Concrete Samples

The semester's not over, but I'm officially on Thanksgiving break so I'll take some time over the next week to update this space with some of my projects from the last three months.

We made concrete samples a few weeks ago for a class in Building Materials and Technology - one standard concrete test, and one with a bonus ingredient. They were strength tested at a lab today, but I was late and couldn't figure out how to get in :( so I'll update when I hear how the zip-ties and pink paint held up. We had to write a paper summarizing the project, and I thought it would be fitting to also compose a tribute video. It was going to be a music video with an 80's hair band song, but I didn't want to block out the intimate conversation and subtle moments. Also, I couldn't decide on which Loverboy song to use.

Virgin Studio

This week is/was orientation and a skills workshop for architecture studio. Here's how the studio looks on day 1. I'm looking forward to when it looks more like this.

PKND 6 recap

PechaKucha Night volume 6 was 3 weeks ago so I figure now is as good a time as any to post these pictures. It was a fantastic event; eight Denver designers plus one out-of-towner presented to the 300+ people who camped out in Buntport Theater's parking lot. The keg ran out before sunset but at least there wasn't a lightning storm or tornado. Basically, it was awesome.

Before:

After:

Before:

After:

Before:

After:

I took these pictures with my iPhone, so once it got dark I let the legit photographer take over. Randall Bellows III took phenomenal photos of each presenter and did our audience shot at the end... will update with those soon.

PechaKucha Night Denver volume 7 will be on October 20 at Buntport Theater. Details on that event to come!

Flipbooks of my Favorite Places Part II

Genius Locii flipbooks in action!

A digital film of an analog flipbook of a digital film. How meta is that?

I catalogued my process of making the flipbooks on flickr and there is a recap of the "Looking for Locii" exhibit on the Museum's website. Plus, my last post gives every mind-numbing detail of the making of the flipbooks. It's just like How It's Made, only not really.

This sixth and final exhibition for the DCM is a cross-city challenge between citizens of Denver and San Francisco. It's a pop-up museum that has (so far) appeared in Mod Livin', the Denver Art Museum, and the CTA architecture office (my summer volunteering gig) on the Santa Fe art walk. Next month the exhibit it heads to SF to pop-up around that city for a few weeks, and then it will be gone. I am pretty sure it is just going to evaporate.

I think I failed to mention that I was the only person to complete all the community challenges at the DCM. To honor my star participation I was awarded the prestigious golden pickle!

I'm fairly certain that it's the only trophy I have ever received in my life. That's what happens when you take art classes in school instead of playing sports...

DCM creative challenge recap:

Missing Map

Mummify Me

29

My Little Mania

Bottled Up

Wonder Room

Looking for Locii

Flipbooks of my Favorite Places

The DCM's final community challenge was to identify a space in the city that has a distinct atmosphere or spirit, or Genius Locii, and then make a tribute to it in a small box provided by the museum. Every day I fall more in love with the new neighborhood we recently moved to, so I decided to make a little flipbook shrine to the Berkeley Park hood. The best part about living here is that I am within walking distance of three of my favorite places: a dog park, coffee shop, and hardware store. So I filmed a walk around the neighborhood with my sidekick, Meyer.

We started at home, the point at the top right, then we walked counterclockwise to the Berkeley dog park, over to Tenn St. coffee, down to Tennyson Hardware, and then back home. It ended up being an hour-long walk split into four separate legs, so each flipbook is a 10-20 minute video reduced to 60-80 pages.

Each participant was given a small cardboard box to contain the representation of their Genius Locii, and I wanted to keep the flipbooks tethered to the box yet still accessible to viewers. In my BFA show in 2006 I used magnets to attach flipbooks to the side of a pedestal:

but since this is for a traveling exhibit that will pop-up around Denver and San Francisco I wanted to attach them more permanently. After lots of brainstorming (pulleys? rubber bands? mini slinkies!) I finally thought of using retractable name-badge lanyards. So I bound the flipbooks with zip-ties and looped the lanyard into the binding.

Here they are hooked into the box. More about the exhibit and a video of my flipbooks coming soon...

.

PKND extreme makeover

I just finished updating the PechaKucha Night Denver website, oh, about an hour ago. It might not look like much, but it took some major time messing around with CSS and style sheets and FTP, etc. I basically know about 5% about each of those things, which made for some interesting all-nighters. I do love Indexhibit, the interface used to build the site, but I wish I knew more about customizing it all special-like. So here's what happened...

I added presenter backgrounds:

and a fancy About page with pictures of audiences from around the world:

and some video: Charles Carpenter's awesome video from PKND2:

and my stop-motion video of Jennifer Thies' aerial fabric dancing:

and the most exciting feature: a fancy contact form!

There's also a new facebook group to join our twitter feed.

It was a fun project; I learned a lot; I'm really glad it's over with.

PKN Denver vol SIX!

PechaKucha Night volume 6 is coming up - July 21 - and the presenter line-up is insane. I am pretty much giddy with excitement.

the deets:
PechaKucha Night Denver vol. 6
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Buntport Theater
717 Lipan St. / Denver
doors 8 / starts 8:20
OUTSIDE - bring a blanket or chair!

the presenters:
Lawrence Argent (who doesn't love the big blue bear downtown?)

cypher13 (rad design team in Boulder)

Charles Carpenter (awesome videographer)

DoubleButter (local furniture makers)

Scott Lary (responsible for ADCD paper fashion show)
Bruce Mau (BRUCE MAU! Denver Biennial, designer, and author)
Ted Schultz (architect, sweet restaurant designs!)
Brandi Shigley (she runs Fashion Denver AND is extra awesome b/c she's in a band!)
Ravi Zupa (Westword Mastermind class of 2009!)

You may have noticed that I wrote Bruce Mau in bold and caps. He's our special out-of-town celebrity guest presenter. Go read his Incomplete Manifesto for Growth and then watch the In Good We Trust video. This is super exciting shit, people.

Also exciting is that we'll be projecting on the outside wall of the theater from Buntport's parking lot, so space shouldn't be a problem this time. Unless it rains, in which case we'll all be stuffed inside for another sweaty summer show :( Since we'll be outside be sure to bring a blanket or chair so you can get comfy!

If you're in Denver come check it out!! And please circulate the awesome flier (designed by rad Neil Sittler of stickflower design):

What do cats and knives have in common?

They both need to keep their edges sharp!*

Now that the life update is out of the way, here are two little projects I did last month...

For the cat: I made a scratching post out of 1/2 of a flor tile, a piece of plywood, and some zip-ties.

He Sniffs!


He Scores!


He Smokes and Snores...

For the knives: I made a magnetic knife strip out of a piece of wood and some magnets, cork, and epoxy.

And then I extra nerded-out and documented the steps in a tutorial over on flickr :)

*(yikes. Did that really just happen?)

Six Week Summary

The last few weeks have been a bit of a time warp. Good, but blurry.

1. I ran a half marathon!



2. Z and I took the dogs to Durango. Great trip, great ride, great destination.



3. Z and I flew to Tucson to visit good friends and we had an amazing (simpler) time checking out bike shops and going camping. I am now inspired to learn to weld, make piñatas, build pedal-powered appliances, organize, and have babies.



4. In-between events 1-3, we sold belongings and moved across town. It was awful. Out of a half-dozen trips across town we only managed to lose one chair when we forgot to shut the truck gate. Overall? A miserable success.



5. I started a non-internship / volunteering gig in an architecture office. I love it love it love it there. The office is beautifully built with old and new materials and there are old tools and machinery scattered around. It's fantastic.



6. Summer school started, I checked out a million books from the library, and now I read all day.

Things are good.

One Final Left...

My last final project is due in a few hours. That's why I'm up at 1:30 am, posting things to craigslist and putting the finishing touches on the stoop sale website (I'll add more stuff tomorrow).

Here is part of my final rendering project for my colored pencil drawing class. The assignment was to take a previous project and render it in colored pencil, using a painting as inspiration for colors and composition. I started with my benta plate prototypes from 2007:
Referenced Wary Meyers' Painting, "Lobsters Playing," for color and composition:

and ended up with this:

As a bonus, I accidentally dressed to match my assignment, something that the jurors did not let go unnoticed:


I really loved this drawing class. Working with colored pencils was challenging and humbling, and my favorite part (and what I'm hoping to continue doing) was keeping a sketchbook of drawings and color exercises.

My final Revit project is due tomorrow. After that, the fun starts - stoop sale on Saturday, 1/2 marathon on Sunday, then in the following two weeks we'll pack up the house, move across town, have dinner with friends, road-trip to Durango, and take a quick trip to Tucson to visit some friends. All before the end of May!

Oh! Tonight I won a $100 loaded credit card in a raffle at the Modern in Denver party at DWR! So now I'm debating what to splurge on. Suggestions?