Snow

Frozen Frozens

I went for a walk last night in the snow and I took my camera along to snap a few shots. I found a few interesting things to shoot. One spot I found this really interesting texture in the snow that was created from the wind which was blowing pretty hard. I only took a hand full of pictures because I didn't have gloves and my hand was freezing holding my camera. Plus the wind was driving the snow really hard, especially on the Fremont bridge. I always love going out and taking pictures when it snows, there is nothing else can change the city so much as a snowstorm. Most people just huddle up in their homes, I'd much rather go out and explore.

Etsy

Collection

I created a flickr set which will eventually include everything that I've made for my etsy shop. Sort of like a portfolio of my work. I also took some pictures of my pendants hanging on a mannequin to give a better sense of scale. Right now I have pictures posted of most of the items already in my shop but there are also some new items. I've been making a bunch new lens pendants and I have also been making some hand made beads for some small choker style necklaces. There will also be some more chain mail items such as a few more bracelets and cubes. This next week I'll be posting new items in my shop every day. I will also be having a sale on every item in my shop starting tomorrow and running for a few weeks.

Here is a slide show of my etsy collection as of right now.

Listening To

Late 60's Music

Working late into the night I tend to change what I listen to. For some reason the songs I listen to the most late at night tend to be songs from the late 60's. Here are a few of my favorite songs to listen to while I work late into the night.

Pink Floyd - Cirrus Minor (1969)

The Moody Blues - Nights In White Satin (1967)

The Doors - The End (1967)

I think that late at night I like listening to music with surreal atmospheres of sound and texture because I also listen to a lot of Sigur Ros and Godspeed You Black Emperor.

Something We Came Across

Lunar Lander

Our first night in Birch Bay we had ventured out to find a store to buy food and beer when somewhere we took a wrong turn. Somehow we ended up heading south when we should have been going east. This was around 8 at night and surrounding the road there is nothing but dark fields, pretty much everything is dark. All of a sudden, around a small bend in the road, way off in the distance, directly in the center of the road, a spectacular bright white light appeared. Like moths, we were drawn in. As we approached it from well over a mile away it just keeps getting brighter and brighter as we get closer. Our first contact was one of amazement and bewilderment of just what exactly we were seeing. We drove around the traffic circle over and over again just admiring the amazing sight of this super bright light illuminating the white rocky mound in this otherwise pitch black landscape.

The light was sitting in the center of a recently constructed traffic circle directly next to the BP Cherry Point refinery where Blaine Rd and Grandview Rd meet. The refinery was a massive eerie backdrop to this light. Everything surrounding you seemed to be a commentary on excessiveness. All the excessiveness was rather beautiful though. This light was much brighter then any thing you would ever need, it might have made sense if someone was actually working out there but the light was sitting alone with its engine running all night.  Stretching down the road away from this traffic circle were hundreds of cones with blinking lights flickering away. Off in the distance was the refinery with towers covered in lights looking like skyscrapers in the night time skyline of a small city. There were plumes of steam rising in the air illuminated from below and open flames lighting up the night sky. The contrast between all these lights surrounding the darkness was as beautiful as it was unsettling and unnatural feeling. You could easily pluck this setting and place it in the right gallery and have a very successful show.

Look At This

Captured

Today I developed a roll of film I've had in my modified Kodak Duaflex III since this summer. There were some pictures on there from the Fremont Solstice parade as well as other random shots. You can see the other pictures from this camera here. The first picture I took with this roll was this one.

See that guy in the bottom left corner, that's Freddy. I've worked with him the past few years for John Grade. I had no idea he was there. I was holding the camera above my head looking through the small viewfinder. It wasn't until after I took the picture that Freddy came up and said hi. He totally ruined my picture.

Check This Out

Huge Ass Lights

Check out these huge ass lights.

I was helping out Annie and Daniel move a crate out of the old Lawrimore Project space when they also took back these huge ass lights. They were hanging in the space above the office space. Originally Daniel had bought them surplus not knowing what to do with them, he just knew that he had to have them. They sat around until they were used at Lawrimore project for the last few years. Now that there not being used for anything I've been thinking about just what you can do with these things. They are so large and ridiculous that putting them anywhere besides a large warehouse just seems comical. So I decided to try this out.

Pretty sweet, right?

God help anyone that cuts you off.

You might have to get a few extra batteries to power these things but they would basically turn night into day.

You Should Watch

Mulholland Drive

I've been blogging a lot lately on the sculpture I helped to install, but now I'm going to get back into more of a routine and start up some of my daily themed posts and try not to talk about the sculpture.

So when were were staying up in Birch Bay while installing the sculpture we found ways to pass the time each night. We usually just drank, but a few nights we decided to watch a movie. One night Gregg and I decided to introduce Annie and Daniel to the Arnold Schwarzenegger cinematic masterpiece which is The Running Man. There were mixed reviews. Another night we decided to watch Mulholland Drive, a movie I had watched once before when I was I think 18 so I hardly remembered it.

Now I'm not going to go into any detail and try at all to explain what goes on in the film, mostly because the film does not make any sense. What you basically need to know about the film is that it is a dream, and it's really hard to explain. Being so confusing can leave some people lost and they might spend the whole movie trying to figure out what the hell is going on when all you really need to do is enjoy what is going on. This movie contains some of the greatest scenes ever, and none of them really relate to the other. It is as if David Lynch had a notebook full of amazingly thought out scenes that he hoped to one day fit into a movie but then devided to make a movie out of all of his great scene ideas.

There is also a strong undertone of resentment towards the whole movie industry throughout the film that David Lynch is trying to point out. There are a lot of insights to the shady underbelly of the movie industry. This clip is one of the great scenes in the movie, and again is one of those moments when you wonder just what the hell is going on.

One of the strongest and most powerful scenes in the film incorporates one of the larger themes of this film, it does not exist. There is a club they go to in which all that you see is not real, club Silencio. There is no band, yet you hear a band, it is all an illusion. It gets into a deeper theme of Hollywood as a whole, there are these very moving moments you watch on film that are not actually real. They are fabricated illusions, yet we watch and take them in as if they are real. Even knowing they are not real does not seem to matter, sometimes we may hold those things that are not real over the things that actually do exist. Movies are so great in creating that illusion because they are able to take the time and set up the conditions to make that scene then also to take multiple takes of the same scene until everything is perfect. Where as live stage performers have that one chance every night in order to get it right. Seeing a live stage performer, either actor of musician, pull off that perfect performance seems to be more powerful then seeing someone perform something equally powerful in film. It may be that live stage performers have the advantage of the atmosphere of the moment which influences the audience. You then could say it would be possible for someone to direct a live performance in which the illusions are timed perfectly with the actors in a way to fabricate the illusion and create that perfect scene. Broadway does this all the time with stagecraft, but it much harder to pull off with out seeing some slight outside action from strings of other noticeable back stage actions. You also have the problem of only having that one shot and if one thing messes up your illusion is ruined. I'm not sure if any of that I just wrote makes sense but I'm building up to what I think is the greatest scene in Mulholland Drive.

It's on netflix instant view, so go check it out. Just don't try and follow the plot, because there is none.

Watch This

Installing Non-Sign II

Here is the time lapse video I made of the instillation of LPS new sculpture Non-Sign II at the border crossing in Blaine.

While we were installing I set up my camera to capture various stages of the install as well as the buzz of movement over a given day. The piece took two weeks to install and I shot every day except one, the one day it was raining. Each day averaged around 2,000 pictures and in all this video is made up of around 20,000 pictures.