I am currently at the Archie Bray Foundation in Helena, MT for the month of June as one the resident artists in a group called The Edge in celebration of the Bray’s 60th anniversary. I arrived at the Bray with two plans of action, to assembly a MakerBot to continue my investigation of printing porcelain (YouTube), via an extrusion process, and to begin a body of work that specifically deals with design, function, and clay. The MakerBot is assembled and ready to go as soon as a couple of replacement boards arrive early next week. I began this research last fall with good success, which I hope to build on. I also began to investigate forms today, though nothing specifically in mind really just focused play to get the process primed.

It was also a beautiful Saturday with friends new and old, followed by an early evening rain and an amazing rainbow.

Speculative Landscapes
Recitation Gallery
University of Delaware
Opening Reception: March 9th, 7:00 p.m.
Artists Talk: March 9th, 6:00 p.m.
March 9th – 27th, 2011
www.udel.edu/art/news-events/calendar.html

The newest of my work, Speculative Landscapes incorporates real, living elements in the form of moss contained in terrariums. Moss is a simple plant, more closely related to algae than to common plants of today, and has survived for approximately 250 million years. Wardian Cases (terrariums) rose to popularity during the 19th century on the heels of the Industrial Revolution and the concentration of people in urban centers. Terrariums served as a means of protection from the polluted air of Victorian cities, and allowed for nature to be brought into the domestic space, fostering a connection to the natural world in an era when the human relationship to their environment changed more rapidly and significantly than at any other point in history. These miniature landscapes, coupled with iconic trees made of raw clay, are situated on a complex system of shelving (both digitally designed and milled) that creates multiple, dislocated horizon lines, which becomes a literal intersection of design, landscape, and technology. Not unlike the Industrial Revolution, the Digital Revolution has further distanced the human relationship to the natural world, ushering in an era of mediated experiences removed from the world of tactility and the physical nature of the body.

On Display at:
The Crane Arts Building
1400 N. American Street, Philadelphia, PA

My new, redesigned site, now features my most recent work, which includes a wall hung, computer-controlled drawing machine. This machine made its debut last month at the DEAN PROJECT in Long Island City, NY at the RoCoCoPop exhibition. The response to this piece has been very positive and lead to a good deal of conversation at the reception. The liQcity blog did a nice review of the happenings of the Armory Arts Week in Long Island City, making a brief mention of my work. More details and info on the drawing machine page.

For the past eighteen months, or so, I have been working with home-brewed CNC-based plotting and milling machines. The milling process has made its way into the work through pink insulating foam in a number of pieces, which can be viewed in the current work section of the website. Initially, the plotter was simply a means to test the progress of the milling machine during the building and design stages, but I recognized it for what it was: a great opportunity to address drawing in my work that is consistent with my process and, more importantly, the conceptual interests in my work.

I produced a handful of drawings last year that I used to test the possibilities of the tool. The most recent and cohesive body of work to come from the home-brewed plotter is the Audubon Series. This series of drawings utilizes marker on painted panel, sampled and remixed using John James Audubon’s seminal text Birds of America as a point of departure. Currently, there are two series of drawings within the Audubon Series works, the Birds of Prey and Domestic Camouflage series.

The seven drawings in this series can be viewed on the drawing page.