dayton is not in ohio

My choice for President of the United States.

Leandro Erlich

Tim Gierschick commented on the artworks included in my last post about the Trinity Christian College logo that, “in your lineup of minimalism I’d add the beautiful post-and-lintel etchings of Brice Marden.” So right, Tim. I used all sculptors because that’s my thang, but there’s plenty to go around in painting. Check out Tim’s blog where he posts a weekly short essay about a work of art at his place of work, the Barnes Foundation. They’re gems.

Regarding the logo’s uniqueness among Christian colleges, there was a recent college president that apparently disliked the logo, and added a more traditional college seal to the school’s graphic representations, but the three-bar logo is the most common, and seems to be the most easily identifiable with the school… In case you missed it, I’ve included it again below, followed by some painters. I’m not going to identify the specific titles of the work, but I’ll put the artist’s name as a main heading.

Trinity Logo (artist unknown)

Brice Marden

Ellsworth Kelly

Ad Reinhardt

Mark Rothko

Here’s a slideshow of images from the opening.

At the moment I’m simply referring to this latest piece as “the tower” but it will have a title soon enough. I’m really cranking on it because I can’t afford for it to eat up my entire semester, and with a piece of this scale, that’s pretty easy. I’ve made good progress, working on it during almost every unaccounted for waking moment. I’m really hoping, more than anything, to learn something from this that will spur an idea or set a trajectory for my thesis show/project. It is fun to finally be working with my space, rather than fighting against it.

“Dayton, what am I actually looking at?” Good question. The tower is made of steel. It’s 6 x 6 inches, and 25 1/2 feet high. The cross beam on top is 10 feet long. The tower is supported by 1/8″ steel guy-wires attached at the floor and at 15 feet on the tower. Mounted on the cross beam are three tower beacon lights, and four closed-circuit video cameras. None of the electronics is wired up yet.

tower from front entrance of the school

view through windows to front porch of school entrance

If I had thought about this ahead of time I could have made it really interesting.

There aren’t many, and they don’t fall within the borders of contemporary art. I think this operates more as a rule than an observation. These two videos are far too romantic and dreamy to be considered art. I just discovered the first one today. All I can say is that I wish I’d made it.