60 x 60

Chase Winkler has a way with understanding a character.  He is the best I've ever known at physically impersonating anybody (or anything) in their voice, gesture, and mannerism.  I have realized over many years of seeing his 2-dimensional work that there is a beautifully obvious and brilliant connection between his drawing and his thoughts... how he see's the world.  I know that fact sounds simple; in that everyone tries that in a way.... Yet, it is incredibly hard to successfully express to a stranger something so complex as a thought.  To speak without saying anything, almost.  Well, it comes pretty natural to him... I don't even think he realizes it.

Sixty Drawings in Sixty Minutes is Chases take on Ten Sculptures In Ten Days.  He made his own rules followed them.  He documented and time-lapsed the process and posted it HERE, along with a clever write-up by he, himself.  In these studies, I can see people he has been around and things he has been thinking about.  It seems to me like a kind of explosion of stuff that makes him laugh, or makes him mad, sad, or things he learns while working, things he remembers from his dreams, or things that he is afraid of, or things he ponders while having a beer on the hill.  Watch and enjoy.  Thanks, Chase.   ART IS FUN.  Cheers.

Dinking Around, 10 times

Julia Sisson is a fortune teller.  She is from Nebraska and hasn't lived in one place for more then two months in a year.  She is a sculptor and currently an Intern Artist at Franconia Sculpture Park making a kinetic interactive work.  She is a good baker, and sometimes clears her throat for an extensive amount of time.  Julia has nice friends from all over and right this instant is working in the dark misty rain.  Her work lamp is illuminating and a glowing orb shines around her space.  She did Ten Sculptures In Ten Days.

I truly enjoy her response to the project and am glad that someone finally took on the challenge.  I can tell she understands why I did it, and it feels good to know that someone was inspired to commit to such an endeavor.  It was also nice to be on the other side of it, that is, to see someone else who is so so incredibly driven by an other worldly self-proclaimed task.  Often, when she was around you could tell there were wheels constantly turning in her head; thinking of things to do next, wondering if she did the last part right, or contemplating other personal issues and deciding how to voice them through objects.  I enjoy those times.  When something is so important for no apparent reason, especially in the beginning stages.  It gets so frustrating that you wonder why the fuck you're even doing it, and not just the Ten Sculptures in Ten Days, but in general maybe.  I am thinking that that is also what this was about originally.  Giving myself a deadline undoubtedly forced me to think about how to resolve these problems, whether internal or not, very fast.  The feeling of accomplishment or pride takes a little bit to sink in.  And by the time it finally does over a beer and some conversation about it, you are ready for the next task, whatever it is.  So rather than getting stuck in this contradictory cycle, I am trying to learn to appreciate the small things.  Little problem solving everyday.

Thanks to Julia for participating.  She made her own rules and documented the process quite beautifully  on her blog.  I may someday get her photo's and some text of hers in reference to her blog, just so it can also all be on one page.  Cheers!

Ten Days and Ten Sculptures Later

It has been a long ten days.  My sleep schedule crept out of it's winter hours and back into less each night.  My hands are back to their stained, soar, cracked, and scabbed state that I love so much.  The stress of grad school work is setting in with interviews and all, it snowed about 10 inches, and the hard work to come this summer is nearing closer and closer.  That being said, I feel a lot better about myself.  The goal of this project was to get back to working, to stop filtering my ideas out so much, and to defeat a challenge.  Problem solving is what makes me feel accomplished, and the past ten days ended in a feeling of success.  At times during this project I found myself very stressed.  In the notes I took it says (in very messy penmanship) things like "slow down", "trying to work faster only ends up taking longer in fixing your mistakes", and "god says I can't buy beer at the Shafer One Stop on Sunday".  Each time I found myself stressed I had to remind myself that this was not supposed to do that, it was supposed to be fun.  In undergrad I began using the phrase "Art Is Fun" probably far too often for it to be funny anymore.  But at the right time, when you or the people around you are stressed beyond belief and at their tipping point, it can be all-too appropriate.  Art is hard work, Sculpture is work in every sense of the word.  It is pretty amazing to think of the time, effort, money, stress, lack-of-sleep, research, contemplation, pain... so-on-so-forth that we have put into our efforts as artists.  Sometimes, Art is not fun, so you have to remind yourself a lot.  That's kind of what this is all about.  It was to get out of the habit I was stuck in, and to possibly learn something about myself, which I feel I did.  And also to remind myself that Art Is Fun, before I go to grad school and go through However Many Sculptures in 1095 days.  Plus the winter is so god damn depressing at times that I needed to keep my mind and hands busy.  I think I have gotten a few people interested in this... in seeing my results, and in doing this themselves someday.  I am going to send some e-mails to friends and see who else I can get to participate and send me their results to post on this blog.  Some day I hope this page is full of different struggles, accomplishments, advice, (maybe funny jokes), and inspiration from people I don't even know.  Regarding that, if you are interested you should e-mail me (drudisillw@gmail.com)  I can send you a file of how I got started, but I would like it to be known that you can, and should make your own rules.  Maybe it's Five Sculptures in Ten Days, or maybe you try to do ten sculptures all built from one pile of material, or maybe you try to do ten sculptures out of ten completely new materials, or maybe they all have to move or make sound, or maybe the ten sculptures all follow a different process of building, or maybe you try to make a small piece of writing in ten days, or maybe you try ten new foods in ten days, maybe you even fucking COOK THEM, I DON'T KNOW!, but you get the point.  It can be up to you, but it should be well documented so that you can share your process and learn something about how you work.  When there's more examples on this page, maybe you will come here to be inspired.  Or maybe it's just me here alone trapped on the internet forever, and that's just fine.  Here is my way of doing Ten Sculptures In Ten Days. The completed Sculpture Documentation, budget, and music list will be at the end, this section is about the process.  It is formulated from the sloppy notes I took while working, and from my memory.  CHEERS!

This is the Market building at Franconia Sculpture Park.  It's where Jason (fellow employee out of Indiana, and possible future participant??), and I work for the winter.  It is a small space, heated with a kerosine tube heater, mostly suitable for wood working.

Following are the drawings and ideas I created for this project.  They are not in the order that I built the sculptures, but rather the order that I formulated the ideas, as the sculptures were worked on simultaneously (which is somewhat new for me).  

 

As I sat down to write and draw ideas I kept thinking of what this project was about for me, and why I was doing it.  Where do I find inspiration?  I looked up at my steaming (because of the cold) cup of coffee, and began to think of how many cups I drink a day, or this past summer.  I had earlier discovered a cool way to make cylinders (while starting to build a snare drum) out of laminated plywood and set out to make a coffee cup.  I thought it was silly but was also trying hard not to filter my ideas in respect to this project.  Also about here in my notes it says "Sharpen pencil often".

My notes now read "Don't smoke for ten days" (which I was successful with), "wake up by at least 6 every morning" (also successful), "work out every night" (ehh....), "make blog tonight" (done), and "keep wood glue clamped for at least 30 minutes".

Along the lines of liquid inspiration, beer is pretty inspiring to me.  I set out to make a hard case for a six pack of bottles.  I wanted to make a commercial... "Are you tired of your beer bottles falling out of the box and smashing on the ground?!"  People who shop at Richard's Bait and Tackle in Plattsburgh, NY know what I mean as their boxes are often pre-smashed, or wet for one of many possible reasons.  I also wanted to make six concrete bottles for this pack and call it "Jobsite Six Pack"  But I couldn't get my plaster mold to cooperate properly to make six bottles in time.

Being resourceful I thought I would drink the six pack of Grain Belt (MN beer) and use the bottles for my next sculpture.  A rack for the back of my truck that holds six bottles.  Each bottle would be filled with a different amount of water, and able to change the angle against the wind in order for it to whistle.  Since there are six bottles and six strings on a guitar, I tried my best to tune each bottle to the appropriate tone to create a C-chord when I drove.  Tuning bottles is hard and makes you dizzy.

My notes here read "God says I can't buy beer at the Shafer One Stop on Sunday" (I went to Wisconsin), "Call your mom"(which I still haven't done, sorry mom), and "always use 100% Silicone".

I somehow got inspired to make an inflatable.  I wanted some of these sculptures to be interactive, rather than just objects, and I have always enjoyed using electronics and lights for works in order to evoke more than just the visual sense.  It took a bit to figure out exactly how an inflatable works, but this was probably the fastest built of all the sculptures.

On one of the nice days I figured I would try and document the Whistling Beer Bottles on my truck.  This was supposed to be simple and not take long, but it ended up being the opposite of that (as things seem to go fairly often).  I was standing up in the back of my truck with the tailgate down while Carissa drove at about 55 mph on route 95.  People were in front and behind us and wondered what the hell I was doing.  It was very, very cold.  The bottles had to be higher up to catch the right wind.  The video at the end of this post doesn't do any justice to the sound it made (as with the other sound-making works).  In the truck bed the hum of the bottles was very loud over the wind.

I also decided to re-film a project I filmed a few nights prior that I wasn't happy with.  I still couldn't quite get it to do what I wanted.  This is the only project that doesn't have a finished physical result besides the video documentation (as I had wished).  The idea was a painting made by a small water pump coming through the "canvas" from the other side.  The pump would slowly go through the ROYGBIV spectrum, leaving those colors on the painting.  It worked, but not as I had planned.  The night I filmed the first one outside, the coyote's were going wild.  This work was the least "successful" in my mind, but that doesn't mean I didn't learn anything.  I'd like to come back to this idea in the future and continue to do "documented performance" type stuff.  This sculpture also turned one of my non-sculpture shirts into a sculpture shirt (you know what I mean).

Cafe Bustello cans are great for sculptors.

The first time I filmed this project the pigmented water that fell on the ground froze almost immediately when it hit the ground.  It stayed until the next morning and left some nice marks in some tire tracks.

My notes here read, "keep work space clean" (I tried), and "full moon.  I can hear two men arguing inside a parked semi outside of the market.  It's ten o'clock."

In the hope of making a detailed budget for this project I began saving my receipts.  After doing taxes this year I realized I need to start saving ALL of my receipts.  This project made me start a box of them which I hope to continue to use.

I got the idea to make a "wood" stove.  My mother has a collection of wood stoves.  (I know, big "collection" to have, huh?).  BUT, she has traveled all around the north east finding some really beautiful antique stoves for years and years.  I recently spent a lot of time moving and photographing them.  This sculpture is a play on words, and an homage to my mother.  I planned to have a fire in it, and still may some day.

Aside from building these works, I did have some other duties.  A volunteer position for a fundraising event with Public Art St. Paul.  I mostly worked in the kitchen (which I was completely fine with).  The chef's owned a Somalian Restaurant and the food was amazing.  Also, Jason and I went to pick up some red pine logs for us and the park.  We took 23 logs ranging from 8 ft to 16 ft lengths.  We may go back for more.

We were done at about 2 o'clock.  That day I had planned to do a steel project since it was nice enough outside.  Most of the work areas are snowed in so I quickly built a make-shift steel work space and tried to hustle.  I expected that I had until about midnight before we got a big snow storm.  I had to build and document my work by then.  I rushed through this work with limited space, snow and ice buried materials, limited time, and only a stick welder to use (this piece had to be water tight, and it's hard(er) for me to make pretty welds with a stick).  The idea was a steam whistle.  When you have a fire underneath the work, it heats a vessel and brings water to a boil.  The valve at top makes a whistle.  I have worked with fire and steam before and wanted another try at it.  I enjoy the interactive idea of an event, or the viewer participation absolutely necessary for the work to be complete.  Plus it's fun to drink beer around a fire and make a piercing hideous sound.  The video of this work once again does no justice for the intense sound it made.  It was uncomfortable for me to be next to the whistle while I was activating it.  You can sort of hear the echo over the corn field when I stop the whistle abruptly.  Soon after I did this, the coyotes called back in the distance.  I was slightly worried they thought I was an injured rabbit and that I would get malled.  Also it was about 2 a.m and it was cold.  But my goal to fabricate was completed.  I was tired of the market.  Here, my notes say, "measure twice, cut ONCE", and "buy Jason replacement wood glue and wood putty".

Photo of a beer while working- Check.

Along the same idea as my over-use of the phrase "Art Is Fun", I often have to remind myself of patience.  I am typically very impatient with things.  I found that my best sculptural work is done when I am patient in constructing the idea and the physical object.  I know at this point how I work, and I can tell when I am working impatiently that I am going to ruin something and spend more time fixing it.  This was an interesting project as I struggled between having to work on many pieces at once, and do so hastily.  I wanted to make a work in reaction to this thought.  This sculpture was incredibly tedious to string the lights, drill holes, and zip tie them.  Ironically, I was not very patient when I built this.

The last Sculpture I built was pretty simple as I was tired and was worried how long photo/video editing would take, and also writing and publishing this blog.  The idea was to make a home-made record player that plays a saw blade and screeches as the needle hits it.  This sound was also piercing.  I'm not sure why I enjoy making un-pleasant sounds with sculptures.  Maybe beautiful sounds are harder??

This meant that I was done building ten sculptures in ten days, and it felt pretty good, but the work wasn't done.  (photographing, editing, writing, cleaning...) So I drank one of Jason's beers (owe you) and put on some good albums while I documented and cleaned the market.

This is a photo of a properly "knolled" work-space.  I stole this term from an artist I admire, Tom Sachs.  If you haven't looked him up I suggest you do.  "Always be Knolling".

I told myself in the beginning of this project that I could spend up to $200 on materials. (less is better)  I have always tried to be resourceful in my building, but you have to buy some things.  Here is what I bought (at least what I recorded that I bought) in no specific order.

$6.32 - six pack grain belt

$4.98 - type s mortar mix (80lbs)

$4.99 - male and female cord ends

$4.79 - dimmer switch

$3.49 - fender washers

$1.99 - shaft collar

$6.78 - brass ball valve

$1.78 - 1/2 in. nipple

$.88 - black cap

$19.96 - clear rope light

$7.98 - silicone

$11.88 - primer

$3.70 - vinyl tube

$6.84 - hinges

$12.68 - trash can

$.88- hose barb

$.99 - washers

$1.09 - bolts

$102.00 even for a total... not bad.

This is a list of the music I listened to while building these things (at least the ones I remembered to write down).  Music is very important in the process of building.

Following are the done images and links to videos of the sculptures with titles, dimensions, materials, and a description.  These photo's are somewhat chronological.  I did not finish them consecutively, but rather worked on them all at once.  This is just the order I prefer. 

01.  Cup, 4 &1/2" x 3 &1/4" x 5".  3/4" A/C fir plywood, wood glue, and coffee and vegetable oil stain.

02. Six Pack Hard Case, 9" x 9" x 6".  3/8" A/C fir plywood, wood glue, braid nails, and 6 premium Grain Belt Beer's.

03. Six Pack, Six String, C Chord, 48" x 33" x 8".  Pressure Treated 2x4, 3/8" A/C fir plywood, hex bolts, wing nuts, wood glue, 6 beer bottles, water, wind, and 2000 GMC Sierra.  VIDEO HERE

04.  Wood Stove, 16" x 19" x 24".  3/4" A/C fir plywood, 1 1/4" sheetrock screws, hinges, wood putty, and coffee and vegetable oil stain.

05.  Trash Bag Constellations, 72" x 22" x 22".  Trash can w/ wheels, fan, light, aluminum foil, contractor bag, and switch.  VIDEO HERE

06.  Steam Whistle, 57" x 26" x 26".  Steel, brass ball valve, wood, water, and fire.  VIDEO HERE

07.  Hurry Up And Relax, 13" x 91" x 11".  3/8" plywood, and 48' rope light.

08.  ROYGBIV, 24" x 48".  3/8" plywood, 2x4's, water pump, vinyl tubing, hose barb, and pigmented water.  VIDEO HERE

09.  Broken Record, 6" x 20" x 16".  2x4's, 1/8" mdf, ac motor, dimmer switch, and fine tooth 10" saw blade.  VIDEO HERE

10.  Barn Door Latch, 6" x 2" x 8",  modified electric razor, .11 guitar string, india ink, mechanical pencil tube, electrical and duct tape.  VIDEO HERE

THANKS FOR READING.  ...ART IS FUN...  CHEERS!