related links: Journal Archive last month: June 2003 2003_06_18 Art Random Pics 2003_06_11 The Cabin 2003_06_04 The Gift Tree Wheels, Digs, etc.

HOME > JOURNAL > JULY 2003

Journal (The Ember Update)

Thursday, July 31

Much has transpired since my last entry. Rash came for a long weekend and we did lots of seeing, visiting and eating (including lunch with Diann who is "on my side," sushi at Tono, and a family fondue at The Melting Pot). Then I went to GenCon in Indianapolis, where Andy and I ran the Looney Labs booth alone for two days, before Kristin and Alison arrived (it was great fun!). Since returning I've been packing for my move this weekend. Oh, and I've been drawing!

Monkeys and Vehicles

(Clicking on any of the photos in this section will take you to my Sackler travelogue page, with more pics.)

Rash and I went to the Sackler Gallery in DC to see three exhibits. At left is about three-fifths of a 5-story sculpture, called Monkeys Grasp for the Moon, by Xu Bing.

Just outside the museum's entrance, this Pakistani truck (above) takes the "Art Car" concept to new heights of skill and realization.

My favorite exhibit on this visit was Raghubir Singh's photos of India, using the "Ambassador" car as a common thread. His pics are stunning in person, but the book presents the images well (and my brithday is coming up :o).

Bertha Portraits

I have numerous photos of Indianapolis I plan to post (it's a neat city), but for now here are three portraits of Andy, Kristin, Alison and me riding home from GenCon in Bertha, their big van. (Andy took the picture I'm in.) Click any to enlarge:

Alison (48k)	Andy (66k)	Kristin & Me (68k)

Tuesday, July 15

Limits

Been dipping back into Brian Eno's A Year (with Swollen Appendices) and found a prediction I believe is already coming true (the book was written in 1995):

It struck me forcefully (again) that the more 'richly connected' we make our world the more vulnerable we make it. Empowerment cuts both ways: as the complexity of things increases, so does the ability of an increasingly minute number of people to destabilize it. This, it strikes me, is the real limit on development—that we will accept the threat of terrorism as a limit on how complex we make things. So the Utopian techie vision of a richly connected future will not happen—not because we can't (technically) do it, but because we will recognize its vulnerability and shy away from it.

So I expect a limit to be reached, a sense of pulling back from what is possible. And this will be followed by waves of nostalgia-for-the-future-that-could-have-been. [...] A sense of disppointment with ourselves[.]

Of course we are more connected: the Internet has come to fruition since 1995 (resulting in various vulnerabilities that we're constantly trying to stop-gap). Still, so much won't happen that we dream about. Like the notion of the flying automobile. It's enough for most people to handle two dimensions in a car. And what about flying car bombs?

Pinnacles

Pinnacles National Monument is the remains of an ancient volcano, along the San Andreas fault in California. In last month's travels, Rash and I focused our Pinnacles hike on the Balcony Cave Loop, but only did about 4 miles (2 in and out). We went far enough to enjoy the creek, huge and ominous boulders (no earthquakes, please!), and the first cave, which indeed required a flashlight and some crawling.

Click to enlarge:

Spires 64k	Wall 48k	Boulders 56k	Cave Exit 66k	Boulders 2 62k

Woodies

101 car photos in my Woodies on the Wharf travelogue. Here are the first 5:

Wednesday, July 2

Patrick Dougherty

What a fabulous 10 days I had both visiting Rash at the end of July (thanks!), and my second time attending an Origins game convention (the last was 6 years ago). Since there's a lot to process and compose, I'm going to take this in bites.

Today I'll start with Patrick Dougherty. Rash had planned a whirlwind trip for us down the coast from San José, and surprised me by stopping first at Montalvo Villa to show me this artist's work. "A Cappella" (thumbnails below) is sculpted entirely out of branches. You can also view the sculpting process.

With locally gathered willow and Bay Laurel saplings, and using only a pair of clippers and his hands to intertwine the saplings without any preliminary drawings, Dougherty built the whimsical structure on site over a three-week period in February. A Cappella is in the tradition of a garden folly, a type of ornamental, architectural structure intended for the landscape. [source]

A Cappella consisted of a cube enclosing a hollow, roofed cylindar (you could walk into the center). The cylindar was attached at top to the cube by corner "webbing." Further towards the front was a dome and pineapple-shaped ornaments. On the front is an entrance that looks a bit like a ground-level cupola.

Because Dougherty's work is ephemeral and natural, he reminds me of Andy Goldsworthy.

Click any image to enlarge:

First view: Back doors	Doorway closeup	Woven willow and laurel	Roof webbing at corner
Windows	Rash at front	YumYum tree

PREVIOUS MONTH | CURRENT MONTH | JOURNAL ARCHIVE