Artlife: The Weekend that Kept on Going
The past week has been a whirlwind of events, with art as the focus. For the last year since starting our design business Object Adjective, I’ve been more or less out of the art scene – always dabbling on the periphery but not as involved as I once was. And while I love working in web design and development, it used to be that the practice of artmaking informed my design, my code, and vice versa. Continuing to work as an artist and stay engaged in the art and music scenes is important to me, and this past few days has served as a reminder.
A Little Bit Edwardian
Last Friday night was the Edwardian Ball – this year themed World’s Faire. Set at the Great American Music Hall, the gold leafed ornate detail of the old theater was the perfect backdrop for a night riddled with corsetry fashion shows, Edward Gorey inspired poetics and visuals, diverse Edwardian inspired music, art exhibits, and acrobatic performances.
Jeremy, Mici, August and I decked out in our turn of the century best, snapped a few pics at my apartment, and headed out to enjoy a night of music, art, and performance. The event was spectacular – with so much to see and do.
On the stage, there were several musical acts and dj’s, a corsetry fashion show set to Edward Gorey inspired poetics put on by Dark Garden, acrobats and contortionists. Kinetic Steam Works displayed their impressive steam powered creations next to the dance floor. For additional visual stimuli, there were display cases full of little skeletons clad in edwardian attire and jars with preserved hearts, science anomalies, and more by Paxton Gate set up throughout the space, a Gorey Scope and other Tim Burton inspired kinetic sculpture, painted artworks, fashion booths, and a friendly gentleman selling beautiful hand crafted leather animal masks.
If you want to see more pics, you can head over to my Flickr account to check them out.
A Little Bit Contemporary
Saturday night at at The Garage was a very different sort of art event – 100 Performances for the Hole (Notes Going Up and Down), consisting of literally about 100 back to back art performances lasting 2 minutes each. The Garage is, as the name might suggest, my friend Justin Hoover’s parents’ garage turned art gallery. All 2 minute performances were in, around, or inspired by the oil pit hole in The Garage in one way or another. The diverse performances that made up the event were streamed live over the web, with the video feed cutting back and forth between those located in The Garage, and remote performances from as far away as Taiwan.
The performances ranged from a huge fire being set in the hole (which smoked everyone out of The Garage for a bit), to a human fountain of spit water into the hole, to the giving of gifts, to musical arrangements, to spoken word. I think I can speak for everyone though when I say that two of the most memorable performances involved cars (appropriate since the space is technically a garage). In the first, a helmeted artist drove a rental car into the garage and crashed it into the hole – then proceeded to hook the exhaust pipe up to a hydrolic levetation device under the car, which when inflated, pushed the car up to ground level so the artist could then drive the car out of the garage. The second involved a rented Hummer, which made it into the garage with about 1 inch of clearance on all sides. The artist parked over the hole, and set up a television hooked up to a live video feed. With video camera in hand, he slipped under the car and into the hole, and videoed himself spray painting the word “SAFE” on the underside of the car.
Jeremy and I participated, not only by helping Justin display the live video feed on the website, but by performing a 2 minute piece called Specimen: A Clinical Study of American Culture. Dressed in stark white lab coats and latex gloves, we synchronized the unpacking of our grocery bags and the making of 2 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on Wonderbread. We then placed our sandwiches in ziplock baggies, repacked the groceries, and exchanged the sandwiches with one other. Placing the bagged “specimen” in our left lab coat pockets, we exited the performance space.
On the way off the staging area, I was accosted by a hungry artist for the freshly made sandwich, so I promptly gave it away to him. This, of course, was not part of the performance, but it was an amusing extension of our staged piece.
Overall, despite the difficulties in getting 100 people to perform in one evening, the night was a tremendous success. My props go out to Justin for putting on a hell of an event!
A Little Bit Design
As the work week began again on Monday, I found myself still engaged in the arts, as currently two of my projects tie into art in different ways. Firstly, I’m working on a redesign and expansion of the San Francisco Children’s Art Center website – which desperately needs it! Also, I’m working on branding, design and development for an online art poster contest site for an STD prevention campaign for ISIS.
And A Lot of Motivation
And if that’s not enough, freshly motivated by the weekend, I updated my art portfolio site and have begun the hunt for an art studio in SF again. Yesterday, with the recommendation of my friend and artist Deric Carner, I applied to the Studio Artist Residency Program at Root Division, a Mission District arts organization. They offer studio space at discounted rates to working artists in exchange for service hours working in their gallery, maintaining the facilities, and teaching their community education classes. It’s an awesome opportunity, and I’m crossing my fingers that I get in, since the application process is competitive. Cross your fingers for me!
On January 31st, 2008, Mark said:
Do you need to buy a special waiver from the rental car company if you are going to use it in an art piece?
On February 1st, 2008, Jeremy Anderson said:
Synchronized sandwich making is indeed ART. Though, I must say, Wonder Bread feels strange through latex gloves.
@Mark – it’s called insurance.