David Heads Home

Today I began packing to head home tomorrow, I feel like I am at a good stopping point with my work where I can easily pick up where I left off when I’m back in Laramie.  Ultimately, we will continue to update this blog as we keep working on the work well after leaving Wendover.  The end result of the postings and the project as a whole will be an exhibition of our work – hopefully at several venues. 

I have to say that I feel like this residency has been very beneficial to my studio practice as well as productive and necessary.  I have enjoyed my time just making do here in the studio “Gilligan’s Island Style” with what I have on hand and what I could find (even though there were a few trips to the hardware store).  For example, all of the framing for the walls, the siding for the building, and the tower structure were made from strips ripped out of just four 2′ x 4′s.  It’s safe to say with this project I became one with the table saw and brad nailer. 

After I get back I’d like to resume work on the trailer in my studio at home where I can spend some time looking at it on a clean wall and consider how to finish the composition.  Also I’m eager to get back to fabricating the steel components of the tower.  I look forward to seeing what Pat and Shelby are up to with the rest of their time on this blog, I know Pat recieved approval to go into a goldmine later this week so I’m eager to see what comes out of that.  Shelby has been getting some really nice photos with his game camera as well.   

I’d like to conclude this posting by giving a special thank you to Matthew Coolidge for letting us do this.  Matt was instumental in getting all of this in Wendover as well as the Center For Land Use Interpretation started.  To the best of my knowledge there are at least five other centers in addition to Wendover through out the U.S. and the open ended scope of the work that has come out of these programs has been amazing.  I highly reccomend that you at least check this place out - there’s nowhere else like it.

Moving Along

Still working on the set and trailer, these are some detail shots taken by my friend Anthony Teneralli.  I have really been getting into the surfaces of the objects as well as their finishes, for example a made a “etching pit” out in the yard using a hole, plastic sheeting, muriatic acid, and water to achieve the finish on the metal roof pictured.  At this point I have to start thinking about what and how to wrap things up as I get ready to leave on Tuesday.  The great thing about my time here is that I feel like I could easily pull two years of work out of this experience-it has been well worth the effort and time that went into the planning to pul this off.

Studio Update

The movie set is coming along nicely.  This  photo of was taken with it temporarily installed in Exhibition Space #2 so that I could get it out of the studio and get a sense of its scale.  Its really nice to have room to spread out, work, and think.  I got the burned up trailer piece to a point where I thought it needed to “age”, so I decided to go submerge it in some super saturated salt water.  That water is pretty amazing, if you put your hand in it you automatically have a layer salt on your hand as soon as the water dries.  So I’m interested to go and get that piece today and see how it transfomed and from there start making some compositional decisions about what to do next.

Studio Work Begins

Hollywood Set

 

Once we got our studio set up, I began work on my hollywood movie set of the southern part of Wendover air base (southbase).  Of all the things about this place that I found to relate my work to (there are many) the hollywood connection is what I was most interested in beginning work on right away.  The wall-like structure in the photo graph is about seven feet long and once finished will be a prop for the mountains that surround the base. 

Burned out Trailer

 

Abandoned Military Guard Post

The burned up mobile home frame in the photograph is what I will mostly likely begin next so I can work on both the movie set and the trailer piece at the same time.  Where I am headed with this work is the idea that this place is literally littered with the remains of the endeavors of many-the airbase, movie props, and then burned up junkpiles.  I am drawn to these things because all of this stuff tells a compelling story about the history of this place.  I think best example being the airbase and its role in the development and execution of the dropping of the atomic bomb as this changed the course of human history.  I particuarly like that this place has often been in movies like Conair and Independence Day to name a few and that it always sets the scene for “the middle of nowhere”.  While it does seem to be in the middle of nowhere some siginificant things have taken place here and the remains are what tell the story.

Studio Improvements / Settling

By our second day here in Wendover, we are going about making some minor studio improvements in order to settle in to our research.  We cleaned and organized the shop, and Dave and Pat are putting together a little outdoor painting studio with a view towards the Salt Flats east of the center.