Yesterday I worked a six hour morning shift, after which I returned home for approximately 14 minutes (my goal was 10) before jumping in the car again and heading down to Alfred to see the three art shows of the graduating seniors. I was not disappointed - the shows were stellar. Three of the five individuals showing were my classmates and friends in varying capacities, one of them was in my class, right from Freshman Foundations, and all of them are excellent people.
The first show I saw was Zac Weinberg's. The photo above includes his "Redundancy Lamp." I really admire his glass and neon work. He not only has the craft and the concept of his work really solid, but also the way he presents it. There were two girls, one of whom I knew by face but not by name, who were singing and playing the guitar with a neon sign behind them that flashed "Applause" after a song ended. (And they were really good musicians! I couldn't believe the singer's voice. It was fantastic.)
Obviously there were more things in the show(s) than I have photos of, but here is one of "Animal Goblets For Animal Cans" (I may not have the title exactly right since I'm recalling it from memory but it was something to that effect).
Next I saw was Bill Warner's show, which consisted of roughly shaped and beautifully textured ceramic work. The colors made me happy. And so did the raised-slip line drawings that stood out of some of the pieces! That was something I hadn't seen much of, if ever, before. They depicted outlines of people in various poses, my favorite being of someone in mid karate kick, which I didn't get a non-blurry photo of, but you can kinda see it in the bottom right piece two photos down.
Finally, I reached the excellent show of my excellent friend Wunetu Tarrant. She used lots of different materials in her show - cast glass, giant thrown-looking and hand-built pottery, cast bronze and iron, wire pieces, drawings, moss and rocks, to name the ones that are coming to mind. The giant pots/trees were crazy and larger than life, and even though she had many objects made from a lot of different materials in a limited space and her pieces varied drastically in scale, her show still felt unified. It was a visual feast!
Congrats Alfred BFA seniors! Your shows were killer!
The tiniest pine cones I have ever seen.
Obligatory seagull photos.
On the way to Mt. Palomar observatory. The first trip was unsuccessful, as the observatory was closed due to icy conditions or some such, but the second time we went it was open. Although it was a very cool thing to see, huge and with lots of cool scientific feats involved in its construction, it was fairly anticlimactic - sort of like an hour and a half drive to a small museum.
At the observatory. I think it was more than 5,000 feet above sea level (thus the snow). No one was around but us really. Inside the telescope was this massive glass lens that was casted in Corning (I think it was some odd thousands of tons heavy, took three trucks to transport it up the mountain, one pushing behind the one that was carrying it and one pulling from the front, and it took around ten years to cold work/polish. Something like 10,000 pounds of glass was polished away. It was pretty insane.)
A fat and happy squirrel at Spanish Village Art Center in Balboa Park.
