RECLAMATION: Indoors- 'The Parlor' Diorama

AN UNEXPECTED OFFER…

         One unexpected space that Hermitage Museum offered me to use for the Reclamation exhibtion was a large showcase just to the left of the 2 gallery spaces upstairs. This space was a bout 5’ x 6’ x 8’ tall, and about 2 feet off of the ground. This makes for a small room at the end of the hall, framed by a large picture window, which visitors peer through as they round the crest of the stairs, and approach the gallery spaces, around the corner to the right.

OPPORTUNITY KNOCKS

         When Melissa offered me use of this chamber-like space, it didn’t take long to figure out what to do with it…

         I had been thinking since I returned that while my site-specific plans were making good use of the grounds and gardens outside of the museum, I had not really duely addressed the interior of the museum. And the more that I thought about it, the more it seemed like there was some rich potential to create a dialogue with the elegant and artful furnishings in Sloanes’ living room. With this in mind, I made a special run to that great resource that is Scrap Exchange (when I returned to NC for supplies), and dug through their fabric and ‘notions’ section, gleaning some scraps of really REGAL upholstery fabric, and several bagfuls of dark and colorful trim…I also found there some large, dejected oval-shaped mirrors, with a nice wide bevel, very elegent…

         So, as you can surmise, my aim was to attempt to recreate in this ‘vaulted chamber’ some of the ambiance of the Sloane’s own ‘parlor’ downstairs below- in essence, a diorama. The twist of course, was that many of these furnishings would incorporate the improbable material of tire rubber.

TIRES AND TRIM, COALLESCING…

         This was a task, which I must admit, I set to work to, with glee.

I have always wanted to create a series of treadknot tire knots (a family actually), incorporating this sort of fabulous and stuffy pillow trim, and as I schemed on, it quickly became clear that this was the PERFCECT context from which to birth this family.


   In fact, many unconscious currents of my tire craft over the last 9 years seemed to be COALLESCING in this ‘parlor diorama’. For instance, Luther, (the Snapping Turtle) himself, the Great Great Grand Daddy of my RepTire Art) found himself right at home at this ‘ball’, even getting himself gussied up with a new mount, complete with a mount-mount, featuring an elegant silk liner…

Luther's mount, mount..

Booyaa! How you like me now, Sucka!
Copyright, Travis Cohn/Reptire Designs 2011

‘PILLOW TALK’


For pillows, I made a pillow knot (part of what I call the ‘pillow talk’ series;), and also came up with a new design- a round pillow using a smallish ‘knobby’ tire.


This one incorporated some of that upholstery fabric and trim from The Scrap Exchange, and also some supporting materials scavenged around Norfolk,

including foam stuffing and cardboard doorskin. 

It was a little tricky pulling this one together,

An early sketch

but finally, with some carefull planning,

and alot of patience, 

I did pull it together.

In the end, I think it worked like a charm, especially with that button/dimple a the center (of the pillow AND the rose).

Its a pizza! Looks good enough to eat. Just like Mama Rosa used to make!

Some of my better work, I priced it high cause I wanted to keep it (or loan it to the Scrap Exchange), but I don’t know, it has some worthy admirers…

SPHERE DU MONDE

         This scene was also the opportunity to bring into existence a certain ‘TireSphere’ that I have always wanted to create- the Globesphere. This incorporates a fancy French globe that I bought at this eccentric antique store. As the globe was French, and the French are undoubtedly lovers of the bicycle…I thought I would ‘round it out’ with some choice French ‘Forte’ racing tires. Perhaps I will have to rename it some day- “Sphere du Monde”….

SUPPORTING CAST

         A supporting cast for this parlor diorama was furnished from a variety of sources. To get us started, I borrowed a favorite Persian rug from my studio, that my parents and I had hoisted from a Duke dumpster, way back in the glory days.

         Melissa Ball generously lent the exhibit an essential chair from her office- one that had once belonged to Mrs. Sloane herself! While we had tried to locate a more ‘stately’ wingback, this one did fine, and its warm gold tones held the scene together well.

         From my parents attic, I borrowed an end table that had once held my own grandfather Ted’s newspapers and various books. I think it was an unintended  shock, and hopefully a treat also, for my mother to recognize this table and rug being displayed prominently in this museum showcase!

CENTER PIECE- The Mirror

         The centerpiece of this diorama is the mirror. This was to be the collections most difficult piece to conceive, yet as is often the case, is ironically its most glorious success (in my own opinion).

         This piece began with the ovular mirror that I found at the Scrap Exchange, while volunteering there by chance shortly before I embarked to Norfolk. I had been excited to discover the stack of mirrors, because the looked to be the general circumfrance of a bicycle tire….However, upon closer inspection, I found that most of the mirrors were variously scratched (which is probably why they were donated). Furthermore, I soon discovered that being VERY close to a perfect fit for an elegent mirror is a maddening FAR CRY from a true perfect fit.

         I spent a good three weeks struggling to reconcile this difference.

I really had only one tire that was a worthy match for the mirror (an old ‘gum wall’, whose natural latex rubber sidewall was deteriorating with age in a way that made it look just like a nice stained wood) , but my attempts were not working out, at all……

         I had tried to break the tire at its cardinal points, but the tension across the tire caused the bead to buckle, and drift away from the edge of the mirror, which it had previously promised to follow with uncanny ease. Thus, eventually  I had to staple the thing back in place, and device edifices to cover up there moorings. 

         However, these edifices came be the piece’s crowning glory, and I embarked upon a whole new chapter in my craft, in devising them….

         From the treads of 4 various different tires that I had laying around, I painstakingly cut various bits and pieces of this embossed black rubber, using these not only as ornamental motifs, but also to begin to tell a little bit of a story…

         I began with a quit reptilianesque tread, using patches of this to anchor the 4 cardinal points of the mirror (and to cover the aforementioned necesary breaks in the tire’s bead).


         To mount each of these pieces on, I used a shiny silver snap, which I thought mirrored the mirror in an interesting way, and of course always gleams spectacularly from the matt mat of black rubber. I thought that these elements helped to usher the mirror into a new state of being, or rather, brought out the ‘reptilian nature’ which I find latent the tire rubber…

         My next motif was to be a feather motif. Its hard to say at this point if this was intentional, we were now well into the creative realm, but I found the mirror’s progression in to the aviary realm to be quite, well, ‘serpentdipidous’. I had discovered that the edges of the some of my thinner, more ‘fare’ road bike tires, exhibited a repeated chevron pattern. From this band, I hewed small delicate feathers, gently guiding their edges up, in the effort of the image of flight… I positioned these around the upper cardinal point, but intentionally left them of the point below. I wanted to leave this bottom point reptilian, in it’s a barest essence, with this essence mirrored, mirraculously, in the birds essence above. The piece was quickly taking on a life of its own…In fact too much so. It was beginning to look like some carnal swamp drama unfolding, maybe more fitting for Papa Mojo’s New Orleans inspired Road House Blues bar (I going to have to give them a call), than the home of the aristocratic Sloanes’…

         And so, practicing sheer prudence, obeying my duty to the task at hand (once more), I decided to tone this carnage down a little, and add in some nice floral elements along the edges. Vegetation has that ability, to sooth, and balance out the brutal carnage of the animal kingdom…The vegetal God has been worshiped and valued for this reason since the Egyptians, at the very most recent.

         First, I cut from the tread of a favorite Kenda mountain bike tire, a distinctly vine like motif. Then, echoing the fine toothed chevron combs of both the cut feathers (and the edging of the frame tire also), I added some sharp-looking amped-up jumbo chevron clusters to the tops of the vines/stems, fashioning two pairs of ‘river oats’. To these I added some more spears of feathers, becoming sheaths of leaves, to gaured and protect these noble stems which emerged from them.

         And thus was born an entire aquatic ecosystem, unto this ovular mirror. To finnish it off, I added some silky, slimy black frog legs, snipped from innertubes, to the ‘reptile come amphibean’ ‘below’, 

and a few sparrows soaring and darting in the air above. 

If I had the chance, I would love to etch the silhouette of that meandering oak tree limb, that pierces (and comprises) my view of this estuary from my camper.

ILLUMINATION

Lighting this scene was little bit of a challenge. My best offer for this task was a certain lamp that my father, Steve, likes to call ‘Lola’…. With an enchanting road-burned tire knot serving as it base, and a fuscia feather boa draped laungidly and seductively for a lampspade, which glows with a beckoning ‘come-hither’ aura when turned on, Lola is 2 parts road warrior, and 6 parts burlesque / go-go dancer- the ruin of many a man. Indeed she brought an interesting twist to this ‘parlor’ diorama…

There was some concern from  the Museum staff, that this addition might ‘burn the house down’ (its good reptutation, as well as its fantastic wooden halls and chambers). So in the end it was decided that the pink boa would have to go…

What to replace it with? At that late date (the day before the opening), I didn’t have time to create a  new lamp shade (though  I do have some half baked designs that could work someday). Fortunately for us all, Melissa’s fiancé, Carey works his uncle’s lamp shop, Ghent Lamp and Shade. 

And so, with less than 48 hours before the opening, Melissa took me (with Lola in arm) to visit these fellows, and what a treat that was…

Their shop was a jewel encrusted cave of glowing gems. And the brightest glowing gems by far there were these two gents themselves. Immediately, these two warmed to the challenge, with gusto, floating over a stream of 20 different shades, each one augmenting the lamps knotted tire base in a different way.  James quickly honed in on the qualities that made the lamp’s knot’s tire so special- the parallel strands of nylon cordage layn bare by the roughness of the road., and exhibitited on its surface. To make these strings sing, he found us a shade, whose knap or weave echoed these perfectly, I could not have hoped for a better match. The shade roundness also enhanced the form’s Asiatic murmers.

To this mounting manifestation, Carey, in a bolt of genius, added a crowning gesture….declaring that it needed a worthy finial, to finnsh it off once and for all.

To this task, he deftly swept up a recently retired motorcycle tire pressure guage, reclining on his work bench, and securing this in his vice, quickly fashioned this piece of apparatus into plume that any tire lamp would be proud of!

"Rhoda, the Reclaimed Reclaimed Tire Lamp

As a wise man once said, “Roxanne, you don’t have to wear that dress tonight”.
Much Thanks to these two Gents, for jumping and saving my butt (not to mention perhaps the Hermitage and its collection!), with style and pinach. These fellows speak well upon their country men.

So, here, at long last are some shots of the finnished Diorama.
Thanks also to Melanie and Melissa, for playing along, and trusting me on this impromptu, but apropo installation.

Many Thanks to Truly, for buffing this scene to help it shine!

RECLAMATION: Securing Supplies

Before I could really get down to work creating pieces for the show, I had to undertake a very important step, and that was to secure sources of various needed supplies.
Namely, these were:

1. Tires- Bicycle and motorcycle, and farm impliments if I could find them...
2. Hardware
3. Random Junk- Scrap wood, fabric, etc...

Fortunately for me, Norfolk yielded all three of these with ease.

MOTORCYCLE TIRES

My first score was Triumph Motorcycle shop, on Little Creek Road.

There, Brian graciously gave to access to his pile of tires out back, and I got some good ones from him. He also showed me about the coolest, most unussual tire I have ever seen- this beach tire, imported from So Cal, mounted on the back of this beach cruiser. Highly unique!

BICYCLE TIRES

For bicycle tires, I was very fortunate to find East Coast Cycles, up on Granby, at Ocean View. 

There I met John, who would become one of my favorite people in this adventure. A stalwart and enthusiastic supporter of my efforts, John opened not only his tire piles to me, but his entire shop, really going out of his way to make a traveler feel at home. Perhaps as a Navy serviceman, who knew what this means to a stranger in a new town. The gesture certainly meant a lot to me, and I will not forget it.

HARDWARE
For hardware, I was Very fortunate to find Meadowbrooke Hardware, on Little Creek Rd, a small, family owned and operated gem just around the corner. It is becoming such a rarity these days to find such a small and intimate hardware store- we sadly lost ours in Durham to Home Depot many years ago. Siler City is still blessed to retain our Ace. The owner Phill, was really helpful in helping me find all of the many supplies I needed, and the rest of his staff was as well.
Incidentally, Meadow Brook was right next to something of an enigma. I never did find out the story on this one...

'RANDOM JUNK'

As for other random junk, the streets of Norfolk yielded these quite readily also.

On my first commited evening of searching, I came upon quite a mecca: a pile of hurricane debris that the city had allowed its citizens to amass for pick up. This, I thought, was a great use of government!

There I met several intersting people, leaving stuff off, and I also made some innanimate friends there, taking many more than I should have in my car...

One of my favorite recoveries from this reckage was this small chair below.
It was just a small frame, completely intact, besides the missing seat, and cracking red paint, neither of which seemed to matter in the slightest...

...it just seemed to....well, resolute.

So I carried it home. I later would decide this chair was a sort of a mascot for the idea of reclamation- a hero, and a survivor- and I would submit it (alas, unsuccessfully) as a readymade, into the exhibition. I call it "Resolute Chair". While I personally thought it was a shame that this object was not reclaimed, and exhalted, in this exhibtion, I do plan to keep it, and treasure it as such. Or perhaps pass it on to one of a few artists who I know will 'chairish' it as well...

Aside from some nice pieces of salvaged wood, and these bicycle wheels, one little darling that I did find, and successfully make a star of, was the small bird house you see below. 

Perhaps it was the ephemerality rendered unto abodes, that the hurricane Irene had wrought, but amid this wreckage, the small fragile birdhouse seemed all the more precious, and poignant a keepsake, to pull from it. 

Once I took this home, and cleaned it up abit, this would become the centerpiece for "The House That Jack Built", a tribute to that fragile little gem of  house dangled on a string of coast, by its mystical architect, Mrs. Sloane, so that we all may come, and nourish our souls there.

RECLAMATION: Getting to work

In our innitial discussions of the exhibition, I shared that I was very interested in creating site specific work, not just for the gallery upstairs, but across and around the museums grounds and gardens.
Public Programs Director, Melissa Ball and Director Melanie Mathews told me this would be relatively new for them, and while there would be some restrictions, due to the diverse uses of the grounds, for weddings and other events, they would do their best to accomodate this ambition, which I appreciated.
There seemed to be so much potential there for installation!

So I plodded and plotted in Siler City, trying to prepare these sculptures for this distant landscape, with its own  duties and developments.

When I returned to Hermitage in September, to work there, on site, we had to reconvene. Some sites were  no longer available, some pieces I had prepared for were no longer possible due to a variety of factors. However, new oppurtunities had arisen also!...

It was decided that I would be allowed to use several parts of the museum, in addition to the gallery.
These were:

• The Gallery
• A large (5' x 6' x 8') display case which you face as you approach the gallery
• An area of the museum downstairs- a long hall whose windows face the water.
• Several spaces outside in the gardens

These outdoor spaces included

• the millstone court in front of the entrance to the museum,
• A distant lookout point across the water, on the far reaches of the gardens, which features a bench, and some heron sculptures
• The rose garden
• The roof of one wing, which featured tribuchets

These were the various sites I would be working with...

RECLAMATION: The Work Space

Wow,
 Well, I have really got alot of catching up to do!
I truly regret that I have not been able to keep up to date with this blog, but library/internet/downloading hours compete with work hours, and I've got a lot of work to do! My life for the last few weeks has really been: wake, work, meet, work, search for supplies, work, eat, work, sleep, repeat.

But I wanted to just at least give a glimpse here of my workspace, to anyone who might be wondering.
Thanks for your interest, and I promise to follow up with a flood of good images once I get us all through this exhibition opening. I am dying to share them!

THE WORK STATION
Here below is my 'Work Hut', generously lent by Hermitage Museum for my preperation for the Reclamation Exhibion. A work of Reclamation itself, the building was built as a horse and cow stable, then used for photography classes, then summer Artcamps, and now me, a live in artist. This room is the left wing of a beautiful olf larger building which they still use for art classes.

If you walked through this door, you would see this stage.

Figuratively, this is the stage, on which I am to perform these Daring Feats of Tire Defiance.

I set the stage accordingly.

However, in reality, this remains mostly a symbolic stage, as most of my real work occurs in the galley below...

Here is a workbench that I improvised from the housing for chemical bath tray that was leaning against the wall. This has become my cheif workbench, as it has the natural lighting from the door, and also is at a good height for me. I layed a piece of white plexiglass I also found in the room over the top of it, and as you can see, this has made a great work surface. 

I also moved this table over by the other side of the door, to create a sort of reception area...

I also set up another table along the wall, and have a central table, totalling a luxurient 4 different work tables that I can going with different projects at once! This has proved to be optimal for this operation.

STORAGE FOR TIRES

When you are working with tires (and any material for that matter), it is important to have enough material around to have some choices, for the right bits for a piece. I was alittle concerned about this going up, so I brought some tires from my own collection, to get me started. Later I connected with two bicycle shops and a motorcycle shop. But where to put all these tires? Melissa was kind enough to let me use the back of the building to store my stash, as well as big Tyrius the Tire Worm, who was in the pitiful (but manageble) condition of being hacked into luggable bits. I found this strange chamber, which helped keep them out of the neighbor's sight.

The Hermitage Tire Knave
(made just for this purpose, no doubt)

STORAGE FOR MY SLEEPING BODY

For Living Quarters, I have been fortunate enough to be allowed to borrow my parents' RV. 

I have spent many days, packed with as many as 7 people in this tin can (mostly with fond memories too!). But I have never experienced this as a one-man-camping-domain. Having lived in my own van for 10 plus years, I have to say that, as such, this thing rocks! Its really got everything I need, and is very comfortable indeed. I set her up in a corner, and set up the "Fortune Teller's Table", to make it feel more like home in Siler City, and impress the neighbors.

Alright, if you are feeling a little bit envious of this alloted work/play space (I can't say I'd blame you, I'd feel the same), let me really sink it in for you, and leave you with this one. 

Here is my prized view (around supper time) of a small inlet of the Lafeyette River (that the RV looks out onto)

(It does get kinda smelly at low tide, and there I have a lot of herons for neighbors, who never stop scowling at me from over the fence. Such is moving into an old established neighborhood, I suppose;)

Sometimes, the long work of an artist has its rewards!

Reclamation Preperations Day 3

Hermitage Blog Day 3

This morning I met with Hermitage Museum’s Director, The Programs Coordinator, and the Assistant in my new borrowed work space. It was fun to host them there, around the work table up on the stage, surrounded by a horde of half baked tire shemes.

   The Hermitage staff are all understandably a little bit at their wits edge juggling the new challenges that Hurricane Irene has thrown at them (for instance, a flame broiled fuse box, and still no power, with several on- site wedding coming up this weekend!), so at this point, they are a bit punchy and delirious. While they are actually are holding together impressively well, maybe being around weird art gave them the chance to blow off a little steam. Needless to say, it was a charged and exciting meeting!

Melanie, the Director, liked many of my ideas, which was relief. She is also a professor of Art History, so she has a good sense of art, and where my tire art fits in. She also has a good sense of humor, and appreciates my own, which goes a long ways, I think.

Particularly relieved was I that she was willing to go along with my brand new proposal (as of yesterday), to create a mini-Parlor Diorama in the large ‘display case’ as you approach the gallery. My aim is to recreate some of the ambiance in the parlor downstairs (in the museum), but incorporating rubber tires into many of the furnishings.

There was a suggestion of making a sort of portal/window into this ‘world’. While I think this could diminish its impact on approaching it, it could be interesting…

I made the mistake of showing her a sketch for one of my more ambitious proposals- She loved it…This is a proposal to recreate one of 3 ornate friezes carved into a wall panel in the downstairs area, incedentaly right in the area where they would like me to display some sculptures. When I had stopped by earlier this year, I was taken by the intensity of these designs, made a sketch of two of them, and thought to recreate one as a large (4’ x 8’) shadowbox, of rubber…

This would be new ground for me, and I am really not Sure that I could pull it off, in this time frame. To make it more complicated, and proportionally more awesome, Melanie made the brilliant suggestion to use Plexiglass instead of wood, adding a an element of luminosity, to what already is a very Gothic design….(It would be shown infront of a large window, with the sunset lit bay behind it…) This could be incredible….I suggested that we look at creating it at a later date, after the show…

Towards the end of the meeting,  Jolina, the Grounds Keeper stopped by, which was great timing. I showed her my treadknot planters, which she liked, and she ordered 4 for her plant sale, (which will take place the weekend of our opening)!

Jolina was also excited about the tire screen, or curtain, which I proposed to place in the far edge of the garden, looking out on the bay, so that you could see the bay and the sunset through it. She recommended a few cedar trees, which look like they should do the trick nicely.

A few pieces didn’t make the cut, and they perhaps deserve a requiem.

One was the “String of Pearls”. This would have been the debut of the Great Balls of Tire Series, and a glorious debut it would have been. It would have run above a run of 14  millstones, leading to an arch which overlooks the water. Above each millstone, would have dangled a different Tire Sphere.

While I mourn this loss in some ways, I am not sure that the Great Balls of Tire series is yet ready to meet the world. There were ready to be made, but their sharing with the world can wait.

Also lost on the chopping block, was a trinity of a Silk worm, a caccoon, and a butterfly, to hang below and around a beautiful old magnolia tree, that can only be described as Grand and Matriarchal. This is lamentable, because sculptor Janice Rieves had helped me to create a mock up of the caccoon, and it was really off to a great start. She even did a special ‘Tea-stain’ to the long john fabric, to give it an antique look, which was very effective. The butterfly also had the potential to be quite spectacular. Oh well, their days will come…

Though I was sad to see both of these projects go, at the same time, I really have my work cut out for me. So let this be a good lesson in cutting your losses, and moving forward to "strengthen the things that remain"….(to quote Bob Dylan).

Reclamation Preperation Day 2

Today (Day 2, Tuesday)

Yester, I got set up.

Today, I got to work.

I made a list of all possible sculptures, in preperation for meeting….

Then I met with Melissa, to talk pieces and places.

She showed me a some new spots to utilize in the museum!

One is a little cove/dislplay area, which you see as you approach the gallery

The other is in the downstairs area, at the end of a hall.

They are still interested in me showing in some of the area outside also! Which I am very glad for.

It sounds like we are mostly on the same page. There was some issues about the Reclamation theme. Melanie said just be creative, and do your thing. This is really what I needed to hear. Melissa seemed a little bit hung up on it, but I think we got it figured out.

I am very excited by their offer of both of these spaces, and have some plans for them already!

In the ‘nook’, I am going to propose that I set up a mini diorama, with an arm chair, one which I will place some ‘pillows’.

I would also like to hang a mirror, and maybe throw down a rug, and put Lola the Lampa in there. The idea is to create a lux Parlor environment.

Why? Well part of the idea is to reclaim this museum, for my generation.

Rather than think of it as stuffy, think of the craftsmanship.

SCAVANGING

SEEK, and YE SHALL FIND

After work, I went shopping on the streets of Norfolk, for a few materials.

Mainly I was looking for some door skin, for the backs of some pillow pads, and also the backing of a mirror. I also wanted to hunt up some local sources for tires.

Triumph Motorcycle shop- Bryan, got some good ones.

Custom built bike with MASSIVE beach tire “Bigger Digger”, from CA on rear.

I’d found my moto tire supplier 

Then I stopped by Cycle shop- John showed him Luther. They were getting ready for ride.

Then I decided to explore the coast. Came across pile of doors, in place that we being gutted.

Score I thought! Feeling pretty smug, Until I tried to peel away door skin, and fouind  that of all things, it was made of cardboard.

I remarked to some fellas walking by, and they were like, ‘yeah, where you been?’ I may have lived in a van for 10 years, but look what I was missing!

Eventually, I happened upon the Mount Everest, of scrap. It was actually two giant pile, where the city of Norfolk is accepting A) Tree Debris B) Home Debris in respective piles. From this pile, I harvested several pieces of REAL wooden Doorskin, plus a few odds and ends…dangerous, I know.

I also met a nice transgender person named Jesse, who was cleaning up a destroyed deck from his Grandmother’s home.  (PIC of Jesse tossing last foundation post). Jesse told me that his girlfriend has just gotten into belly dancing, and also mentioned some thing about drum circles. While I had some what absolved to curtain my social activities while I am here, in the name of keeping to task at hand, this might warrant an exception…. 
I also met there a fellow that claimed to have poured the giant cinderblock that is the newish prison in downtown Durham. He told me that they put ground up tires into concrete walls, to help absorb noise from highways. Thats kinda cool!

Dogs and Burgers

After a hard day of hauling, I began the GREAT SEARCH for of a burger…. 

I have decided that a side project is to sample the cheese burgers of Norfolk.

This began, while pitching in to pick up sticks in front of the Hermitage yesterday, when the subject of hamburgers came up, in somewhat of a ravenous revelry. As this happens to be a subject of some considerable importance to me, I had to inquire, where could one find a good burger around here. To this, Collin The Conservator, informed me in, some confidence, that there are several opitions. BUT, one that stands out from the rest, is the Burger at a place around the corner called D’Egg, which will serve you not just a hamburger, but also a fryed egg, at the same time, laying flat up on it! Well, while I didn’t venture my opininion that D’Egg has to take the prize as the All Time Stupidest thing to name a restraunt, I did acknowledge my realization that this could very well alter my life forever.

I am forever searching for debaucherous new ways to increase my cholestoral level, and this Ladies and Gents, smacks of a winner!

Dog n Burger Wins the Prize!

Great service, great burger, I’ll be back!

While eating there, it occured to me, that in this day and age, there needs to be an award for resourcefulness. Like a Pulitzer Peace Prize, but for using your noggin, and your eyeballs, to SEE what is under your nose (not always so easy to do).
Of course, the architype of this virtue is MacGyver, the ingenious hero of that TV show that the Fonz  produced in the 80's. So what I would like to propose is:

The MacGyver Award for Resourcefullness

(Post on Engagerer Blog. Also, post on Reuse Alliance group)

Nominations:

The guy who drank his own piss, and THEN whitled his arm off with a pocket knife gets my first ever MacGiver.

Then comes Piedmont Biofuels, who use rotting corn to make trucks run.

Mohatma Ghandi, who led his countrymen to make salt from the sea (and royally pissing off the Brittish while he was at it) would be an excellent candidate.

Reclamation Preparations Day 1

If you are an asiduouse reader of this blahg, you might recall that,  in November of 2010, when I dropped of my 3 ‘pilgrims’ at the Hermitage Museum, in Norfolk VA, for the Spiritual Visions Exhibition, Executive Director Melanie Mathews, and Public Programs Coordinator, Melissa Ball ushered me into a small, dark meeting room in the 'far reaches' of the museum, where they made me an offer I couldn’t refuse…

What they had in mind was a two man-exhibition.

And what they wanted to call it was “RECLAMATION”…

There were no lead filled hoses involved.

BUT, I thought they had a pretty place there, and I had really enjoyed working with Ms. Ball, and so I decided to make a go of it of my own free will.

I knew that I was going to have a busy year; that, in many ways, I needed to turn my attention to my home fires. And that is what I have done. However, I also knew that opportunities like this do not come along everyday..not only was this a Very unique place, in the bigger picture, I also saw this as an opportunity to take a step in an interesting new direction, that I’ve been eying of late..that of visition/Artist in Residence. This seemed like a perfect opportunity to dip my toes in the surf, and get my feet a little wet.

For the Hermitage’s part, I think they are trying to reach out to a younger audience with the Museum, and perhaps I can help them with this a little. All in all, they seem like excellent partners for us both the take this brave step forward, into new territory together with.

So after due Hemming and Hawing, I agreed, we signed a contract, agreeing that I would supply/ create a body of work for they show, and they even very kindly agreed/offered my a stipend, to help with related travel expenses.

That was about 10 months ago. In that time, I have made several trips to Hermitage, to sketch, plan, ferment, boil up an exhibition.

While this was fine and good, I learned something about creating for clients far and way. They are not in your peripheral vision, and a lot of other things are!

So finally, last month, I emailed Melissa, and asked her  if there was any way that I could and set myelf in front of my subject. She agreed.

So now, about 10 months later, about 1 month before the opening,  I’ve finally managed to tear myself away from my busy Siler City life, and have brought myself here to make it happen. Thanks to Hermitage’s generous offering of a space to work, I will be living and working ‘en situ’ (that means ‘on site’, in fancy artist language) and am hoping to give myself over 100% to the task.

To work, I will use a space that once was most recently the site of a summer camp (2 weeks ago). Before that, it was a photo studio (20 years ago), and before that, it was a cow barn (60 years ago?). 

To live while I work, I have borrowed an RV from parents.

I depotised it here about a week ago, stuffed to the gills with Tire Sculpture and materials, taking the 5am grey hound back to Durham.

I spent a long weekend of fretting over images of my folks RV being washed into the bay, and battared with god knows what bludgeons. They had declared a state of emergency, and mandatory evacuation.

"Red at night, Sailors Delight"....don't know about that

But last night, I drove my car up, and found the RV, having survived the wrath of Hurricane Irene, still intact, and quite sleepable.

This morning, I awoke to an eccentric Russian gardner, surveying the damage to the trees “Oh my babies!”, who promptly put me to work sorting nursery pots and picking up fallen branches. As this grounds crew had helped me to safeguard the RV, and I would no doubt have to call on their help in the near future, to install the exhibition, I was happy to help. Hermitage is a small Musuem, with a small tight staff, and I am happy to help them get back on their feet from this blow as much as I can.

However, they have aptly reminded me that my first priority is to get in the studio, and milk those tires! (used to be a cattle barn ironically enough!).

So, today, after a grounds cleanup crew/staff meeting, a morning of work and then a Pizza lunch, I was shown to my ‘quarters’.

The space will do fine. It has a stage, with some cubbies (for Summer camp), which will do very well to hold my various tools and supplies. It also has several tables which I have rearranged to maximum benefilt. It was really to set up shop! I think that I will really be able to make the space work for me.

I have to remind myself, that for all of us, in many ways this is an excercize. For me, it is great to see before me: This is it- This is what I need to create Tire Art. This is my ‘mobile response unit’.

And response is what I am here for. To respond, and to be responded to.