Backbone

Here is an animated video from one of my new favorite artists. His sense of scale and perseverance is inspiring.

Stay Tuned

You may have wondered, “ Why does this guy make these things? Why should I care about  this? Why am I reading this blog?”

Well, in thirteen days, you can come ask me those, or any other question, in person. Come to my first graduate show at SFSU and I promise that you will be impressed – even if it’s because you can not believe that I am spending money on this.

Stay Tuned

THE WANDERER from Joel Fletcher on Vimeo.

Stay Tuned

This is a question that my friend Jo from Ghost Bike keeps asking me about the work I have been making for the past few years. I have been forging iron bars (of all sizes) into long squiggly tapers to be used as sculptural elements. They look, as Jo puts it, like big pubic hairs.

So, what is up with all the pendejos? The answer has 2.5 sources:

 

Tapering is one of the most basic things that can be done with a hammer to hot iron. Consequently, this is one of the first things taught to those learning how to work the material. When I became interested in blacksmithing in my late teens, this was something that I did often to practice my skills.

     

If I go deeper down the rabbit hole however, I begin to make connection as to how these simple exercises in forging iron were informed by my experiences and environment over the years.

 

As I have mentioned in older posts, the notion of human survival is a large blanket concept that feeds my work – often faster than I can decipher the information that I get. Nevertheless, in my research of survival, I have noticed that the various ways in which people band together (especially with regards to religions and other belief systems) is a reoccurring theme.

 

When I look at religions from an outside point of view, I am able to see, objectively, a variety of things. These can change from one religion to the next and can also range from traditional and historical in context to more contemporary and practical reasons for existing. This is all to say that I have spent time looking at various religions to find empirical data that I can use to better understand the things humans do in large groups (with strong shared beliefs) to survive on a day to day basis.

 

How does this relate to my pendejos?

 

Being a visual artist, my tendency is to be attracted to the imagery of cultures before anything else. Repeatedly, when looking at religions, I come across imagery that seems to express the radiance of the spirit. Whether it is shiny gold leafed halos in Byzantine iconographic work or bold colored lines emanating from the body of Buddha or other deities, artists in the past have seemed to represent the “soul” in very similar ways.

    

  

I heard a quote recently by Neil deGrasse Tyson in an amazing video I saw at symphonyofscience.com. He said, “We are all connected to each other – biologically, to the planet – chemically, and to the rest of the universe – atomically.” When I combine my thoughts about his quote with my reaction to the imagery of golden halos and radiating spirits I start to feel a weight on my chest.

 

This is not an advocation of any one religion’s claims on spirituality over any others. On the contrary, it acknowledges the common threads that run through these old forms of religious art that signify the how we see and understand our spirituality and our selves.

 

The iron pendejos that I make are very similar in shape to the radiating lines of these old works. Maybe these are my way of projecting the soul of my work out into the universe.

 

The other source where I have noticed a significant connection between the shape of these iron tapers and my environment is in sound. This is a much more recent discovery for me as I have been pushing the boundaries of what I use as source material to inform my work/life. It involves my experiences with sound, more specifically, the weight of sound. I tend to be attracted to low frequencies and long, deep vibrations. These sounds make me feel like I am moving slowly through a thick, viscous space. When I am here I feel like my body is vibrating in harmony with my environment. I would imagine that this is not unlike the effects of chanting that certain religions use to achieve a state of balance, clarity, enlightenment etc.

 

When I find myself in this state, it becomes easy for me to imagine my mind as a series of lenses. With each lens the world and its complex systems are exposed to me at different levels of magnification. When I spend enough time here, connections are revealed to me about my place in a world of billions of other living-surviving organisms – all competing for life.

 

It is a rare occasion when I find the time and energy to sustain this for periods long enough to make these connections. When I do however, I find it to be of the most valuable experiences to the work I do.

 

If one were to visually map the undulations, or the sensations felt while moving through this space – they would look very similar to the finished forms of the pendejos. They begin with a stout root and decrease in mass as they taper off into space until they reach the limits of their own molecules. It is here where they brush up against the rest of the universe and create potential interaction with whatever they encounter.

 

Stay Tuned

Each year the 2nd year grad students exhibit their work in the Stillwell show. Come see just how confused and frustrated the past 18 months have made me.

The opening reception is November 10th from 4-6 pm in the Fine Arts Gallery at SFSU.

Stay Tuned

Stay Tuned

When you go to see a live show, you get sound from two different sources. The first is the actual waves that the instruments themselves make. The other is the electronic amplification that can come from the PA and/or the stack of amplifiers that band may be using. Both of these create an experience that you can both hear and feel at the same time. Feeling sound in addition to hearing it is akin to smelling delicious food while you eat it. Personally, this is the reason why I prefer live music to recorded.

This past Sunday night I went to see a band called Nadja at the Hemlock, which is one of my favorite places in the city to see a show. I have been listening to this band since they were recommended to me a couple of years ago and got excited when I learned they were coming.

They make slow, heavy, atmospheric sounds on guitar and bass and layer them over occasional distorted vocals and drum beats that can, at times, seem like a ticking clock – counting down to some kind of heavy, impending fate.

Leah Buckareff and Aidan Baker Nadja did not play badly. They did not seem like jerks. They did however use a drum machine – and my heart sank.

Using one tells me that while they (or anyone) is perhaps smart enough to compose a beat – they’re not actually making one. Asking me to forgo the live experience while I am a live show is creatively unforgivable. A drum machine undercuts a large portion of a live experience by removing the vibrations of the actual drums. All that is left is the ghost of the original sound.

 The performance seemed empty.

My jury is still out on the inclusion of recorded sound in musical performances. Where some bands fail others seem to succeed. (Such was the case last month when I saw Lichens open for OM.)

I left that night with the hope that Nadja does in fact have a drummer who, for some reason, was indisposed for the tour. Perhaps after weeks of arguing about the future of the band, the remaining members reluctantly hit the road with the machine programmed by the absent drummer – yea that’s what must have happened.

Stay Tuned