dayton is not in ohio

– Thanks, to those who have left kind comments on my previous post about my thesis installation! All is well, and my thesis defense/final critique went well. I was given plenty to process by the crit, nothing overly bad (I know some folks that had nightmare crits). I wasn’t showered with sunshiny praise, or attacked — just constructive criticism and feedback, which is helpful. A few folks asked about the title, which is Seasons Such as These, taken from a famous monologue, and favorite of mine, in Shakespeare’s King Lear.

The thrust and motivation for the piece was driven by the original installation of the tower, with surveillance cameras mounted on top to grant me a view of the outside world from my studio. My early critiques were focused on the cameras and the implications of surveillance. These were very good critiques and had me thinking of the nature of the tower’s being, and its read as an artwork, wrapped up in the structure’s function. There was little to no attention paid to the form itself. I, being interested in form and structure, was a bit dissatisfied with this. The solution to reinvigorating the tower formally was removing the tower’s function. By toppling the tower I hoped to push an engagement of the tower as an object, and also raise some questions related to being, and purpose. A long time ago (my sophomore year of college) I was part of a formal debate surrounding a paper that a friend wrote, arguing that a wristwatch which no longer told the time was not watch. I disagreed (still do), but it was that conversation that first got me interested in philosophy.

– I finished my final day as a Teaching Assistant yesterday. This was the end of my official career at the School of the Art Institute. All that I have to do, from this point on, is clean out my studio. It’s been very a good education. That might be it for my formal education, which makes me a little melancholy.

–I have applied for a teaching position here in Chicago, and I have an interview for that next week, so I’ll update the blog on that as I have news.

–In the “news of the strange,” I discovered that I was mentioned in an article in the Dayton Daily News of Dayton, Ohio, as a Dayton-Chicago Connection. Kinda funny. Now, do I put that in my vita?

– I have a couple of friends in a drawing show in Philly at Jenny Jaskey Gallery. The Drawing Narrative opened last night. It was curated by Rob Matthews. Rubens Ghenov is one of the Church Studios artists, Rob and Rubens were in The Strange Place, and Jenny is a friend as well. Rubens is detonating. He just got into the grad painting and drawing program at the Rhode Island School of Design (ranked #1 in the latest US News grad rankings), and he had a pretty awesome video profile done for Studioscopic by David Kessler, a Philly-based artist and video producer. Studioscopic simply presents artists in their studios, talking about their work. Rubens gives a nice shout-out to the Church Studios. Thanks, bro’.

– Finally, I’m excited to be able to post a little bit of Karen dancing. Most friends know Karen dances, but very few have ever seen her do it. I think this is the first time that we have ever had any decently shot video of her doing what she does. Here she’s working with a small company here in Oak Park, performing the work of Ron deJesus:

I’m at home today, Sunday, just enjoying a day of rest, watching golf, and hanging out with Anna, my daughter.

Just got an email from my friend Matthew DuPont about an eBay listing for “Spindle,” the car skewer sculpture located nearby that I’ve written about before (1,2,3)

Here’s a slideshow of images from the opening.

There’s a good reason for my infrequent posting lately. In addition to making plans and preparations for my MFA project, I’ve been hard at work curating a small show at Alogon Gallery here in Chicago.

The show is titled The Strange Place, a reference to School of the Art Institute art history professor James Elkins‘ book, On the Strange Place of Religion in Contemporary Art. In a nutshell, the show presents the artwork of eight Christians in a venue that is not religiously affiliated. Considering the discourse surrounding ‘religion and contemporary art,’ my goal was simply to bring the two spheres together, not in an abstract sense, but in a concrete instance. It’s not meant to be understood as a solution to the very complex dynamics of the relationship, or even as a proposition, but simply as an intersection and point of reference in the ongoing conversation.

I’ve invited three people to write essays responding to the show, and to each other: Elkins, Kevin Hamilton, asst. professor of new media and painting at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and Daniel Siedell, asst. professor of art and art history at the University of Nebraska Omaha.

The artists in the show are: Wayne Adams, Keith Crowley, Mark Dixon, Rubens Ghenov, Tim Gierschick, Rob Matthews, Alert Pedulla, Gene Schmidt, and Ben Volta.

Here’s a really good piece by Daniel Siedell if you’d like to read a take on this intersection of religion and contemporary art from a very thoughtful Christian perspective. This nails it for me.

I’m pretty sure that of the ten or so people who occasionally visit this blog, maybe two or three are in Philly. And of those, there’s pretty much no chance that they don’t visit Rob Matthew’s blog more. It’s more of a… real blog. Anyway, what I’m getting at is that there’s basically no chance that anyone in Philly (those that might be able to attend) who reads this post doesn’t already know about Rob’s show at Gallery Joe. It’s still cool.

October has been insane. I had my first full day in the studio for a month yesterday… Too much travel. Last week it was New York for a CIVA board meeting, including a half-day of galleries and a studio visit to my friend Wayne Adams’ space. Visit Wayne’s blog to hear what we did together in NYC.

So, I have several projects going, but none are very far along. One is a FEMA trailer project, birthed while daydreaming about the wonderfully baroque architecture of our gorgeous church, the incarnation of Jesus, and the Advent season. The large project is suspended currently because FEMA has stopped the sale of old trailers due to health concerns surrounding the formaldehyde used to preserve the MDF of which the interiors are largely constructed. I am continuing work on a model trailer regardless, although this is not one of the trailers used by FEMA per se.

I also have a baseball related project that involves building a batting machine, ‘corking’ bats with various materials like cork, steel, Vaseline, fluorescent light bulb, felt, other things, and probably a series of paintings based on Bill Buckner.

Also in the pipeline is a swashbuckling, edited short story project, and a currently top-secret project that involves someone else’s artwork, sculpture, painting and a little innocent mail fraud.

First, about the show in New Jersey. I have a few tickets left for the opening of the fall-winter exhibitions at Grounds for Sculpture/International Sculpture Center, in Hamilton, NJ. This is close to Philly and Princeton. A nice trip for committed New Yorkers. I have one piece in a show of student work… I think it should be a good show. I know there is a Virginia Commonwealth University student in there and sculpture at VCU rawks pretty hard at sculpturing.

The opening is Saturday, October 6, 2 - 6pm. I have no idea what to do at a four-hour opening. I have no idea what to do at openings regardless. The opening is not public, so if you want to go you must have one of my invitations. If you want one, email me your address and I’ll send it out: mail (at) daytonc (dot) com… You also have to RSVP, and the ticket is good for you and a guest. It’s officially dubbed a “private cocktail reception” and I’m not positive what that means, but I think it entails free drinks, and guilt if you don’t tip the bartender. I know, because I went to something like this for Tim Hawkinson in L.A. It was fun, and I’m still guilty. Seriously, any of you that are given to leaving comments on my blog that know anything about this (Who’s had a museum opening? Ben? Rob?) please tell me what to wear, and where I can buy it.

School is great, but the Castlemans in Illinois are a very busy family. This is why I have neglected the blog.

Anna goes to preschool twice a week at our church. Karen teaches college and other stuff. I go to grad school. Anna’s actually in grad school as well, and currently working on a series of acrylic paintings on paper pilfered daily from, you guessed it, Felix Gonzalez Torres. They’re really fantastic and she’s already gotten an offer for a trade. I’m ‘corking’ baseball bats with steel and Vaseline and crushed fluorescent (ha! I spelled that right the first try!) bulbs and felt and other stuff… Nine bats total, completely indistinguishable except for their weight… labels with what they happen to be corked with and hanging on a custom made steel bat rack. Title: If you’re not cheating, you’re not trying.

I just had the idea to wear a custom made “I made Richard Serra cry” T-shirt to the Jersey opening…

Finally, check out this video about Susan Hagen’s installation at Eastern State Pen on the Philly Artblog. Roberta and Libby mention my installation at Eastern State in passing. They crack me up. They also keep us ex-patriots in touch with what’s happening in the Ill-adelph. That last word was very Rubens-like. Wow.

Phillies lost 12 - 0 tonight.

66 degrees and clear in Chicago.

Sorry for no pictures.

Goodnight.

But as Chesterton says, “If a thing is worth doing, it’s worth doing….” you know the rest. I’m… I’m, just. I’m speechless. Why do I torture myself.

There are only two reasons why any Philadelphia Philly batter would be the final batter in a ball game. One, you hit a walk-off __________ (home-run, single, anything…) or two, you get the last out.

The same is true in the All-Star game. The same is WORSE in the All-Star game - uh, oh… did I give it away, Aaron Rowand. Oh! Uh.. sorry Aaron, that… that you put a final end to the National League rally…

It’s not your fault. It’s Tony LaRussa’s fault. Two words: A-L-B-E-R-T. P-U-J-O-L-S.

I’m not proud of the fact that I don’t care about those readers who have no idea what I’m talking about. Right now, I don’t care.

It’s worth doing badly.

The main reason I love Christians in the Visual Arts is the people. I have some very good friends in CIVA and I only get to see them once a year or so at a meeting or conference. Many of these folks are at least ten years older than myself, but more and more CIVA is beginning to become populated by folks my age.

So rather than write my own recap of the conference, I’m just going to link to the recap of Wayne Adams, an artist from NYC. Wayne and I hit it off, and I like his take on CIVA because it’s so similar to the way I approached my first conference. Here’s a link to some of Wayne’s artwork.

Also, while I’m at it, here’s a link to a website that Wayne’s blog made me aware of: instructables.com

I was able to catch a Phillies (versus the Chicago White Sox) game last night with Rob Matthews, and it was not disappointing. Adam Eaton got the shutout win and Pat Burrell, Ryan Howard and Jimmy Rollins scored the three Phillies runs on solo homers. On the Howard shot, the right fielder didn’t move a muscle after the ball came off the bat. He just watched it go up, and then dropped his head. A no-doubter, even from the cheap seats where it’s always hard to judge a ball. Crushed. I listen to the Phillies on the (internet) radio for almost every game, so it was great to finally see them play in the flesh on a beautiful Philly night, and to be treated to a win.