Bella Fine Art

Above And Below, 2012

2012-01-19T07:29:00.000-08:00

Last night i put some finishing touches on the new sculpture i had been working on.
Part of a series of three similar sculpture books that resemble a book closed, however when opened there a box with multi layered environments that depict my adventures in the wilderness through a loose abstracted narrative.
Each of them contain objects and photos i have collected or taken.
The images are printed on 100 photo rag paper in the epson 2200 printer. All of the gluing is archival and the map sections are scans from original USGS topographic maps then reprinted through the 2200 so they'll be archival.

Along the Silver Trail

2011-12-31T17:30:00.000-08:00

Finished up the latest book sculpture construction.
Now I have been setting up for the photo shoot in the studio.
The Barrel hinges are seeming to work well on this piece.
Sometimes they tend to be quite sticky.
The Anigre really glistens when the light is at different angles.
Almost becoming 3 dimensional in contrast to the inlay photograph.
The tunnel section on the left took some experimenting in how it would fold out of the recess in the book box.

Finishing the finish.

2011-12-17T13:18:00.000-08:00

Why is the finish always the hardest part?
A bit of dust and its sand out and re-finish.
With the pressure of top coat perfection, i'm trying to finish these three pieces for a set studio visits next month.
The cold weather doesn't help.
Letting the finish warm up encourages the flow out greatly.
It's an old So-Cal Hot-rod'r trick from the days of laying lacquer.
Get the formula hot and it will flow...
So flow she goes.
The cover is a combination of Birdseye maple, Ebony and photograph inlay.
Making the layer sanding even more difficult these layer react to the finish in their own ways.
Just don"t breath on it...

JMT Broadside Collaboration

2011-11-07T23:06:00.000-08:00

Mary and I started the broadside project we had been talking about for a while.
Mary took an official class using a very nice letter press at KALA in Berkeley a few months ago.
For the class project she used our idea of combining drawings turned into linocuts and my Haiku that were written about our trek on the John Muir Trail.
The first experiment for the project came back with great results.
The image Mary translated of one of our campsites and the Haikus she set in type worked out great for our first glimpse at the idea.
Over the weekend I deviled back into old journals from the trip two years ago already, and began to assemble the many Haiku made during the trip. I pined them up on the wall and Mary in the same token assembled watercolors and drawings from her journals that she did from the same trip.
With a starting point of maybe 20 to 25 images and 30 to 40 Haikus we can then form them together to make 10 individual broadsides.
Then possibly work towards an edition.
Fingers crossed, no ego.

Tehipite Fish edition

2011-10-23T20:59:00.000-07:00

While my buddy and I were in Tehipitie Valley, one of the most remote places to trek to in the sierras, I made an edition of cyanotypes of the skeletons from a fish I had caught.
During the trip, I took time out to expose many sheets of the material, but this was the first edition I tried to produce.
With the variables of the sun and the depths of the such a steep wall'd canyon, I discovered how hard it was to keep a consistent exposure as well as the placement of the skeleton under the glass.
I ended up with 12 complete sets of the fish to make the edition.
I'm sure even though Lou was like "Woh thats cool" I think it was more like, "I knew you were sicko!" saving the bones to that fish.
Actually it was pretty funny. I caught that fish more up stream while we were at Blue Canyon Falls and I draped the remains of the fish near where Lou was sleep for the night because i didn't"t want them near me...
In the morning he said a Skunk was by his Sleeping bag trying to reach the skeleton in the manzanita bush but couldn't reach it...
"Dude you didn't smell Him"!

Lego-scapes

2011-07-29T16:13:00.000-07:00

While walking home from the Peet's coffee the other day with the dogs i found a strange Lego toy ship.
An idea sparked.
A kit bash of urban landscape style collaged withe the organic dyaramic-scapes i've been experimenting.
Recent visit to Chicago and the skyscrapers there.
The syntheses of man versus nature.
Without nature however man does not exist.
However does the definition of what nature is now exist because of man?
How we perceive nature is our nature?
Can Nature out perceive the use of man as an organism.
Are we an Organism or a virus in nature.
Or to nature.

Outland-ish!

2011-07-22T13:10:00.000-07:00

A small landscape sculpture "Miners Flat" was included by surprise into the recent show at the Bedford Gallery.
Outlandish is a fun show and I'm excited that Carrie asked me to be apart of it.
Miners Flat is a small wall mount that is somewhat a surreal depiction of a favorite place i like to hike to and fly fish.
The place has lots of solitude and really allows me to forget where i'm at and be in the moment.
Its a place that my friend Aram and I seem to always discuss when ever we talk, wether its on the phone or drinking coffee.
A place that demands physical rigor to reach but a zen mindset to achieve. A place where everyone is welcome but no one can fully understand or grasp. Each visit its true nature eludes, and only sometimes reveals a glimmer of hidden truths for the observant. A river elusive.
Outlandish @ Bedford Gallery

Cyanotypes while fishing not catching.

2011-06-16T14:01:00.000-07:00

Bill and i went fishing last friday. While the fishing was tough, we did almost catch a few nice trout on the Yuba River. During the mid day slack/seventh inning stretch was coming in we stopped fishing. While the fishes took there mid day nap, Bill and I broke out with the art supplies.
In anticipation of this moment to make art on the river, i made the night before a small proof plate to press small samples of flora that lies around the rivers high water mark and river bed. Taking turns, we made a bunch of prints, rinsing them in the sparse shade of some willows.
i'm curious to see how i may incorporate the images that i made. Maybe i'll scan some of them and fold them into some of the geometric shapes I've been using. tThe rich blue could be a nice contrast in some of my landscape sculptures where i have been using the close up images of the trout bodies.

Cinder Cone book

2011-04-12T13:51:00.000-07:00

With a flurry of action a book sculpture was quickly realized these past two months. Starting from the bare bones of some discarded parts, Cinder Cone quickly fell into place. Images from older research trips to Mt. Lassen National Park were assembled. The slip cover was made towards the final parts were decided upon. Using zebra wood on the top and bottom to mimic faux pages, similar in respect to the book box's i've been making. The theme of positive and negative spaces as well as flipped imagery a quotation from one of my past book sculpture that my friend Bob owns now called Wilderness.

Inventoried Range of Light, Explorations on The John Muir Trail. artSite @ Bedford Gallery, Walnut Creek.

2011-01-03T20:43:00.000-08:00

Today was the day to meet up with Erik at the Bedford gallery and start installing my modest installation display of specimens , journals and a out of the comfort zone, iMove in the artSite space today.
We, being Mary and I spent last night working blindly on a "iMovie" for the video monitor thats in the space. trying to create an iMovie when your under the gun and the night before you're installing the piece is tempting the Gods, however somehow we worked through the learning curve, throwing out only 5 DVD's, and came up with something that actually worked and looks really great in the space. Its basically a dissolve of photographs that I had taken over the past three years of trips on the John Muir Trail. mMany with Mary over the 200+ miles together.
The other element in the space is a display of specimens taken while on the trail in the wilderness regions that the JMT traverses through. This means while I was in the National parks I only took photo's not specimens. Along with the specimens is an accordion Journal made while on the trips that have photos and watercolor paintings of places along the way as well as write'n entries about our trek from day to day, and two manipulated photographs in the Lyle Canyon section of the JMT. When collecting the specimens together for the piece I had not really thought of ever showing them before so aligning them in order of collection and place was more tedious than I first thought it would be. Once I set up a system, however the chore became more bearable than it first seemed.

Accordion landscape books

2010-11-07T15:21:00.000-08:00

After the Unbound book show at the Bedford Gallery in Walnut Creek, I wanted to get my good pal Eduardo to work his magic taking some nice photographs of them.
He's really a natural at making things really look beautiful.
Being that the books when unfolded are about 60 inches long the task of lighting as well as having enough space to lay them out for a picture was an overwhelming task to take on. The image of Evolution a book that comprises images and objects embedded to the surface, represents a section of the John Muir Trail that Mary and I passed through two years ago on our JMT trek.

The other book is about the same length and has imagery of the sky during the day on one side then the opposite side has the night sky. Layer'd on top are topographic renderings of the Waterscape and Florascape delineations in terms of who they are distinguished on the USGS maps.

White-out project.

2010-06-07T21:06:00.000-07:00

Organs of a body.
Snow fields existed.
Feeders of a landscape.

Rich bio mass, cascading.
An eco system chain linked.
Dependent on a source.

Dihydrogen monoxide,
Frozen at elevation.
Fluid flowing below.

Solid white opaque.
Fluid clear copious.
Shapes like organs, feed the landscape.

"white-out" correction fluid on maps and photographs.

Shift in thought...

2010-04-13T21:30:00.000-07:00

Things were just going stale.
fur rubbed the wrong way?
i need a clincher.

Too easy.
Conceptually it worked, but in visual form... Bla!
So what, Who cares!

OK you hiked the JMT and your making art about it.
It was only a couple hundred miles in a few weeks.
Big deal...

Something risky was needed.
Like parking a 63 vette
in a bus zone risky.

Then,
like the take of a Yuba rainbow,
Bang! Bing! Zoom!

Focased

2010-04-04T21:07:00.000-07:00

the past few months have been very busy with another column box like the Polyhedron piece from last month. The redwood Burl veneer'd onto the column came out great and the doors are hinged into place. After 4 coats of semi-gloss urethane i can now start working with the kinetic polyhedrons Ii want to instal inside. many are made already i just needed to veneer the outside of the box. During the time spent waiting for the finish on the redwood burl to dry in this rainy weather I finished printing a photographic piece that is like an inventory of field research trips to the rivers I hike and fish at no and then. The photos are of trout, trout and intimate close ups of experience in the landscapes. Often during these field trips I find the aquatic insects the rivers entomology of quite an interest. Screening the water as it rushes by and examining the insects in there different stages add to my inventories and understanding of the place.

I found a great source for some of the small scale objects that i've been using as elements for the sculptures in the box's. When I was visiting with my father we drove to a model shop that specialized in scale trains. While lurking around looking at all of the train models I noticed a few model building that you can make. Immediately I had a few ideas for them and bought them. They seemed somewhat expenceive at the time, then later when I realized that I might need a few more, i began to cruz the internet and found a few sources a bit cheaper than the train store I found the first ones at.

Many polyhedrons in my mind.

2009-12-29T18:06:00.000-08:00

This past summer was filled with much research for work in progress and future things to come. Some minor break-throughs at the moment. Some finally led to major changes in translating emotions in the mind and objects i see. Two sculptures that I was fabricating early in the year became somewhat stalled by roadblocks planned last year with no procedure to jump start them other than stay the course. Summer came and zoom, i'm in the mountains playing out the process and searching for the zone that has no name. Lots of experiments with desperate elements to finally a spark of something. A slight mundane image, an another everyday shape, tweak, collage and my mind is making sense of it all, like a kit-bashed element of a De Chirico painting, inner-laid in a "Florentine cabinet of curiosity". Somehow it feels right, the emotion of how it fits. The photos transform into textures. Subtle reverse spatial dimensions.

Journal Drawings

2009-06-01T21:54:00.000-07:00

I’ve been slowly trying to catch up on combining my journal entries from the trail and the sketch/drawings together. Often it’s hard to keep up with drawing images from the treks, and transferring the daily notes each day. I’m still pretty back logged. Today I have been working on a grouping that was from a section of the John Muir Trail in Yosemite National Park. Last year Mary and I spent a few days drawing and exploring this area below Mt. Lyell the highest peak in Yosemite. My journal that I carry, I laminate photos from the spots, I take a quick sketch on paper, and make notes of the days trek. Then by transcribing from these pages they become a combined vignette of what I saw and did during the day.

“ As we left Marie Lakes in Ansel Adams Wilderness the sun rose quickly. We got an early start to climb over Donahue Pass at 12,000 feet, and into Yosemite. Because being above timberline affords no relief from the sun, early starts are best. Only a small remnate of the once large snowfield now remains below the summit of Mt. Lyell the highest peak in Yosemite at 13114 feet. Entering Yosemite on the JMT, we get our first glimpse of Lyell Canyon from 2000 feet above. Its distinctive U-shaped valley carved by receding glaciers from the Pleistocene era some 17,000 years ago.”

Using a fine lead drawing pencil and a Generals charcoal white pencil on a medium Canson paper is my favorite choice. I like the way that the while pencil highlights the snowfields and bright granite of the landscape and the darker lead pencil shades into shadow leaving the paper as a mid-tone ground.

Veneering Book Coves

2009-03-16T21:33:00.000-07:00

I'm really excited about my glue. I found some new glue that is heat activated for laminating Burl type veneers to substrates of odd shape. The glue wasn't cheap at 40 dollars a gallon. It came and I immediately tried a test out on a scrap tube. After heating up the iron, and allowing the glue to lightly dry I positioned the glued veneer onto the glued tube substrate and ironed away. It worked fabulously. Next I began on the real deal, coating the beginnings of the sculpture/book cover top and veneer, then rough cut to fit. Very exciting to have a product that worked so well and I was no free from using a very expensive vacuum press that i've been avoiding buying for years.
The Veneered book cover to the scroll I want to do, came out great, not a hitch, except for burning the tip of a finger slightly on the iron. Now for the top side...
The Japanese Tamo ash really has a topographic image to it, Its own intrinsic nature really translates into the context of these landscapes. After the top piece is laminated i'll begin to cut out the absent shapes of the snow fields and glaciers, then seal the veneer surface with a coat of polyurethane.

Veneer 101

2009-03-01T13:22:00.000-08:00

Sweet! I got my veneer,that came last week, unpacked today and its super nice.
One sheet is a Tamo Ash from Japan and the other is a lot of plane sliced Redwood Burl. The veneer is quite exotic and will work well on the outside of the two new sculptures i've been slowly finding my way on. Its sort of hard to work in an away that is conducive to process when so much of the early fabrication involves thoughtful procedures. Gee this sounds like grad school.
This week I should get some heat activated construction adhesive for the burl veneer so I can start veneering the outer covers to the pieces. Mary's been hard at work in her studio working on some new linocut blocks and prints. we were at artist and Craftsmen shop for some new engraving blades.

Slip Covers

2009-02-16T22:40:00.000-08:00

I finished the Slip Covers I was fabricating for the two book sculptures this week. After a few set backs with the poly finish, I was able to buff them out and yow, they feel great.
I finished the ends of with scanned topo and shaded relief maps. I was able to find in the maps to correlate with the titles of the sculptures. One is Wilderness and the other Evolution.
Now I need to finish sand all the edges and clear coat them for that Modernist appeal. Maybe i'll actually paint with color some of the inner edges of the Evolution book for more signifiers.

Evolution Book

2009-01-28T20:35:00.000-08:00

I decide the other day that the book that is now called Evolution needed a slip cover. The name came about sence most of the imagery came from that segment of the JMT that I hiked this summer. I started off by making the cover with a 1/4 euro-ply and veneering the inside with Topographic maps of Evolution Basin. These maps were printed with my Epson 2200 printer on Matte Hahnemuhle paper. After all the insides were finished I need to decide on an exterior veneer. Hmm... that was tough, but I came up with some fine pieces of Quarter sawn Eucalyptus. Good thing I have lots of clamps. The process has taken all week with careful glueing of all the surfaces so not to get glue on sides not meant for glue.

landscape book

2009-01-10T21:26:00.000-08:00

The book is going well but making the pages has become tedious and drawn out. Each page takes a day at least to make, thats one side of the page. Once I started to gluing down the leaves and dirt from the trail I need to press it under some heavy things like paint cans and tools.
Its been hard today to get anything done Reba has been nervous keeping an eye on Luna in the shop and studio. Luna keeps wanting to eat the scraps of paper and glue on the floor... total puppy.

Snow-ku

2009-01-05T20:43:00.000-08:00

Snow, glorious snow!
I don't have to go to work;
I don't have a job.

Guest post
John Marsh
freelance writer, Seattle WA

In The Studio

2008-12-22T21:33:00.000-08:00

Over the summer, I was able to experiment on journal making while I was on the trail. I wanted to explore translating the experience of the landscape into my small daily book. I have often found it hard to commit in the endeavor of Journaling for more than a couple of weeks, I would loose interest and begin working only on larger piece, or sculptures.
My Trekking trips afforded me the focus to work small and intimate. Keeping focused on 1 day at a time, I got to play with different forms of seeing and translating the environment on to the pages.
Now that the summer has passed, I’m excited to take elements from those journals and assemble them into new pieces. One in particular that I’m working on is a series of cut out’s. The shapes are of the snowfields that I encountered from the trail along the JMT. Specifically the snowfields in the Black and White Divide area of the Sierra Nevada Crest. The snowfields here feed a series of lakes, which are the photos that I use as the ground from which I cut out the snowfield shapes.
Below these, are the insects that I collected from the journeys around the vicinity of this landscape. The collected insects are sealed and preserved in small vials of alcohol.
In addition to these Snowfield cut outs, I began working on a landscape book that somewhat chronicles another section of my trek. First, I came up with a visual narrative and then cut out segments in some of the panels to represent elements in the landscape. Eight panels are to be hinged together and accordion or fold together.
I think that some of its panels will be writing from the journal entries and others will be photographs laminated to the surface, maybe dirt from the trail also.

Journaling Along

2008-11-23T20:16:00.000-08:00

A book in my pocket to capture my thoughts.
Sometimes an idea.
Sometimes I just free flow daydream in my journal.
Over coffee at my office in the afternoon.
Using different colored pens.
When I hike or I’m backpacking in the wilderness.
I like to cut out pages.
I like to paste in images.
I take pictures of my day.
They help illustrate what I find curious.
I cut shapes out that represent things in the landscape.
The horizon-line.
Shapes of snowfields or glaciers.
Things that might disappear in the future.
A favorite lake along the trail.
Sometimes I’m aggravated when a friend asks me a dumb obvious question.
Sometimes my dumb question makes the obvious more so.
This leads to more pages of writing.
More trips to the office.
More cups of coffee.
Sometimes I just try to forget its name.
See it for the first time again.
Use a different pen today.
Draw a new fly I tied today before I go fishing.
Just in case I loose it.
Or it works.
Cut out more pages to make the pictures fit.
Paste and tape.
Getting lost in the craft.
Use the topographic map.
I like lakes but rather fish streams.
The shapes of lakes are beautiful to draw.
And great to swim in.
Streams never rest, they always are on the move.
Even when were not there to witness it.
Oops, back to work.

More Still Life's

2008-11-07T09:54:00.000-08:00

Recently I have been drawing many of my flies for fishing lately. I like how they transform from a tiny little “lure” to a large object in a still life.
Most I draw are ones I’ve made and some I buy because of their sculptural value.
My friend Kevin tied some pretty cool nymph flies made of the fibers of pheasant tail with a large bead made of magnesium on the hook suspended where the bugs thorax would be.
Using the scraps of euro plywood, I then sand the drawing surface and cut them to size the wood is like drawing paper but really thick and adds its own natural ground to the drawn image.
I need to make about ten more of the drawing to get enough ready for the annual Post-Post card show at the gallery space in san Francisco called The Lab.
I really enjoy getting lost in the structure of the Flies, there like tiny sculptures to begin with. The process of drawing them reminds me of Robert Irwin’s book title “Seeing Is Forgetting The Name Of The Thing One Sees’.”

Mary and Leah @ Parking Day 2008

2008-09-18T14:53:00.000-07:00

Mary has been working quite hard recently to be ready for this years Parking Day event in San Francisco.
The event is this Friday from 9am until the street becomes a commute lane at 4pm.
Artist gather strategically around the city be like pirates and take over street parking spaces at usually high profile art venues like the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art located on Third Street between Mission and Howard streets.
Mary will be at one of these spots in front of SFMOMA Friday with her earth flags on display as well as her art pal Leah Korican. Mary’s earth Flags are a hybrid of the traditional Tibetan prayer flag, but still has the same message of earth prayer and symbiosis for humans and the planet. These flags are fabricated from recycled clothing and home fabric and then have messages of peace and anti consumer politics in the form of recycle messages and imagery.
She prints these images and messages from linoleum block print methods in her studio by hand and then sews each flag to a cord using an all-natural thread.
Recycle and reuse are familiar themes as well as living in harmony with the planet.
Leah’s work is another fringe upon the surreal and eco smart. She has combined her desire to integrate a renewable energy content into sculptures that are animated by sun energy. These surrealistic botanical inventions often resemble flowers that would fit into a sci-fi film or Alice in Wonderland.
Hope you get a chance to see them there.
Mary and Leah @ Parking Day 2007

New Tonka toy to draw

2008-09-13T13:14:00.000-07:00

Soon it’s going to be the annual SF Open Studio tour this coming October 25th and 26th . I have been drawing recently, aside from the engine parts and fly fishing lures, some new Tonka truck toys I purchased on eBay.
They’re quite fun to draw and challenging to get their form, perspective and shading convincing enough that the trucks transcend being just toys to maybe the real thing. I guess that is why I am attracted to them as a subject. I remember having many of these very trucks when I was a child and would play with them constantly. I would project my self as a worker or a driver into the inside of the trucks cab and drive them around a dirt pile in the backyard. I would build buildings and pits to a fantasy excavation for a city complex. At the time, it was a way to escape and become someone and do something with out the true responsibility of being it for real. I think that is why I am interested in drawing these toys now, they allow an escape to that place I once could go to all the time and can forget other things around me.