how bumpy this street circuit is. So cool to see him shifting gears with a proper 6-speed manual gearbox!

Skateboard Project Part 2

Its been a while since I last posted-grad school apps have kept me quite busy! Laura wrote an awesomely nice post -> http://visionsofpigeons.blogspot.com/2011/11/favorite-blogs.html, and I was inspired to update my blog!

So where were we? Oh yeah, so the block was ready to be printed. Our studio art department here in Pittsburgh does not teach woodcut printing, so we don’t have the type of press that is commonly used for this process. I had to make due with the etching press, which was fine, but it took a little trial and error to get the image to my liking. This is what the first print looked like with the block next to it on the press. I love this process photo, I think it demonstrates how clean and prepped the materials have to be.





The print!





The skateboard!





Here she is, painted with protective enamel to seal her from water and dirt. The color scheme and image was influenced by early Bauhaus painting (I’m pretty certain that I first sketched the idea for this project in my Bauhaus history class).

Fin!

Skateboard Project Part 1

In the late 90’s and early 2000’s Philly had an awesome scene for skating that revolved around Love Park and City Hall. It was dope to skate there because many of the pros that I idolized would mingle and talk to us youngsters. They’d warm up and casually attempt impossible tricks, making them look simple. I’d be there for ten hours bouncing off the marble tile and crashing around. Once it got dark I would trundle home covered in dirt and pigeon shit-but I loved it!

Memories like this have kept me inspired to stay involved with skateboarding for more than a decade. My directed study in printmaking was a perfect venue to experiment with new ways to approach skateboard design, something I had thought about doing for a while.





Last spring I was experimenting with woodblock printing (see previous post). The problem with block printing is that it generates a lot of refuse. I noticed that the rough grooves from the carvings acted like grip-tape on a skateboard. I purposefully converted the wood from the printing block to a skateboard as a way to extend the material’s life.

I’ve decided to name this project process "pre-adaptive reuse,” the method of designing an object with the intent that it will be reused (after serving its first purpose).





The woodblock was meticulously milled by hand in the shape of the skateboard. No CNC router in the Frick studio. Just a jig saw, palm sander, and TLC. ***Side Note: This wood was found in the garbage, so it further plays on the adaptive reuse theme.





Then I drew my design on the surface, and hand carved it with V and U-gouge tools. This photo shows the block after it had already been carved. For those who have never tried it, woodcarving is soooo tedious/difficult. Since its a reductive process there is no way of fixing a mistake. I have the utmost respect for master printers. Anyway, my block is now ready for printing.