Friday, April 22, 2011
Down the rabbit hole and it's lined with bricks
I've gone down the rabbit hole and the walls appear to be lined with bricks, gold bricks, copper bricks, bronze bricks, steel bricks and brick bricks. Each turn of the corner shows a new type of brick that can be made. I've made a golden brick panel, that to me resembles the yellow brick road, only I call it a Yellow Brick Wall. I also made a copper brick panel that I painted with an acid wash and quickly saw the patina effect come to life. I don't have much control over this effect, but I am using a veneer of copper so the actual finish is a true patina, whatever that is. I made a flat panel with a mixture of Forton MG and a Shimmer Gold that was muted in the Gypsum, but made an amazing light wood effect. Having more choices on the final effect for these pieces is not making my life easier, but I am getting away from the plastic type finishes that I have been getting with epoxy coatings and uv spray finishes.
Sunday, April 3, 2011
Pardon my departure from techniques to
Today I am going to focus on sealants and bonding frames to brick wall piecees.
Saturday, April 2, 2011
Nonolith - Defined
A good story tells itself, so in a nonolithic sense I don't really need to write this definition. Since I can't really define something that doesn't exist there is no way I can mess this up. Broad thinking isn't required to grasp the idea of Nonolith, since we live with the concept of less all the time. Nonolith is just the extreme of having less, which is something most of us are used to in our everyday lives, and by applying the method of coping with less you can quickly get to the meaning of Nonolith. Nonolithic is an attempt to release anxiety that is given to things with meaning, with Nonolithicism you can recognize easily that meaning is inherent to existence in objects as well as living things and through time. Nonolithic is not the absence of meaning and the acceptance of nothingness, but the wholistic incorporation of meaning into the simplest of things, our being. Welcome to Nonolith.com - where all is none.
Monolith - or Nonolith
I have now conceptually linked the bricks that I have been making into the concept of the monolith from Stanley Kubrick's Space Odyssey 2001, but in a different way there is no reason to have any more meaning put into this concept. I have extended my rationale to the point that it does not matter what is made, because it is inherent that the understanding and concepts of our times are contained by it's mere existence. From this I have felt a sympathy for the lowly brick in it's anonymous form, but a respect in it's durability and recognizable form. Instinctually I have used my skills to recreate this object in many different ways that would be presentable as a piece of art or artifact of our times, by it's mere presence. So to come back to the underlying meaning of the shape and contextual being I am surprised by the paralells in mysterious symbolism that the Monolith from the movie Space Odyssey contains.
Today I handed a brick sticker to the guy I buy my art materials from, Arty at Douglas and Sturgess in Richmond, and he thought that if he peeled away the sticker a brick wall would appear. I told him it was just a brick sticker, like one brick and then he looked at the other side of the sticker, the brick side, and got it. That's all it is, a brick and a sticker combined. No more, no less. But somehow I feel that my concept is meaningful in that the object contains all of the information, like a database of my work, in it's being. The pigments, the color, the screen printing, the attempts at durability, the texture, the flexibility, the self-promotion, the rectangular shape and so on... Maybe I need to stick one of these on a satelite and have it launched into space to complete the mission, but it really may not be mhy responsibility to worry about that. I just have to keep making the brick in whatever form attaches itself to my brain.
Today I made a brick stencil and cast a panel of red plaster, Tufstone, then spray painted the lines on the textured surface. I wasn't overwhelmed by the effect, but the fact that it worked made the experiment a success. I also cast a batch of eight pieces last night and have now made eight frames to connect to the castings. I move into this direction without hesitation even though bonding has been a consistent problem all along. I think the epoxy will hold the frames to the printed brick panels in a strong and durable way and by batch processing a group of these it will simply mean that it has to work, or I will have eight chances to make it work instead of just one. The last time I made a batch of 8 pieces I ended up with only one working piece, C'est la vie, the others became stickers, so it wasn't so bad. My monoliths are very thin and they come with an adhesive backing.
Today I handed a brick sticker to the guy I buy my art materials from, Arty at Douglas and Sturgess in Richmond, and he thought that if he peeled away the sticker a brick wall would appear. I told him it was just a brick sticker, like one brick and then he looked at the other side of the sticker, the brick side, and got it. That's all it is, a brick and a sticker combined. No more, no less. But somehow I feel that my concept is meaningful in that the object contains all of the information, like a database of my work, in it's being. The pigments, the color, the screen printing, the attempts at durability, the texture, the flexibility, the self-promotion, the rectangular shape and so on... Maybe I need to stick one of these on a satelite and have it launched into space to complete the mission, but it really may not be mhy responsibility to worry about that. I just have to keep making the brick in whatever form attaches itself to my brain.
Today I made a brick stencil and cast a panel of red plaster, Tufstone, then spray painted the lines on the textured surface. I wasn't overwhelmed by the effect, but the fact that it worked made the experiment a success. I also cast a batch of eight pieces last night and have now made eight frames to connect to the castings. I move into this direction without hesitation even though bonding has been a consistent problem all along. I think the epoxy will hold the frames to the printed brick panels in a strong and durable way and by batch processing a group of these it will simply mean that it has to work, or I will have eight chances to make it work instead of just one. The last time I made a batch of 8 pieces I ended up with only one working piece, C'est la vie, the others became stickers, so it wasn't so bad. My monoliths are very thin and they come with an adhesive backing.
How long would I go on before I simply read the ads on my own pages
I finally read some of the ads on my pages and since the ads relate to the text that I have been writing it appears that faux brick and brick panels are quite common in the construction industry. I am not surprised, but I am surprised by the way that I now have these items being promoted on my own pages. Is this a part of the new interlocking world we live in where the information and products that you need simply come to you if you just list your thoughts on a blog? Maybe.
I have been working on my fresco brick panels for some time, but I am sure that my techniques are different that what the professionals are using, but the end result may not be as spectacular as I have imagined when you consider what is for sale already online. The brick panels shown online fit together and can be assembled for use in a way that I won't ever be able to achieve, as well as, the realism that they convey is better than a real brick in many ways. The materials that the faux brick walls are made of appears to be polyester resins, which isn't a plus, but for production I am sure that it makes a lot of sense to use those types of resins.
Does this dampen my motivation to continue to create the brick pieces that I am making? Not really. I am simply moving in a direction and it doesn't really matter what I am making so much as there is a theme and if anything it reinforces the practicality and usefulness of faux brick in the real world. The last thing I would want to do is to make a useful brick interior or exterior wall that would actually be in someone's home. By seeing successful companies that are already in that business I can remain focused on the artistic aspects of my craft and leave the business to the pros.
I did notice that some of the brick panels are available in a fireproof, or Class A rating material, at an extra cost. I wonder if these brick panels are made of the hybrid plaster materials like the Forton MG, which is less flamable than the polyester resins. All along on this project I have felt like I was being pulled back into my boat building days and the materials that these companies that are selling the faux brick walls are using seems to support that idea. Essentially they are plastic shells made in a mold, painted and sealed. Although I am interested technically as to how they are made, it's most likely no more glamorous than how I make a t-shirt. The weight of these brick panels isn't that great either, which is a plus and if I had to make a bunch of brick panels I'd probably end up making them the same way, or just buy them from the company and slap a frame on them myself.
If I wasn't so distracted with making my own stuff I could see a way to use their brick panels in a practical way, like the previously mentioned spray paint wall or some such realism versus craft endeavor. However, I am way too gone for that, the brick has taken over my being as an object that hardly represents a brick any more. It's just an idea. A rectangle, a red outlined box, a simple thing, sort of golden rectangle, but not, a monolith.
I have been working on my fresco brick panels for some time, but I am sure that my techniques are different that what the professionals are using, but the end result may not be as spectacular as I have imagined when you consider what is for sale already online. The brick panels shown online fit together and can be assembled for use in a way that I won't ever be able to achieve, as well as, the realism that they convey is better than a real brick in many ways. The materials that the faux brick walls are made of appears to be polyester resins, which isn't a plus, but for production I am sure that it makes a lot of sense to use those types of resins.
Does this dampen my motivation to continue to create the brick pieces that I am making? Not really. I am simply moving in a direction and it doesn't really matter what I am making so much as there is a theme and if anything it reinforces the practicality and usefulness of faux brick in the real world. The last thing I would want to do is to make a useful brick interior or exterior wall that would actually be in someone's home. By seeing successful companies that are already in that business I can remain focused on the artistic aspects of my craft and leave the business to the pros.
I did notice that some of the brick panels are available in a fireproof, or Class A rating material, at an extra cost. I wonder if these brick panels are made of the hybrid plaster materials like the Forton MG, which is less flamable than the polyester resins. All along on this project I have felt like I was being pulled back into my boat building days and the materials that these companies that are selling the faux brick walls are using seems to support that idea. Essentially they are plastic shells made in a mold, painted and sealed. Although I am interested technically as to how they are made, it's most likely no more glamorous than how I make a t-shirt. The weight of these brick panels isn't that great either, which is a plus and if I had to make a bunch of brick panels I'd probably end up making them the same way, or just buy them from the company and slap a frame on them myself.
If I wasn't so distracted with making my own stuff I could see a way to use their brick panels in a practical way, like the previously mentioned spray paint wall or some such realism versus craft endeavor. However, I am way too gone for that, the brick has taken over my being as an object that hardly represents a brick any more. It's just an idea. A rectangle, a red outlined box, a simple thing, sort of golden rectangle, but not, a monolith.
Simple, Repetitive, Ubiquitous - Le Brick
A final coat, a sealant, will be required in all the materials that I use and this has allowed me to accept a wider range of substrate materials to work with for my fresco binder in making these framed brick pieces. I have switched to a pre-mixed gypsum based plaster that has an acrylic polymer and micro-fibers already in the dry powder. This Tufstone may be the perfect medium for me, literally.
I have also stopped worrying about the thickness of the substrate as a way to make something durable. Every time I mix in different materials to strengthen a piece, as with back filling a frame with FGR 95 or Forgon MG I create new problems. I end up with leeching white stains on the front of the pieces once they are exposed to water without a sealant. Thus the rationale for the sealant as mentioned above, although I have not sealed the items from the back too, and I have been warned that if there is no way for moisture to escape then that in and of itself can cause problems. In the end it seems that different materials layered onto each other eventually crack or leech color and therefore I can't just use mass as a sealant and increased mass is not a requirement for a finished piece.
Weight has always been a factor in my product development, so by reducing mass I am reducing weight, which is a good thing. I even converted some of my mess-ups to stickers and gave them to my kids so that they could have some fun putting them up in places. Instinctually they started drawing on the brick stickers with random slogans and sticking them in places, so I am happy to say that I continue to see no bounds with this project. I am using a pressure sensitive adhesive on the back of the thinly casted pieces, and when I say thin, I mean thin. I can't imagine any piece of ceramic being able to be used in this way. As a result I am confident that I have found a way to argue that these gypsum based products are more applicable than ceramic for my use. I have heard that ceramic technology is in use in many things we use in our day-to-day lives, like even printed pages in magazines may be coated with a sort of ceramic matrix, but I don't really know this to be true. So when I refer to ceramics I am referencing the typical crafted ceramics that are used with glazed images and designs. Boring, but long lasting in that they are crystaline and rock-like in there atomic form.
Half a student I was and indeed I only learned half the information; just enough information to be dangerous to myself and others, so watch out. Historical Geology, Archeology, and Mineralogy taught me a few things about the archival nature of our world. Unless something has a solid internal structure it won't really survive because the compounds that make up our world are easily subjected to immediate decay. Without serious efforts being made to preserve an item over an extended period of time it won't be around to convey information and since our relative time in existence is miniscule as compared to the geological record it is a crap shoot to wonder what will last thousands of years.
Our skulls will be more important, historically speaking, in the long run versus our art since it may be preserved for a longer period of time as a result of the calcium bone structure than our art. But our art will contain information beyond what our physical body can preserve as to the relevance of our existence. There will be millions of skulls left in the soil for future generations to examine, but for every unique piece of art that is created during any specific period of time, there need be only one. Each unique piece of work contains information beyond our understanding that is outside of even itself, as far as the relevance to our times, so the more unique an item is the more important it could be from a historical perspective.
Bonding my frames to the simulated brick walls is still an issue and the frames are serving dual purposes now. The frame is in essence the strongest part of the pieces I am making since the veneer of brick has become so thin. Some of my current pieces have just crumbled when I release them from thier mold. I think this is the result of too much pigment in the binder and the powdered and liquid silica work against the internal strength of the fresco material I am using to make the frames and brick. This repeats the theme of sealant, since the more color I add to the fresco dilutes the strength I have started making the frames without color and painted them with an airbrush later. This should provide a stronger frame with better bonding characteristics than heavily pigmented plasters.
Finally I have accepted that I will need to use polyester resin or epoxy as a bonding layer to firmly adhere the frame to the brick wall because I can't come up with anything better, other than pouring both pieces at the same time and this reduces the flexibility of the textures that I can create using the fresco material. The entire point of the fresco is the textural quality of the finished work, and if I use a mold for the frame simultaneously with casting the brick wall I lose a significant amount of the texture that makes a brick wall brick. I have testing using the photo-fresco techniques to create the brick as a photograph in the plaster, but without the texture it fails to work for me. Other image based things work well as the photo-fresco, but not le brick.
I have also stopped worrying about the thickness of the substrate as a way to make something durable. Every time I mix in different materials to strengthen a piece, as with back filling a frame with FGR 95 or Forgon MG I create new problems. I end up with leeching white stains on the front of the pieces once they are exposed to water without a sealant. Thus the rationale for the sealant as mentioned above, although I have not sealed the items from the back too, and I have been warned that if there is no way for moisture to escape then that in and of itself can cause problems. In the end it seems that different materials layered onto each other eventually crack or leech color and therefore I can't just use mass as a sealant and increased mass is not a requirement for a finished piece.
Weight has always been a factor in my product development, so by reducing mass I am reducing weight, which is a good thing. I even converted some of my mess-ups to stickers and gave them to my kids so that they could have some fun putting them up in places. Instinctually they started drawing on the brick stickers with random slogans and sticking them in places, so I am happy to say that I continue to see no bounds with this project. I am using a pressure sensitive adhesive on the back of the thinly casted pieces, and when I say thin, I mean thin. I can't imagine any piece of ceramic being able to be used in this way. As a result I am confident that I have found a way to argue that these gypsum based products are more applicable than ceramic for my use. I have heard that ceramic technology is in use in many things we use in our day-to-day lives, like even printed pages in magazines may be coated with a sort of ceramic matrix, but I don't really know this to be true. So when I refer to ceramics I am referencing the typical crafted ceramics that are used with glazed images and designs. Boring, but long lasting in that they are crystaline and rock-like in there atomic form.
Half a student I was and indeed I only learned half the information; just enough information to be dangerous to myself and others, so watch out. Historical Geology, Archeology, and Mineralogy taught me a few things about the archival nature of our world. Unless something has a solid internal structure it won't really survive because the compounds that make up our world are easily subjected to immediate decay. Without serious efforts being made to preserve an item over an extended period of time it won't be around to convey information and since our relative time in existence is miniscule as compared to the geological record it is a crap shoot to wonder what will last thousands of years.
Our skulls will be more important, historically speaking, in the long run versus our art since it may be preserved for a longer period of time as a result of the calcium bone structure than our art. But our art will contain information beyond what our physical body can preserve as to the relevance of our existence. There will be millions of skulls left in the soil for future generations to examine, but for every unique piece of art that is created during any specific period of time, there need be only one. Each unique piece of work contains information beyond our understanding that is outside of even itself, as far as the relevance to our times, so the more unique an item is the more important it could be from a historical perspective.
Bonding my frames to the simulated brick walls is still an issue and the frames are serving dual purposes now. The frame is in essence the strongest part of the pieces I am making since the veneer of brick has become so thin. Some of my current pieces have just crumbled when I release them from thier mold. I think this is the result of too much pigment in the binder and the powdered and liquid silica work against the internal strength of the fresco material I am using to make the frames and brick. This repeats the theme of sealant, since the more color I add to the fresco dilutes the strength I have started making the frames without color and painted them with an airbrush later. This should provide a stronger frame with better bonding characteristics than heavily pigmented plasters.
Finally I have accepted that I will need to use polyester resin or epoxy as a bonding layer to firmly adhere the frame to the brick wall because I can't come up with anything better, other than pouring both pieces at the same time and this reduces the flexibility of the textures that I can create using the fresco material. The entire point of the fresco is the textural quality of the finished work, and if I use a mold for the frame simultaneously with casting the brick wall I lose a significant amount of the texture that makes a brick wall brick. I have testing using the photo-fresco techniques to create the brick as a photograph in the plaster, but without the texture it fails to work for me. Other image based things work well as the photo-fresco, but not le brick.
Saturday, March 19, 2011
Nuclear fission as waste last longer than most art.
Permanence is an issue for me in that archival is a term often used to imply that something may last a long time. Nothing last forever and the things you don't expect to last may be the ones that last the longest. I spend my time working on objects that I can make permanent because most of the things I have made in the past have been destroyed with a slight exposure to the elements over long periods of time. Par example, a print I made of my wife, before she was my wife, on canvas of her body, painted of course, as she rolled around on canvas has not survived well in our basement and when I attempted to stretch it out some 20 years later it was stinky with mildew and fell apart in chunks. Not so good from an archival standpoint.
My respect for work that has lasted for extended periods of time comes simply from the point that it may have outlived the other works from those same periods, regardless of the artistic quality of the works themselves. This implies that the better engineer is the better artist. Now that I am comfortable with my basic materials that I am working with as being "permanent", as compared to the other materials in common use for decorative pieces these days, I am forced to think of something that is relevant that I should make.
Nothing is permanent and especially if nobody keeps an objet d' art around for other generations to see and enjoy. There are several ways to gain permanence with a crafted thing. One way is to make an item so popular that everyone has one of the "things" during an era that it becomes ubiquitous for the period of time and therefore collectible and synonomous with the times, such as vintage lunchboxes or popular slogans. The second way is that create something so unique and special, like a giant ball of twine or piece of toast with the image of Jesus on it that it is preserved by the elite and documented as a special object to the culture itself. The third way an object can be made permanent is by the luck of the enviroment it is left in; some things are "found" as remnants once a society has been gone for a long time and then the object is analyzed by future generations as having been representative of the times that it was made in, without being judged on it's unknown artistic values. This third archeological method is my method of choice in that the oldest art we can find is cave drawings.
A cave wall is but a wall, a or was it a part of a home/gallery/meeting place that was displaying the imagery of the times, that was forced upon the inhabitants to view. Was it communication or historical documentation? Was it art or publication? Did it remind people there of the past or of the artist him/herself that made the drawings? I don't know that we really car one way or the other as historical viewers of archeological art, we just feel lucky to have found the work itself. The only thing that is important to me about cave drawings is that they are still there to be seen today. With the right materials and the proper environmnet the perfect "archival" environment can be created on a wall, as proven, inside a cave, with nothing more than colored dirt. Why then is "archival" such a big deal when it comes to modern art and the materials that are made to make art?
Personally I understand the problems that are associated with the harsh realities of "archival" and this is why I cannot put a lot of stock into a single piece of work to survive. The materials and the methods must be cohesive and compliment each other, as well as, represent the time of their creation. My data suggest against the probability of a single piece surviving, or being admired enough to be "kept" by the museums of the world, if only because of the simple fact that warehousing and storage is a problem even for the most well-intending collectors. My opinion is that you just can't count on one thing being special enough to last. Sad but true.
My respect for work that has lasted for extended periods of time comes simply from the point that it may have outlived the other works from those same periods, regardless of the artistic quality of the works themselves. This implies that the better engineer is the better artist. Now that I am comfortable with my basic materials that I am working with as being "permanent", as compared to the other materials in common use for decorative pieces these days, I am forced to think of something that is relevant that I should make.
Nothing is permanent and especially if nobody keeps an objet d' art around for other generations to see and enjoy. There are several ways to gain permanence with a crafted thing. One way is to make an item so popular that everyone has one of the "things" during an era that it becomes ubiquitous for the period of time and therefore collectible and synonomous with the times, such as vintage lunchboxes or popular slogans. The second way is that create something so unique and special, like a giant ball of twine or piece of toast with the image of Jesus on it that it is preserved by the elite and documented as a special object to the culture itself. The third way an object can be made permanent is by the luck of the enviroment it is left in; some things are "found" as remnants once a society has been gone for a long time and then the object is analyzed by future generations as having been representative of the times that it was made in, without being judged on it's unknown artistic values. This third archeological method is my method of choice in that the oldest art we can find is cave drawings.
A cave wall is but a wall, a or was it a part of a home/gallery/meeting place that was displaying the imagery of the times, that was forced upon the inhabitants to view. Was it communication or historical documentation? Was it art or publication? Did it remind people there of the past or of the artist him/herself that made the drawings? I don't know that we really car one way or the other as historical viewers of archeological art, we just feel lucky to have found the work itself. The only thing that is important to me about cave drawings is that they are still there to be seen today. With the right materials and the proper environmnet the perfect "archival" environment can be created on a wall, as proven, inside a cave, with nothing more than colored dirt. Why then is "archival" such a big deal when it comes to modern art and the materials that are made to make art?
Personally I understand the problems that are associated with the harsh realities of "archival" and this is why I cannot put a lot of stock into a single piece of work to survive. The materials and the methods must be cohesive and compliment each other, as well as, represent the time of their creation. My data suggest against the probability of a single piece surviving, or being admired enough to be "kept" by the museums of the world, if only because of the simple fact that warehousing and storage is a problem even for the most well-intending collectors. My opinion is that you just can't count on one thing being special enough to last. Sad but true.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)