Up Lifting View from Texas Museums

I just got back from the 2011 Texas Association of Museum Conference. 3 days of lectures, group discussions and workshops with 388 people that work in museums from across the state, museums like the Dallas Museum of Art, and the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History, as well as hundreds of smaller historic museums, historic parks, historic houses, culture centers, libraries, and foundations.

Between the sessions a lot of the coffee talk was about the resent cuts to the Texas Commission on the Arts, the Texas Historical Commission, and the Texas Parks and Wildlife. That said, the overall atmosphere of the conference was upbeat, with sessions focusing on Do it yourself public relations, Developing partnerships and Resource building. A Yes this sucks, and it's going to continue to suck, so let's make the best of it attitude prevailed. I for one, came away invigorated by the commoratery and the positive problem solving attitudes.

Next year, the TAM conference with be in San Antonio, March 27-30th. I'll be participating as part of an Art Conservation roundtable. More on that next March.

Planning How to be Strategic in my Planning

Usually my posts are kind of a light hearted ramblings, but this 3 day Creative Capital Professional Development Program at Arthouse kind of knocked my for a slow loop. Most of the info was standard business planning stuff infused with a fine art perspective. And the other 24 artists were a joy to meet and interact with. The 5 instructors were insightful, approachable, and vocal with their opinions. All good stuff.

But now I am back in Dallas, rewriting my notes and working on the Strategic Planning Workbook... and I realize that I don't know what the fuck I'm doing. I know kind of what I should be doing, but mostly I just blow in the wind like a tumbleweed, hoping to get snagged by a barbed wire fence with a nice view.

I'm going to approach The MAC or the Dallas Contemporary to see if they would apply to have Creative Capital come to Dallas. Having a local group of artists to meet with and work though this with would be wonderful.

At any rate, I'm doing my homework now. Stay tuned.

A Little Fungus For A Good Cause

I should have posted this sculpture before the Art Conspiracy's fundraiser happened... Well I'm doing it now.... This is Cordycep Flamingo. He was part of the Better Gnomes and Gardens auction put on by Art Conspiracy.

He is your average pink flamingo except he is suffering from a cordycep fungus. This type of parasitic fungus mostly infects bugs, like grasshoppers and ants, slowly driving them insane and turning their bodies into stalagmite covered husks. It looks like a horrific way to die. I would love to see this happen to a few of the fire ant in my front yard.

I created this sculpture in hopes that placing it in your yard or garden it will act like a scarecrow, and scare the holly crape out of all the fire ants.

By the way, a few of my friends did point out that items at fundraiser tend to sell better if they are based on humor or cutely puppies, and not horror show fungi. But like the commercial says Who doesn't like to kill fire ants? And I am pleased to say that it did sell for a nice amount.

To see some great photos of cordycep covered bugs, as well as lots of great pictures of Normal bugs and fungus, check out Kim Fliming's Flickr site.

A Workshop in Strategic Planning for Artists

The people at Creative Capital call it a Professional Development Core Weekend Workshop, PDCWW for short. It is a "Crash course in self-management, strategic planing, fundraising and promotion. Based on a rigorous and comprehensive curriculum..." Those of you who are regular perusers of my abombitallizations of grammer, know that I do love orderly things and planning, but the closest I ever come to Rigorous, is babbling on and on and on, (case in point)

How every, when I read more about this workshop, I saw it as an opportunity to focus on some of my weaker points... in a healthy constructive sort of way, as opposed to the binge induced rants that me and my fellow artists normally indulge in.

So I applied for 1 of the 24 spots, sending 10 slides, a CV, and a short artist's statement. I am happy to say that I was selected, AND I got a Creative Capital Subsidy Grant as well!

Sorry, that's getting very close to blowing my own horn, but I am very excited about this workshop. Hopes are high that I will learn a lot about modern professional art practices, and connect with a new group of artists to interact with.

The workshop is being held at the Arthouse in Austin, hence the oldish photo of me standing next to the Arthouse placard.

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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?!

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