Plot Camera / Wind Storm

I used my plot camera to capture a video of the wind storm yesterday. 

Wind Damage

Yesterday I spent the most part of the day in 99 degree heat and 60 mph wind working on larger paintings.  At about 4 pm gusts were getting stronger and blowing my brushes and paints off the table so I hurried to shut down the summer studio.  Just as I was finished moving inside a huge dust devil came accross the air strip and into the CLUI yard taking out the studio and the fence.  The painting in progress below was blown 25 yards down the road.  Shelby was caught naked emerging from a cold plunge and was pelted with gravel.  Both Shelby and my paintings survived with out serious damage.  When the wind stops in a few days we will rebuild (and secure) the studio and the fence.

Field Drawings

Here are a few examples of some quick field drawings I have produced since I have been here in the Wendover area.  Some of them will be developed into larger oil paintings, but mostly are just visual records for myself.  

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.

Flavin’s Flavin / Carnitas

We had a great visit from Anthony Tennerali out of Denver this weekend.  He built an outdoor lighting system for the pits that got us all excited.  We made slow cooked carnitas con frijoles and cole slaw. 

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 Night / New Work

David and I have been working in the studio pretty hard.  I’ve started a the first drawing based on source material from the trail / game camera.  I’m using red iron oxide and am enjoying the results so far.  UPDATE: I have changed course from these particular drawings to more ephemeral work. 

Gold Nugget

This is one of the larger paintings I have been working on.  It is a view from a ramp up to the pool area of the Montego Bay Casino and Hotel.  It shows the state line, the Gold Nugget Casino and the salt flats.  In the composition the Nevada state flag points down to the CLUI grounds in East Wendover, Utah.

Sun Tunnels / Lucin, UT

The three of us went camping at Nancy Holt’s ‘Sun Tunnels’ earthwork near Lucin, UT for the summer solstice on Monday.  The sun is supposed to line up perfectly with the length of the concrete tubes, and it does on the solstice.  The piece is located about an hour and a half north of our residency in Wendover.  The place is isolated, to say the least.  It was extremely interesting to interact with the audience for Holt’s tunnels – many local people and few, if any, art world professionals.  A high point was to be able to check out the sky at night when the Milky Way was fully visible, and you could watch satellites orbit the earth. 

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.