Hanging with Santa Fe Modern

I'll have several works on paper and a few sculptures nestled among the sophisticated contemporary furnishings at Santa Fe Modern.

Alone with a Bottle of Ink

Over the last month I have been spending time at the house/art immersion of the two artists known as Chuck and George. They gave me a key so I was able to drop by whenever I pleased. The result is 14 ink drawings of the visually overloaded interior of the world they live in.

Their house from the front porch to the back gate is overflowing with artwork, artifacts and curiosities. All of the walls and even some of the floors are custom painted and just about every surface has artwork on it. Not only with Chuck and George's artwork but also the works by hundreds of other artists too. It's safe to say this is the biggest collection of slightly demented regional art in Texas. You can understand why I was excited about the opportunity to draw in this environment.

On May 20th the Chuck and George house will be part of the Visual Speed Bump Art Tour. I recommend you earmark the day to spend time at this wonderful house as well as visiting the other 13 studios on the self guided tour.

Interior Views of Chuck and George

There's nothing like spending time at a friends' house, and when they loan you a key so you can come and go as you please, it's only natural to take full advantage of the kindness by dropping by when they are not home and drawing pictures of their living room, dining room, den, kitchen, bedroom and bathroom too, sure, why not!

And just to show that Chuck and George harbor no hard feelings towards my intimate doodlings they are displaying all 14 drawings during the Visual Speed Bump Art Tour. The VSBAT is one day only, May 20th, so grab some snacks and go see some art.

Blame The Lag Time On The Mushrooms

Being a long time blog reader and blogger I have read this sad phrase a number of times Sorry so long between posts... It's usually the last post you ever see on that blog.

Well, here I am writing that phrase in a way that looks like a commentary on blogging. But in fact it has been a long time, and I do feel bad about the long lag time. I have over a dozen posts waiting as drafts. Some just needing a good proofreading before posting.

So what has me so distracted? Well, about a year ago I started working with the Nomadic Fungi Institute as their archivist. I know, a hopeless dyslexic as an archivist? Just shows how desperate they are for any kind of help.

Anyway, I have become more involved with NFI than I would have ever thought. There is so much work to be done, and it seems the more that gets done the more there is to do. But I do believe strongly in what NFI is working towards so all the time and effort feels good. It feels important.

NFI has a blog that I hope you will visit. It is filled with photos, lab reports and even a few interviews. If you read any posts with lots of grammatical mayhem then you'll know its one I wrote.

There is also an NFI Facebook page and an Istagram feed. Here are the links to each.

www.WorldOfNomadicFungi.com
Nomadic Fungi Institute Facebook
Nomadic Fungi Institute Instagram

Okay, let me get back to proofreading...
Brad

Fun With Snow Globes

Having some fun in the studio playing with snow globes. They seem pretty start forward at first but then you have to think about what materials you are using, and will they hold up to being submerged in water from now until the end of time.

For my snow globes I made small glazed ceramic sculptures that I epoxied to the inside lids of varies jars I've been collection over the last few months.

One of the key differences between a good snow globe and a less than satisfactory snow globe is the air trapped inside of the jar. If there is an air bubble at the top, you have a substandard snow globe.

The best way to prevent this bubble is to submerge all the parts in a bucket of water while putting the snow globe together. I was amazed at all the Youtube videos that skipped this detail. In fact I was amazed at all the videos that simply guaranteed the end product would be all round crappy.

In the photo above you will notice the green algae. This is due to the fact that I used egg shells instead of plastic confetti for my snow. Egg shell and mother of peal where common in Victorian snow globes, but the Victorians also tended to use oil instead of water... I did boil the egg shell first, but there was still enough proteins left to grow a very nice microcosm. Perhaps next time I'll add a few sea monkeys.

Odd Jobs At The Nomadic Fungi Institute

As the archivist at the Nomadic Fungi Institute my duties have turned out to be much more complex than just putting old news paper clipping into folders and putting the folders into file cabinets. For example, the NFI just launched their new NFI logo. To mark the occasion we hand printed a limited edition of NFI artists trading cards. Fifteen of these we sent to the Art.Science.Gallery event Art/Science Trading Cards. The remaining cards will be given out at up coming art events, while others will be used as thank you gifts to new NFI members.

Better wash the ink off my hands before going back to stuffing news paper clipping into files and sticking files into filing cabinets.

SculptCAD Rapid Artists 3D Printed Sculpture

The SculptCAD Rapid Artists Project was organized by Nancy Hairston in 2010 as a way to showcase the versatility of rapid prototyping 3D printing. Each year she has asked artists to come to the  SculptCAD offices and learn how to use this technology, then make some art.

The SculptCAD Rapid Artists 3D Printed Sculpture show at the One Arts Plaza is a quick sampling of some of the artwork that has been produced over the years. This show was presented to dove tail with the Aurora Dallas event. Artist in the show are: Steven Hopwood Lewis, Shane Pennington, Heather Gorham, Patty Delarios, Shawn Smith, Mark Grote, Morehshan Allahyari, Dave Van Ness, Joshua Goode, Elliot Johnson, Shelle Carring, Joshua King, and myself, Brad Ford Smith.

Below are a few snaps from the exhibit.

Brad Ford Smith

Brad Ford Smith - Servings is a nod to the Balloon Dog sculpture by Jeff Koons.

Heather Gorham

Heather Gorham - Is it a circus trick or a view of the universe?

Elliot Johnson

Elliot Johnson - Hellbender, a salamander with self-esteem issues. 

Shane Pennington

Shane Pennington - Pushing the binderies between art , technology and nature with his living bonsai tree with spliced in resin print.

Aurora Dallas 2013 or Aurora Project or Aurora 2013 or Dallas Aurora

Whatever name you prefer to use, Aurora, The Light Of Convergence was a stellar art event with a turnout well above the expected 35,000 people.

Aurora is an art event held one night in the Dallas Arts District that features new media artwork in mediums such as light, digital projection, performance and sound. This year all the Arts District Institutions joined in to make it a 68 acre block party.

This was my second time to be an Aurora artist. I selected a 10 foot square cement plinth to project my project onto, which was titled UP.

UP is composed of 63 photographs taken while hiking the back woods of Yosemite National Park. UP is a simple concept: we spend too much time looking at our hands and feet, and not enough time looking UP. By mirroring the images of treetops and projecting them onto a horizontal surface, this simple shift and change of angle illustrates the otherworld quality of simply looking UP.

Keeping this project very simple is something I learned from my last Aurora encounter. People in crowds never stop for very long, perhaps 3 seconds. In that short amount of time you have to grab them with something that is striking AND recognizable. 

Swirling colors and complex geometric shapes or long slow narratives just get passed by.

With UP, the simplicity is its strength. A photo that is mirrored creates a rorschach test experience. It is what it is but it could be something else as well. The added effect of one image fading into the next so that there is a brief 4 seconds of overlapping taps into the basic human instinct to search out recognizable patterns and solve puzzles. 

The end result is that the crowd stopped. Some people watched the whole 3 minute loop, pointing out to each other what they saw hidden in the trees. 

Here are a few links to Aurora reviews and posts:

UP

Aurora Dallas

Dallas Morning News

Bill McCarthy video
WFAA photos 49 and 50 are my favorites.
FrontRow D Magazine 

Snow Globe or Lab Specimen

Been working on a series of sculptures that walk the line between snow globe and lab specimen.

I've never made a snow globe before, so I turned to the world of DIY videos. It's surprising how many  there are out there, and how 90% of them are doing it wrong. For one thing, you have to submerge the globe in water while putting the lid on, other wise there is no way to prevent air bubbles.

I know what you are saying, Well mister smarty pants, I see an air bubble in your snow globe! Yes you do, and that is because I didn't presoak the ceramic sculpture before putting the lid on the globe. That air was trapped inside the pores of the ceramic. Who would have ever thought of that?

You might also be saying, Looks a little green inside that magical wonderland. That's probably due to the algae feeding on the proteins from the egg shells. Egg shells and mother of pearl are what they used before the invention of plastic snow flakes. That said, I kind of like the green. It adds a bit of realism to the old, musty lab specimen effect.

New Face To An Old Website

I am VERY, VERY, VERY happy to announce the launch of my new website!

www.BradFordSmith.us features my artwork AND it looking really great! There are still some tweaks and blank spots to fill, but it looks so clean and it's so easy to manipulate.

A BIG THANK YOU to all the people that responded to my many inquiries about their websites.


To receive fresh off the keyboard ramblings delivered direct to your email, sign up at www.BradFSmith.blogspot.com.

First Steps To A Wall Installation

Here's a quick snapshot of a wall installation in the mud and plaster stage.

My sketchbook is getting filled with drawings of elongated forms that often have knobs, forks, and horns. I am turning some of these into small ceramic sculptures that will eventually be installed as a random scattering on a wall.

In the photo above, in the bottom left corner is an oil clay model on a 5"X 7" MDF panel. The white block next to it is a plaster mold cast from one of the oil clay models. Above that, to the left is a plaster mold filled with clay. Next, shows the extra clay cleared away from the mold surface. On the blue board are the clay sculptures after being removed from the molds. 

From here the sculptures go into the kiln to be bisque fired, then glazed, and then high fired. The ones that survive this torturous trial will become part of a large wall installation.

Tin Time In The Studio

There's a strange winter garden growing in the studio. A catfood can garden.

After burning away hours/months on my Wordpress website, I've decided that my humble Blogspot blog is really very nice, and that I should drop the mantra Right after the website is up, and just get back to blogging.

And The Idea Fund Grant Goes To...

This was my second time to apply for an Idea Fund grant. The first was in 2009, as a joint effort with Beam, Plank and Flitch, constructing 6 public wood benches made from urban harvested trees. That one missed because I think the judges thought it was to pedestrian and not art centric enough. Although sense that time Dallas has become over run by urban harvesters.

In 2011, I applied with the Automated Cordycep Project:

The Automated Cordycep Project is about playing with a narrative; it’s about combining sculpture, nature, and science, with a gorilla approach to exposing the public to a sci-fi narrative of near future disaster…

And the prize… went to somebody else. Actually 10 somebody elses. I looked over the list, and can say that on first glance, they all look like solid proposals. Each having a large friendly public component, which I think is where my project might have been lacking. Mine had public interaction, but more on the level of terrorizing large crowds with remote controlled cars infected with a parasitic fungus.

So. I’ll add this to the list of impressive art organizations that I have applied to but have not been accepted by. It is said that if you don’t get rejection notices, you’re not trying hard enough, which I do think is true, although I really do prefer the non-rejection notices.

Dallas Aurora After Glow

It's been a few days sense the Dallas Aurora event in the Dallas Arts District. People are starting to post images and videos. One of those in by my good friend Mark Birnbaum, who unbeknownst to me shot this great video of my installation. Thanks Mark!

Aurora 2011: A Thing To See And Do

Water Walls Dallas Arboretum

I have felt for a while now that I should be spending less time at the computer. All those hours logged on has left me feeling a bit like a big wooden log. So, it's up early, a balanced breakfast, walkies, perhaps a bit of yard work, and get involved with a few art events to get me out of this damn house!!!

Aurora 2011 is one such event. This year it's being held in the Dallas Arts District. 97 light and sound installations will turn the 19 block area into a night of color. The big power switch will be flipped on this Friday, October 28th at 7:30pm-12:00 midnight. Here's the Art and Seek post.

Fountain Place Park Dallas TX

I missed being part of the Aurora 2010 because I was in Italy, which I enjoyed completely and blogged about maybe a bit to much. That said, I have been waiting all year for the next Aurora event. This time I am in town, busy at my computer spicing together bits of video... So much for getting out of the house, or the walkies, or the balanced breakfast.

White Rock Lake 2 AM

I am producing 2 videos that will be projected onto the west garden wall of the Meyerson Symphony Center. Both videos are about water. One is natural footage of ponds, streams and puddles as seen in the top 2 photos above. The other video uses the same footage and manipulates it by re-filming the clips multiple times to produce color separations and distortions, as seen in these bottom 2 photos.

Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth

This will be my first time to show any of these videos publicly. Very excited about it, and about seeing all the other installations, too!

Putting on a Polish

On the bottom row are the 3 bronze sculptures I have been working on in the last wax casting class at CAC. They are polished up, patinated and to all purposes they are finished. They are about 2 inches long, and fit very comfortably in the hand. A friend said they feel like worry stones or hand candy. Perhaps I'll carry them around in my pocket, and when someone asks what I do I can hand them one and say "This, only bigger."

In my last posting I mentioned the risk of losing all your hard work during that .05 seconds of pouring bronze. Well, the first 2 items on the second row are a good example. I mislabeled the flasks, so when I poured this flask I didn't have enough bronze to fully cast the sculptures. GRRR

The black shapes are paper cut outs of the sculptures yet to be poured. We have one more class this session. We'll be spending the whole time casting. Our teacher, Rebecca Swann is a highly skilled jewelerist and a well of knowledge.

Playing With Hot Molten Metal

In last weeks lost wax casting class at the Creative Arts Center I invested 3 small wax sculptures. This week it's time to pour hot molten metal!

The wax sculptures have been melted out of the investment leaving behind a hollow space inside the very, very hot flask.

Now it's time to  slip on flame proof gloves and welding goggles, pull out the torch, and melt some bronze. This takes about 5 minutes.

Once the molten bronze starts to swirl around in the crucible it's time to pour. Note the orange stream of bronze going into the flask. Hot, Hot, Hot.

It's in there, and it should have filled ALL the hollow areas... Let us pray... In lost wax casting you can work hours and hours on the wax sculpture, just to loose everything in that .05 seconds of poring.

And here they are! 3 small almost perfect bronze sculptures!!! There are a few nubs and surface burps that will be removed when I take off the casting sprues. Then, well then we move on to polishing. This is not a quick process.

Lost Wax Casting: Sprues of Hope

It's called sprueing; attaching wax sticks (the red stuff) to the wax sculptures (the purple stuff), then mounting the sculptures onto a mold base(the black stuff). Next the steel tubes you see in the background, slide into the bases and are filled with investment (high temperature plaster). The wax will be burned out leaving a hollow area that the metal, in this case bronze will be poured into.

Technically, I think I followed all the rules of lost wax casting, but during the pouring all you can do is hope for the best. I'll be pouring/casting next week, so stay tuned to find out if they turn out to be beautiful sculptures or monstrous blobs?!

You can follow this project as well as all the other stuff going on in and around the studio by subscribing at Brad Ford Smith Blog.

Small Scale Sculptures

I started a Lost Wax Casting class at the Creative Arts Center last Thursday. As you can see Stanley, the art critic is letting me know which of my wax sculptures needs more work. Eventually the wax sculptures will be cast in bronze and become part of a wall mounted installation.

Sparkles the Bling Bling Birthday Cow

About 18 years ago there was a city wide public sculpture project in Chicago where all the artists were given life sized fiberglass cows to do artistic things to. As you can imagine they did just about anything you can imagine to those cows. It was a very big success.

The city of Dallas followed suite a few years later, except they used a fiberglass Pegasus. Personally I think the Pegasi supplied to the artists were over designed, with to much pre-built in creator, so most of the Pegasi I saw were not very good. Some of them can still be seen around town 10 years later. I was actually asked to do a conservation assessment on one. It was such a bad mix of badly mixed mediums that I pronounced it lame and suggested they shoot it.

Anyway, I started thinking about all of this because I spent today making a 2394 rhinestone incrusted bovine as a birthday present for a dear friend. She's having one of those landmark birthdays, the kind that includes a big California blow out built around a cowgirl theme.

I was kind of surprised to find that when my socially sophisticated friend moved to LA, she started cultivating her very, very slight association with cow culture into a Texas Cowgirl gone LA mystic.

Happy Birthday Cowgirl! Don't take your spurs off until the saloons close up and your horse falls asleep.