I Feel More Alive than I have for a While.

When I met with my studio adviser a week ago, he suggested that I try to make things in cardboard. I am a good student. I try to do what I am told, or what is suggested to me, but really the poor man has just had to deal with me floundering for the past 2 months. First I started off with a plan that incorporated mail art, but conceptually had not thought it out at all, second I started working on trading cards and those are coming along slowly, and lastly I started working with pipe drawings on blocks of wood.

This week has been incredibly intense. I spent Monday and Tuesday going through books getting a better idea of the Fibonacci sequence, the golden section and proportions. I started to read about mail art and what it meant conceptually and I started to think about the mapping systems that we use all over the world. I went to the studio and everything seemed incredibly disparate, and even now that I am typing this and riding high on some creative emotion, it may still be disparate, but things seem clearer than they have in a long time.

Today I was looking at the block pieces that I have been working on that my professor suggests looks like a game, which frankly the only game that I think is being played is me trying to get by in grad school. Like my friend Paul suggested though, "Now it's War". Do what you want. Anyway, I am being tangential; I was looking at the blocks and started to think about my chaos pieces and how they were just constructions and I thought, "I need to make more structures". So tonight, I sawed, I hammered, and maneuvered a new piece. I am excited about it, and to feel excited about something that I've made at this point is amazing. So much criticism has occurred that I forgot what it was like to enjoy my stuff, but now I remember again.


Hopefully you like this and I am not just blowing smoke. Many who like Mike paintings like this. It takes up the entire studio floor. Oh and please, if you live near me and you are tearing down something made of wood, can I have it? Thanks.


The images are not great. I'll upload some better images when it is light outside and I don't need to use a flash. Hopefully you at least get the idea.

The other exciting thing that I have been working on is my new "Coffee with Mike" project. I am asking people all over the country to make a map to their favorite coffee shop and to then send it to me via snail mail and then I will send a drawing back in return. In fact I received my parents' maps in the mail today with a pound of coffee. Amazing. Here is my quick map.

If you are interested in the project at all you can check it out here on my flickr page. This project is not limited to folks that label themselves as artists. I am truly interested in everyone's maps. Neither of my parents are artists but their maps were absolutely beautiful.

Anyhow, I think that's it for now. Go Giants.
Peace
-Mike