Buckle your seatbelt

Diving board to the deep end of college. About to spring, flip and jam out a graduation sized splash in the pool. Life is about to get wet and I'm looking for a slip and slide. I see economic incentives in waste as potential or making solutions for tangible problems. Life will be different than what I thought.



Everything is now done and gone from the senior show. It is all in storage, awaiting another iteration.





Matt Rink and I will be applying for some outdoor sculpture competitions to remake and revamp the lamp poles. It is hopeful that a tour might ensue and the poles will get every ounce of use squeezed out of them before the inevitable occurs...Rustola...

Badda Bing

In twelve hours, six tons of lamp poles were erected. The resulting sculpture was charged with light, and then viewed at night as a mass of glowing lines hanging in the air. Perfect.

Plop

40 Lamp poles have plopped. The sculpture was constructed efficiently in under 15 hours. Thats very nice. Wasting time is not an option.



In the grand scheme of things, we caught these poles at the perfect time, between usable and unusable. A gray area where stuff is free because its is still in condition, and should be put to some use. They are like a fine wine for art purposes, aged to perfection. Pragmatism is paramount.

Sore Shoulders are a Sign

60 lamp poles are heavy, but not too heavy for a UHaul. At 12,000 lbs, the poles take a full day's work to move around. Matt and I solicited the help of 2 people on loading and another 2 for unloading. In addition, we welded some pole carts together for efficiency's sake. There is a reason the wheel was such a hit back in the cave man days...



In addition to the 60 lamp poles that measurre 25 feet tall, Matt and I are making another sculpture from smaller 15 footers.



The sculpture is being constructed in a courtyard, and is viewable from three floors, and three sides of a building.



Matt and I set up a portable pole cutting station to size the poles to the same length. These cut-offs were then reused as the spacers that will elevate the poles to an almost standing orientation.

USR Optonix phosphorescent pigment donation

For the Senior Shows of May 07 in Alfred Ny, travelers will be greeted by a sculpture spanning 250' across a field. Plotted on a subtle curve, described by 60 lamp poles forming 30 arches. If this is not enough, the sculpture will be lit at night by 6 arrays of high powered lights to charge up P-170 phosphorescent pigment provided by USR Optonix (www.usro.com). Their 'True Blue' material emits a beautiful neon blue color for upwards of 10 hours. Not only will the sculpture be aesthetically pleasing during the night, but it will also be safe for viewers to experience for the duration of its existence.



Visit http://lamppoles.blogspot.com for all the details on this exciting project.

Senior Show

Well things are shaping up for now. Matt Rink and I submitted our show application. We used Google Sketchup to its full potential and fully dimensioned the space we are interested in and photoshopped the final image back into the location. Fun stuff, but there is competition for the space, so we will know in a few weeks who will be in the space.



We might be in for it though. This is right out of the movies. The large installation of Lamp Poles has been approved for several locations. The prime rib is Merrel Field.

The beef is that we won't know if we can use it until April 29th, because the Womens Lacrosse might be going to a championship, and they use the practice field to practice, yup. If they qualify for the Empire 8 championship, we won't be able to install a 250' long sculpture with phosphorescent capabilities in this prominent location. Dah. Omnipotent, I wish I was, however last season the team had to forfeit because there were only 7 players. Maybe there is a way we can all work together... Extreme Lacrosse in the presence of a massive sculpture...hmmm


The secondary fall back location is the field in front of Harder Hall. This will require us to plot the arches on a curve through trees and that could get quite insane logistically...

Macro to Micro

Photography in macro scale. I was blown away by my camera putting its entire processing power into this one blade of grass, while a 12,000 lb 120' long sculpture loomed behind it.

oye yo the snow is coming..

As of November 2nd the Arches stand. The question now is if the art math and engineering will hold up to the elements. The 30 arches stand on top of a hill in Andover Ny. The weekend before we started the installation, 60 mph winds were present on top. Our prime rib stakes that hold the sculpture static are of concern, even if they are 4 feet deep and support the structure with cable rated at a combined 14,000 Lb breaking strength. We will give it one week, or until the next sunny day to de-install. This was a structure test, and we will use the results as clout for installing the arches on campus in the spring.

We are now halfway into the endeavor. The remaining duties are de-installation and a returning the poles to their original location. Hope it doesn't snow a foot...

The ball is rolling.

Mamma Jamma! Your Arch is connected to your turnbuckle and your turnbuckle is connected to your prime rib 4' ground stake, and all that makes the world turn around. Soon some super sexy swinging subtle curves will change the face of this remote plot of land in Andover Ny. Maybe 20 people will see this sculpture, but the documentation will be quite fruitful, for we hope to eventually move this beast on campus, in the public eye. hahahahahah

One step at a time

Well, Matt and I bucked up and rented a 24' U-Haul. It is capable of moving 18,000lbs, and that is good because we have 12,000lbs of lamp posts to move. The project has been on hold for a while because we couldn't secure a time and date for moving the poles with Glen Zweygardt's sculpture truck with crane attachment.

Moving along with the arches

Matt and I will continue to work on different aspects of the arches throughout the year. This stepping stone is a full scale mock up. We worked with Robby who konws Auto CAD and calculated out the specific distances of the arch widths.

We then plotted the measurements on Diane Cox's property. Her plot of land is located in Andover, Ny and we are grateful for the chance to use it for a testing ground.

This week we will hopefully move 60- 25 foot tall lamp posts up to her property using Glen Zwygardts sculpture truck. The total weight of the load will be 12,000 pounds. Getcher muscles pumped!!!

Arches in action

These are 15 foot lamp posts. We have hooked them up to Matt's winch to make life easy as cheese. This was a test to see how we could lift the arches. Alot was learned and now we move forward.

This is where I plug in

After some careful but militant calling, these lamp posts were officially borrowed from Alfred State College. It is a beautiful thing when large scale work is made for free. This will hopefully be the focus and scope of future work, for what is better than not paying for something that others don't pay for. Art shouldn't be about commodity or fashion. Experience is the strongest memory.
What would you do with 45 fifteen footers and around 60 25 footers? Iterations include giant wheels, a landscape, wind mills, blades for wind mills, stilts, bird nest poles, and recently the yellow jelly sling shot....ha just kidding


Eventually, the project will get out of hand and draw in people from disparate realms to collaborate on something way out of their league....wait, this is now and engineers and artists are coming together to develop alternative wind energy to fuel motion detecting lights for the individual arches, providing a most interesting experience walking through the tunnel....hmmm