dayton is not in ohio

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.

Faithful readers may remember my posts (1,2) on Cermak Plaza, the shopping center that has been a somewhat controversial home to many artworks. The Chicago Tribune reports that the “Car Kabob” is to be destroyed to make way for a new Walgreen’s.

Note to artists: If anyone ever invites you to create an artwork in a strip mall, and you’d rather not see that artwork destroyed, say no, regardless of how much money they give you.

The best example of this poaching at Cermak Plaza is James Wines’ “Floating McDonald’s.” This was a McDonald’s designed and built by his firm SITE (they’ve designed the single family skyscraper in India that has been in the news recently). I saw old pictures of the McDonald’s, and went to see it, only to discover that the feature that made it “float” had been bricked in - essentially destroyed.

(then)

(now)

I contacted Mr. Wines to find out why and when this had taken place, to which he replied that he was unaware it had happened. He added: “This is a particularly ironic moment for the “Floating McDonald’s” to have been destroyed, since the FRAC collection (part of Centre Pompidou in Paris) just bought all of the drawings of this project for the institution’s permanent collection.”

Above: The first and last pitch from Jose Mesa last night

It all makes sense now.

Here’s the scenario: The Philadelphia Phillies lead their opponent 3 - 0 after seven innings, until a reliever comes in and gives up four runs in the eighth and the Phillies lose.

No, this wasn’t last night’s game against the Astros, it was the Phillies’ first loss ever, back in 1883. Now the Phils are only four losses away from becoming the first sports franchise in the history of our nation to record 10,000 losses.

Here’s what frustrates me right now… The Phillies are ranked in the top six in the Majors in three of the five most important offensive statistics, including leading the National League in runs scored. They are a good hitting team, and they’ve been putting up runs.

However, our bullpen is one of the worst in the majors. In the battle of good hitting vs. bad pitching, the pitchers usually win — the only thing they know how to win, apparently, and nothing to write home about.

Above: Eaton spotting the Astros a run in the second inning.

These last two games against the Astros are a GREAT example: the Phillies bullpen has walked in what have eventually turned out to be the deciding runs in both games. Last night, thanks to a gift-wrapped run in the 2nd (from Adam Eaton, the starter), instead of going home at 9:30 with a one-run win, they played four extra innings, until Jose Mesa took the mound in the bottom of the 13th inning. He earned his salary last night with one pitch, right in the middle of the plate. My daughter could have hit it out. Hunter Pence did.

Happy independence day. I’m still grateful that we live in a country where we can play baseball, and we’re free to pitch anyone we like, as painful as that can be sometimes.

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 put together a proposal this April for a sculpture to be installed at MidAmerica Nazarene University. It was gonna be a great summer job, taking about a month and a half to fabricate and paying almost ten grand, minus materials and other expenses.

I didn’t get it.

I know that this may come as a shock to those of you who have me in your Fantasy Artist League and were riding the wave of my three-for-three streak of proposals. It probably wasn’t a good pick for me, and I expect that they selected something more ‘Christian.’ My proposal was well conceived, but it was pretty abstract, and I eventually got the idea that they wanted something pretty direct and easy to read (and presumably boring). That’s not fair to say. I’m a competitive person and it’s easy to want to think these things to take the sting out of it. So much for the grand slam…

I haven’t had to get a summer job in nearly a decade, so the prospect of getting one this year made me nervous. I also haven’t held a regular 9 - 5 job in five years, so the prospect of that has been a little nerve-wracking. I almost got to be an artist. DANG!

So, for these two weeks until my job starts I’m working for some friends down the street putting up drywall and painting before the arrival of their second kid. It’s nice to have instant work that’s pretty flexible and pays cash. I don’t mind the busyness either, because I have no idea what I’m doing in my art right now, and wouldn’t know what to do with myself in the studio.

My ‘real’ job starts in a week, where I’ll be a summer teaching assistant in the Sullivan Fabrication Studio at the Art Institute. The pros of this job are that this is one amazing shop, with incredible tools that go way beyond your standard shop tools, including CNC routers (carves digitally programmed objects out of solid blocks of material), rapid prototyping machines (like an ink jet printer that ‘prints’ things out in three dimensions using plastic), and all sorts of other tools that I have yet to learn how to use. Another pro is that I’ll be able to do a bit of working with students and helping folks realize ideas, which I enjoy.

The cons are that it pays $11.80 an hour (12 years ago I may have been excited about that…), and that the hours are 10 - 4. Subtracting a lunch break, that works out to 5 hours a day, and totals 25 hours a week. This basically makes it a part-time job, BUT, by making the hours 10 - 4, it eats up a day just like a full time job. I’d really rather that the hours were 7 - noon, or noon - 6, because I don’t work well in small bookend chunks, and that’s all I’ll have if I do want to get into the studio.

…the freedom to buy 50-cent soft-serve from the Swedish, I guess.

The crit was on April 30 which seems like a lifetime ago… I had a major breakdown of some sort leading up to it, causing me to irrationally decide that everything I’d made this year was worthless. I was worn out and can be highly critical of my work anyway, so it created the perfect storm of an art crisis. It had something to do with wanting to do something cathartic and emotional and ‘authentic’… It’s interesting how “personal expression” is so often spoken of by bad artists and non-artists. I once had a friend say during a lecture to some Christian students “No one cares how you feel.” What he meant was that you can’t presume that anyone cares how you feel, and make art like you’re the center of the universe. Can’t tell you why I got in this mood… but my idea was to take everything I’d made this year (a lot of stuff), assemble it into a large pile, like a pyre in the middle of the gallery, then run my paper shredder over the top like a symbolic bonfire.

I told a number of fellow MFA students about my idea and they all liked it (of course), and those I mentioned it to in my family didn’t object (wouldn’t know what to say, probably, though I expect they thought it was dumb), but I have a host of artist friends in Philly that would have all listened to me and then told me not to be an idiot and just show my work. That’s what the one I told said, thankfully. My work can be a bit calculating and cerebral, and I do need an emotional outlet, but trying to deconstruct my entire year in some kind of melodramatic conflagration is just plain stupid.

The work I showed was: Infinite Bridge (circular bridge), Chopstick Junction (the chopstick bridge), Internals (SillyPutty photographs), Rapunzel, Rapunzel (paper shredder), 23f (airplane crash video), and Bread Bird. I didn’t get any photos of the entire gallery, but it ended up looking really good in the space. The hardest part of this was getting the 16.5 foot chopstick bridge out of the studio, but I did it in two pieces and reassembled it in the gallery and it worked just fine. I had planned on building a wall so that the piece could be properly installed spanning the gallery, but my crit time got all messed up and instead of having until Thursday, I had to do it on a Monday, fouling that all up.

My panel was pretty benevolent, but not uselessly so. The most interesting thing was when we began to talk about “risk-taking” and what that constitutes for an artist that is up to most technical problems. One of the harshest critiques that I have gotten is that all I’ve done in school is what I was already able to do when I arrived. That’s only true if you don’t take into account the fact that I’d never done anything like what I did when I arrived at school. Just because I did some things well the first time doesn’t make them invalid. The most interesting thing that I took away from the crit was an encouragement to try to flesh out some of my ideas on a grander scale. That’s easier said than done, but the point was that perhaps that’s what constitutes risk for me.

That’s where my thoughts were left in preparation for next year, and leaving me to consider doing at least one really large or ambitious project for my thesis show. I’ll be writing to all of my rich friends for funding.

The last month has been a whirlwind of making art, final critiques, writing papers, and a canoe trip to Mississippi. I just haven’t had much time to blog. Now I’m faced with finding a job for this summer, but I still want to do a few posts to catch up… so stay tuned, I’m still here…

I, like the person that sent this to me, really want to believe that this was delivered tongue-in-cheek. Sadly, I’m not so sure. However it doesn’t seem too far removed from some of the actual ‘research’ conducted around this highly politicized, pseudo-scientific debate.

Here’s a shot of the putt-putt hole at the University of Chicago. The holes are being exhibited as part of Earth Week because most of them are made out of recycled and reclaimed materials. They didn’t inquire about my hole directly, so I didn’t volunteer that mine is made from 95% store-bought materials.

The holes are out on the area between what in my mind are the most iconic buildings at UC. They’re old, stone, ivy covered buildings. I went into the mathematics building just across from the golf hole and it smelled just like the Chinese Presbyterian Church in New Orleans where my grandfather was pastor. I think UC is supposed to have a pretty awesome math program. I’m hoping that the math genius in the building is so powerful that just being present there will result in my having a greater ability to do arithmetic in my head. Like radiation poisoning, but good.